Power Shortages

[Thomaso276]

I started reading a couple of months ago about how investors claimed that Arg. Had not invested enuff in the power grid and would be facing severe problems as a result of the economic growth over the past 4 years. If you want a personal feel to the problem check the papers to see how many AC units are being advertised daily. Look at all the new units outside of buildings as you walk around. Consider all the building development and the attendant increases on demand from population density (two years ago a block of single family houses is now a block of high rises with 40 units in each building)

Anyhow the gov't promised there would be no problems for the summer. Lo and behold this week (it is not even summer yet) it has been hot and there have been several brown outs already in residential neighborhoods. Yesterday there were some lasting up to 20 hours.

This past Monday I was in a lawyers' office in the 100 block of Talchahuana and the power was off for an hour. When I got home (downtown at Plaza San Martin) and got off the elevator the power went off in our building and a portion of the block for two hours. I was told it was a technical problem but who knows. Thank God I got out of the elevator!

Bottom line is with all the growth, it is going to be a long summer. My hope is that the downtown area has less demand at night and on weekends and the commercial aspect of the location (banks, utilities, gov't offices, tourist hotels) will keep us off the brown-out list.

Punter: what do you think?

[Hunt99]

Interesting. Thomaso, you're highlighting yet another complication that comes from living in a third world country. Buenos Aires can be hot in summertime. Living without A/C would be sheer hell. Isn't it about time for you to bug out for Pinamar for a month or two?

[Thomaso276]

I'll just walk around the house naked!

[MCSE]

Every year it's the same thing. And in my opinion it's the way the companies use to push gov. And people to increase their rates. Everyone knows that's it's a 3rd world country, but the company it's owned by 1st world country investors. Why they are unable to provide a 1st world country service?

[Hunt99]

Why they are unable to provide a 1st world country service?Because I don't think that people pay 1st world prices in BsAs, nor is that company allowed to make a fair profit the way most electric companies do in free market countries. And add in all the socialist regulations, kickbacks to the government, featherbedding of useless employees, stealing from the grid by all the people in the barrios that don't pay anything, et cetera.

Of course I'm not exactly certain what electricity costs in BsAs, so the first sentence of that last paragraph could be off. My most recent electric bill is US$156 for 2000 kilowatt hours, or 7.8 cents per KwH. (Fixed costs plus 5.37 cents in the winter, 7.43 cents in the summer.)

What does a bill look like in Argentina by the KwH? Thomaso? MCSE?

[MCSE]

C'Mon, Edenor and Edesur they make a lot of profit. If they don't make enough I wish get the contract they have (they only operate the old public company) Edesur it's owned by the chilean power company, owned by a monger fella who got the company in the 80's by a credit provided by a bank, perhaps, without any capital investment.

Ok, the Kw cost it's 0,0810 pesos.

Then, taxes and more taxes; for Santa Cruz found, taxes city contribution, VAT 21% , and fees. Beautiful fees plus extras if you spend more power than one year ago.

I have a bill here, 64Kw 13 pesos (considering there is a fine for spending more power than 1 year ago) the property has been empty for like 2 months, they will probably charge me a lot more the next year, when the apartment have a normal use and power consuming.

===========================================

Hi MCSE,

With all due respect, Edenor and Edesur don't get any of those taxes and other fees you are itemizing, and in fact I am sure that they would prefer not to have the job of having to collect them on behalf in the Argentine government.

Oh yes, state and local governments in the USA typically levy similar taxes on electric bills also.

Thanks,

Jackson

[Hunt99]

OK, at AR$.08 per KwH you're paying about one-third what the cost of a KwH costs me in the US.

While some costs in Argentina are going to be lower, the electric company in Argentina still has to buy cable, buy power transformers, build power plants, and most importantly (and expensively) they have to buy coal, oil, natural gas, et cetera fuel the plants. I'd better not belittle the costs of plants, cable, and the like as I know that electric utilities are among the most capital-intensive industries on the planet.

While the costs of these commodities may vary from country-to-country (or even state-to-state or province-to-province) a little, a barrel of oil, a ton of coal, or a new power plant costs about the same everywhere. There's a global market for this stuff.

If you're paying one-third of the price the Norteamericanos pay for power, I think we have a good idea of why BsAs has the problems with electricity that it does, don't you?

[BadMan]

Because I don't think that people pay 1st world prices in BsAs, nor is that company allowed to make a fair profit the way most electric companies do in free market countries. Ok Hunt, not to instigate, but when the US utility companies can pay US salaries, then you can charge US prices. I am not sure about this but most of the people working over at GE are not only unionized, but they also make very good money, I am guessing around $20 US to start plus benifits and bi-annual raises, paid vacations, job security and so on.

And These corporations actually make good money working in third world countries, because they pay third world prices for everything. The truth is those that hold the energy contracts just don't invest in enough infrastructure. But I don't think power outages will be worse, I think these things will improve. I have been in BA almost two months and have experienced two power outages. One lasted about 30 minutes and the other one last around an hour. It wasn't that bad, In the US, these things happen also, maybe a few times a year.

I think both the government and the foreign utility companies have to share the responsibility of investing in infrastructure. But I would hate to go through a 6 hour outage during summer with no A / C, that's almost barbaric.

Badboy

[Thomaso276]

There have been no utility rate increases since the crash in 2001. One reason why the Spanish water company pulled out and turned over the water to a newly created Gov't agency. Water bills are based on number of rooms, not usage. A one bedroom apt. is about 22 pesos, mine is 2 BR (maybe three when original) - 49 pesos I am guessing this includes sewer and trash just like the states cause I do not get a bill for that. This is for two months!

My electric bill is about 60 pesos a month! I just paid 116 pesos (including taxes) for 1608 KW= 7 centavos a KW and we have alot of juice flowing thru the home. American kitchen, ceiling fdans, computers, tv's and now AC (although I did use the heat option on AC during the cold weather)

Another article today about upcoming problems because of the lack of investment to the infrastructure. Considering the problems utility services here are pretty goods and very cheap.

It's okay with me (price wise) but it is all gonna crash again soon. World bank report says Argentina is hiding alot of problems and the peso may go down again.

Go Dollars!

Thanks God for the food and women!

[Punter 127]

United States
Texas
In April of 2006, parts of Texas experienced rolling blackouts due to excessive air conditioner use because of unexpectedly high temperatures. The longest power outage so far, lasted for a period of five hours, affecting areas in the Middle to the South of Texas. The Texas power system runs on a system similar to the one in California.
California
Though the term did not enter popular use in the U.S. until the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, such outages had occurred previously, almost always triggered by unusually hot temperatures during the summer, which cause a surge in demand due to heavy use of air conditioning. Rolling blackouts were again imposed in late August 2005 in Southern California due to the loss of a key transmission line; the transmission line shut itself off because of a faulty sensor.
Most of California is divided into 14 power grids, each containing approximately 7% of electricity customers in the state, creating a total of 98%. The remaining 2% are placed on a separate grid, where users such as hospitals and police stations are exempt from ever having their power deliberately cut off.
In a Stage 1 emergency only a general call for voluntary conservation is issued, while a Stage 2 emergency results in power being temporarily cut off to certain large users, primarily industrial concerns, who have agreed to this arrangement in exchange for lower rates. When a Stage 3 power emergency is declared, electricity to one of the grids is shut off for a fixed period of time, which can range from 60 minutes to 2½ hours. If after this period of time the Stage 3 emergency still exists, power is restored to this grid but then the next grid in the sequence is blacked out, and so on, until the situation is stabilized — the blackout thus "rolls" from one grid to the next.
In California, each customer's electric bill includes the number of the power grid (from 1 to 14) that customer belongs to; this gives customers at least some advance notice of when their electricity might be turned off in the event of a Stage 3 emergency. The grids are set up in such a manner as to ensure that a large percentage of customers in the same neighborhood would not be blacked out concurrently, which could invite looting and other related problems. Normal electricity customers can fall within the areas reserved for emergency use (if they are near a hospital or other critical infrastructure), in which case their electricity bill will indicate a power grid of 99 and they will not be affected by rolling blackouts.
Elsewhere
Not all states are on this system; in many East Coast states (such as New York State and New Jersey), "brownouts" rather than rolling blackouts are implemented during power emergencies: In this scenario, instead of the power being cut off altogether to a certain percentage of customers, the voltage is reduced by a certain percentage to all customers — the resulting dimming of electric lights being the origin of the term "brownout." Brownouts can cause significant damage to unprotected electronic equipment, but usually have no effect (other than reduced performance) on incandescent lights or some types of motors

Blackout unavoidabillity and electric sustainability
It has recently been argued on the basis of historical data and computer modelling that power grids are self-organized critical systems. These systems exhibit unavoidable disturbances of all sizes, up to the size of the entire system, and attempts to reduce the probability of small disturbances only increase the probability of large ones. This has immediate policy implications. The following are the relevant quotations from the sources cited:
As expected from studies of general self-organised critical systems, ... apparently sensible efforts to reduce the risk of smaller blackouts can sometimes increase the risk of large blackouts
...the NERC blackout data suggests that the North American power system has been operating near criticality. ...It would be better to analyze this tradeoff between catastrophic blackout risk and loading instead of just waiting for the effects to manifest themselves in the North American power system!
[The models'] PDF of the blackouts size has the same power dependence that have been found from the analysis of NERC data for the North American power grid over a period of 15 years.
First and perhaps most striking is the intrinsic unavoidability of cascading events in such a system when driven near its operational limits.


The Northeast Blackout of 2003 was a massive power outage that occurred throughout parts of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003. Although not affecting as many people as the later 2003 Italy blackout, it was the largest blackout in North American history. It affected an estimated 10 million people in the Canadian province of Ontario (about one-third of the population of Canada), and 40 million people in eight U.S. states (about one-seventh of the population of the U.S.). Outage-related financial losses were estimated at $6 billion USD ($6.8 billion CDN).

[Hunt99]

Interesting discussion all around.

BB13 - US salaries are higher, of course. I did say that some costs of running the grid in Argentina are going to be lower. Chiefly salaries - as you identify. I'd also wager, however, that the productivity of a US (or European, or Japanese) electric power utility worker is probably twice that of an Argentine. Yes, they might get paid a quarter of what a US worker gets, but when you have to hire two of them to do the job of one (featherbedding) the savings aren't as great. But the fixed capital costs are what really add up when you produce and distribute power, and those aren't going to be on discount in Argentina.

Thomaso has figured out the great secret. Earn your money in dollars in the USA and spend your money in pesos in Argentina.;)

P127, you're very right that the grid in the US has problems. And probably elsewhere in the developed world too. Electricity is the great driver of economic growth, and more of it gets used every year. But I feel reasonably confident that problems, when the occur, are being addressed. Can we really say the same about Argentina?

[Thomaso276]

My brother lives in Seattle:

SEATTLE (AP) -- Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

It could be worse down here. Maybe Arg. can build up their electrical capacity and sell the excess to others!

[BadMan]

Updated:2006-12-17 00:48:28

Thousands in Dark After Northwest Storm.

By MELANTHIA MITCHELL.

AP.

SEATTLE (AP) - Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

More than 600,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a state of emergency, and with temperatures expected to drop over the weekend, officials warned people not to use outdoor grills, propane heaters or other carbon monoxide-producing equipment indoors.

Puget Sound Energy, the state's largest private utility, had restored power to about 300,000 customers by Saturday evening, leaving 400,000 still without.

It would be "several days - definitely through the weekend," before everyone was restored, PSE spokeswoman Martha Monfried said. The utility had lost more than half of its transmission system, and crews struggled in the mountains to reach downed lines that carry the electricity from Columbia River dams.

More than 36,000 customers of Seattle City Light remained without power midday Saturday, down from a peak of 175,000, and 10,000 were still blacked out in the Snohomish County Public Utility District north of Seattle.

In Oregon, Portland General Electric said it had about 70,000 customers without power Saturday morning, and Pacific Power said about 16,000 of its customers still had no service.

[Member #3314]

I live in the area, there are still large sections of city without power. 48 hours later, they are saying some people won't have power till late in the week.

We pay about $.06 per KWH, most of it coming from hydro.

[Hunt99]

After a hurricane in 2003 I was without power for a week. Because I am not connected to the water system, I also didn't have water for that time. I tell you, that was one of the longest weeks in my life.

But storms blowing down power lines isn't quite the same thing as losing power because the grid is overloaded and isn't being upgraded, is it?

[MCSE]

Dear Jackson:

Edenor charges for themselves the "cargo fijo" (fees) even if you had no power consuming you should pay that fee.

I wish I collect the extra taxes, because: Edenor claims to have 2,2 million customers, if they could retain that money for 90 days, they could make profits for around USD 2 million per year if they invest in a profitable portfolio.