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All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

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Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#11
post #10

CAMMESA administers the Argentinian electricity market, and they have data on demand [1] and grid flows. Compare the graph of flows on the 500 kV lines from 2019-06-16T07:00 local [2] to one hour later at 08:00 local [3]. For reference, see the prior day too, at 2019-06-15T08:00 local [4]. [1] http://portalweb.cammesa.com/Pages/ADemandas.aspx [2] http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%2... [3] htt…

I don't understand why BsAs temperature would drop just because the e got knocked off, or why it ceases to be an analog function after the cut :S

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#13
post #10

CAMMESA administers the Argentinian electricity market, and they have data on demand [1] and grid flows. Compare the graph of flows on the 500 kV lines from 2019-06-16T07:00 local [2] to one hour later at 08:00 local [3]. For reference, see the prior day too, at 2019-06-15T08:00 local [4]. [1] http://portalweb.cammesa.com/Pages/ADemandas.aspx [2] http://www.cammesa.com/uflujpot.nsf/FlujoW?OpenAgent&Flujo%2... [3] htt…

I don't understand why BsAs temperature would drop just because the e got knocked off, or why it ceases to be an analog function after the cut :S

My guess would be that it's an average of several temperature sensors, and that a sensor going offline registers as zero. So when the sensors come back online, there's a sudden jump in the calculated average temperature.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#14
post #7
post #3

Argentina is world’s eighth largest country. I find it mind blowing that you can have a power outage that covers the whole country (+ some more).

USA isn't in much of a better position. Large scale transformer blowouts are a nightmare scenario due to how long they take to replace / repair.

Even worse when a generator goes out (or is destroyed). It can take months to get a new one. Hope we don't have multiple generators go out at once. They're not just sitting on a shelf somewhere waiting to be picked up.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#18

How resilient has the cellular phone network been in this outage? How resilient is the municipal water system in an outage like this? Do most people in Argentina and Uruguay cook with (piped/tank) gas or electric ranges?

At least in Buenos Aires metro area where I live, cell, water and gas are working ok. Water may be an issue if this continues as the pipe pressure is not enough to fill up the buildings tanks, so you'll need to go to ground level with buckets or similar.

In all of the countries affected the standard way to cook is natural gas, so we should be good in that front until power is up again.

I'm getting reports from friends and family that different zones of the metro area are getting powered as I write.

Me, still no luck... Hopefully in the next hour!

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#19

Does it have something to do with the Copa America that's currently going on right now? Maybe more people inside watching the games and using up power.

It's winter in Argentina now, so they don't have AC loads. TVs are small by comparison (Although it's fascinating to see how load changes during large games: you can spot commercials, for example!)

In the UK, this phenomenon is called the TV Pickup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup

Basically a commercial break comes on, everyone turns on their tea kettle and flushes their toilets, and bam: 200-400 MW spike in demand.

There's some blogs out there charting this during big world cup games.

Re: All Of Argentina, Uruguay Without Electricity After Massive Outage

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's winter in Argentina now, so they don't have AC loads. TVs are small by comparison (Although it's fascinating to see how load changes during large games: you can spot commercials, for example!)

In the UK, this phenomenon is called the TV Pickup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup Basically a commercial break comes on, everyone turns on their tea kettle and flushes their toilets, and bam: 200-400 MW spike in demand. There's some blogs out there charting this during big world cup games.

>There is a common misconception that the number one driver of TV pickup is the boiling of kettles. In fact, this only creates a pull on the local network for a short period of time until the water has boiled, and can therefore be managed relatively easily, whereas flushing the toilet causes a longer surge at the water and sewerage pumping stations, and opening the refrigerator lets the chilled air escape, causing the compressor to run. These loads are more of a problem for the grid.
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