The National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) conducted monitoring of the restoration efforts following a power outage that affected more than one million users in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA) on Wednesday, March 5. During the inspection, Edesur was requested to provide technical reports and supporting documentation for the maintenance work carried out on the affected lines.
Edesur, the company in question, reported that the interruption in supply originated from a fault in a high-voltage line that affected several substations. Despite addressing the initial inconsistencies, they acknowledged that there were still "specific faults in the medium and low voltage networks that are being addressed." At this time, Edesur reports around 36,000 service interruptions, while its counterpart, Edenor, reports about 2,000 interruptions in its network.
The incident left various neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and localities in the suburbs without electricity, resulting from failures in two high-voltage lines of Edesur. Despite the efforts to restore normalcy, the delay in reconnection caused dissatisfaction among users, who expressed their complaints through various means.
The outage particularly impacted key sectors of the City of Buenos Aires and areas of the suburbs, such as Almagro, Balvanera, Parque Patricios, La Boca, Villa Crespo, and southern localities, causing disruptions in the normal course of activities. In contrast, Edenor did not report significant outages, despite the increase in demand due to high temperatures.
Rail transport services were also affected, registering delays in the Roca and Mitre trains, which later normalized their operations. Finally, by the afternoon, Edesur announced that electricity supply had been fully restored for all affected customers.
In response to the situation, ENRE has initiated an official inquiry to investigate the power cuts that occurred during the event,which took place in two stages affecting a large number of people and essential services in the region. Meanwhile, those affected are waiting for concrete actions and definitive solutions to prevent similar future episodes. The company has implemented preventive measures and plans a multimillion-dollar investment project aimed at improving its infrastructure and reducing the occurrence of outages in the future, focusing on the stability of the electrical service in the area.
