The Dominican Republic suffered yesterday afternoon a general blackout or blackout, a situation that had not occurred in the country for just over 10 years and that extended until the early hours of the night, causing chaos in transportation and traffic, at least in the Greater Santo Domingo and Santiago.
From the 1:20 in the afternoon the country was affected by the “event” that caused a widespread cutting in the electrical service, according to the general manager of the Coordinating Body (OC), Manuel Lopez San Pablo.
Between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoonhe National Interconnected Electrical System (SENI) recorded a generation deficit greater than the 3,000 megawatts (MW), reaching its steepest drop at 4:00 in the afternoonwhen only 41 megawatts of the more than 3,226 scheduled for that hour were generated, according to OC data.
At 5:00 in the afternoonthe hydroelectric were providing 157.8 megawatts of electricity and the wind farms another 28.8, presenting between them 210 MW.
He SENI continued to be restored as the hours passed and at 7:00 at night were already generated 800 megawattsaccording to the Coordinating Body.
Origin of the failure
A failure in the substation of the Transmission Company of Electricity (ETED), located in San Pedro de Macoriscaused the chain shutdown of all the electricity generation plants in the SENIas reported by the president of the Unified Council of Distribution Companies (CUED), Celso Marranzini.
Marranzini explained that “to upload the system as quickly as possible we are entering the hydroelectric and we should have the system restored in two or three hours. The Transmission Company “We are reviewing exactly what happened and all the necessary information will be given.”
The ETED explained that the breakdown, originating in the transmission system, caused the output of the generation units of the Electricity Company of San Pedro de Macoris (CESPM) and the Quisqueya Power Plant, also in that district, which caused the “cascade shot” of AES Andrés and the other transmission and generation plants.
The last blackout
Latest general blackout that the Dominicans suffered happened in May 2015according to the press records. In April 2020 There was another power outage that affected a large part of the country, but the authorities at the time ruled out that it was a blackout.
On that occasion, the failure was caused by a burst in the substation Itabo, in the municipality of Haina, removing other power plants from the system.
The National Interconnected Electrical System (SENI) has six plants, all hydroelectric, capable of performing “black start”, these being: Monción, Palomino, Jigüey, Valdesia, Tavera and Aguacate.
Black start is the ability of some generators to restart without the aid of external power supply after a massive blackout. This characteristic is essential for energizing the transmission system and, ultimately, for synchronization with other isolated generators or part of the system after a total or partial collapse of the network (such as the blackout suffered yesterday), as explained by the Coordinating Body.
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