ONS says the origin of the blackout will be known within 48 hours

The general director of the National Electric System Operator (ONS), Luiz Carlos Ciocchi, says that within 48 hours the agency will determine the exact origin of the “disturbance in the system” that resulted in the blackout that affected 25 states and the Federal District this year. Tuesday (15).

Ciocchi pointed out that, so far, the available information indicates the occurrence of a “deep and unscheduled frequency variation” in an electrical region of Ceará. He pointed out that this area is home to several companies that operate substations, transmission lines and generating equipment. Therefore, it is still not possible to say whether the problem originated in a specific equipment from any company.

“It’s a challenge to understand precisely what happened. We are not dealing with a single line or substation. It is a set of interconnected lines and generators”, he said to Economic value.

The director general of ONS also communicated that a more comprehensive analysis will be carried out over the course of a month, through a Disturbance Analysis Report (RAP), which will definitively clarify the causes of the incident.

Ciocchi also stated that the occurrence in Ceará may have been responsible for a second disturbance that was detected by the system, although the location has not yet been determined. Around 29 million people across the country were affected by the blackout that took six hours to be completely resolved.

“The most likely thing is that the event in Ceará caused a very sudden and unexpected frequency variation or was the effect of another occurrence that we still don’t know about”, he explained.

He reiterated that all possibilities are being considered, including equipment failure, human error, incorrect operating procedures, among others.

In a press conference late Tuesday afternoon (15), Minister Alexandre Silveira, of Mines and Energy, did not rule out the possibility that the blackout was caused by “human error or even deceit”. He ordered the Federal Police and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin) to investigate the causes of the blackout.