The national government decided to apply a fine of $1,000 million to Edesur due to the poor quality of the service it provides and is analyzing the possibility of taking over the operational management of the electricity distributorwithout this implying the nationalization of the company.
“It could be a management intervention without affectation of capital. The ENRE is working on a proposal with the Ministry of Energy”sources from the Ministry of Economy told Télam.
The issue was discussed during a meeting held at the Government House by President Alberto Fernández and the head of the Palace of Finance, Sergio Massa.
At the close of the day, from the Palacio de Hacienda they indicated that Massa instructed the Ministry of Energy and the National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) to apply a fine of $1,000 million to Edesur due to deficiencies in the quality of the service it provides.
To this the implementation of necessary mechanisms will be added to return the entire invoice paid during the last month to users who have been victims cuts above the average established in the contract.
A claim area for damage to home appliances will also be enabled.
Analysis on management
Massa also determined the implementation of an oversight with audit in which the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) will be called to participate to review the value of regulatory assets, compliance with the investment regime, response times to users and quality in the transmission service of the entire Edesur area.
With regard to the possibility of intervening in the company, the Ministry of Economy said that the measure that is under analysis in principle would not include the cancellation of the Edesur concession, in which the Italian firm Enel has the majority of the actions.
After the measure that is under analysis came to light, the chief of staff of the province of Buenos Aires, Martín Insaurralde, proposed that the municipalities of the area of operation of Edesur take “charge of the company” electricity distribution.
“The municipalities responsible for the area of influence of Edesur believe that the time has come to take action on the matter,” the former mayor of Lomas de Zamora said on his Twitter account.
We propose to take care of @OficialEdesur preserving in the power of the municipalities the value of regulatory assets and putting ourselves in charge of the investment that is needed to put an end to the laziness of this company.
– Martin Insaurralde (@minsaurralde) February 15, 2023
“We want to put together a consortium and offer, within the market rules, to take over the company by paying what it’s worth,” added the Buenos Aires official.
Along these lines, he indicated that his proposal is to take over “Edesur, preserving the value of regulatory assets in the power of the municipalities and putting us in charge of the investment that is needed to end the neglect of this company.”
The new short circuit with Edesur gained momentum at the end of last week after power outages that affected hundreds of thousands of users in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA).with areas that have been without service for four days.
Last Sunday, the controller of the National Electricity Regulation Entity (ENRE), Walter Martelloanticipated that the Government was analyzing the expiration of the Edesur concession due to the lack of supply for thousands of customers.
Along the same lines, the Ministry of Energy, Flavia Royónaffirmed: “Our pulse will not tremble if that implies having to terminate the concession contract for the electrical distribution service in charge of the company Edesur.”
On the other hand, this morning, Martello rejected the arguments given by the distributor Edesur in a request to justify the power outages that have occurred in recent days.
“Today the Edesur company of the Enel group publishes a request referring to the extraordinary situation of the high temperatures on Friday. The graph is from a few minutes ago, that is, five days later and 20 degrees less in temperature,” Martello stressed.
This is how he referred to the graph published by the distributor where it is shown that at 8.10 there were still 15,000 Edesur users without electricity supply, when the temperature did not reach 23 degrees.
In the request, the electric company maintained that “February was the hottest in the last 60 years,” and noted that “last Friday the 10th, at 1:45 p.m., Edesur registered a historical record for energy demand of 4,181 megawatts ( MW)”.
In addition, the firm assured that “at 1:54 p.m. the operator of the high-voltage system of Greater Buenos Aires (Sacme) asked Edesur to make cuts to customers, after reporting that power generation for the southern area of the Buenos Aires suburbs was insufficient.”
“As a result of Sacme’s order, preventive cuts were made to some 180,000 customers, equivalent to 250 MW, between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.. 70% were normalized at 4:00 p.m.,” said the distributor.
He specified that “after this time, nearly 37,000 customers remained without supply associated with damage caused by the heat wave, who were recovering supply throughout the afternoon and night.”
On this point, the ENRE explained that “Cammesa, the operator of the Argentine Interconnection System (SADI), confirmed that it did not request any cut in any of the areas or regions of the country since the peak was operated with optimal reserves.”
It also noted that “Sacme, the operator of the high voltage network of Edenor and Edesur, reported that it ordered restrictions due to voltage drops in the 220 and 132 kilovolt (kv) networks and saturation of transport equipment.”
In addition, he pointed out that “the Enel Group has more than 1,500 MW out of service due to unscheduled unavailability in the GBA area, including Central Costanera and Central Dock Sud.”
For its part, Edesur indicated that “regarding the insufficient contribution of generation, it is important to highlight that one of the power generators in the southern zone is Central Dock Sud, a company managed by Enel together with other shareholders, and which has a combined cycle of almost 800 MW (3.2 times the power missing on Friday)”.
In this regard, he remarked that “in this plant, modernization works are carried out that require an investment of more than US$ 110 million”, and assured that “this will allow the addition of almost 90 MW of power to the system, greater efficiency and significant improvements at an environmental level ”.
He explained that “the project started in 2021 and in October 2022 the disassembly and reassembly of the machines began, now being in its final phase”, and stated that “this work will represent a contribution to the Argentine system, which will have advanced generation in the upcoming weeks”.
