TCU will inspect government and ONS due to blackout that hit 25 states and the DF in August 2023

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The Federal Court of Auditors authorized an inspection to be carried out at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Aneel and ONS to determine possible responsibilities. The Federal Audit Court (TCU) will monitor possible responsibilities for the August 2023 blackout, which affected 26 of the 27 federation units — the only exception was Roraima, which is not connected to the national system. This Wednesday (28), the Court of Auditors decided to authorize inspections at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the National Electric Energy Agency (Aneel) and the National Electric System Operator (ONS). According to the technical area of ​​the TCU, it is necessary to deepen the analysis of the August blackout “so that the circumstances in which the facts occurred can be verified and, if applicable, the responsibilities for possible irregularities/weaknesses in the actions of the Public Power can be determined. ”. Understand the blackout On August 15, 2023, 25 states and the Federal District recorded a power outage due to the shutdown of a transmission line in Ceará, which triggered the blackout. Blackout affects states in all regions of Brazil According to the ONS, the line’s protection system acted without a short circuit occurring — in other words, the line should not have been disconnected. However, the National Interconnected System (SIN) is capable of operating without one of its transmission lines. Therefore, the “domino effect” triggered by the shutdown of the Quixadá-Fortaleza 2 line, in Ceará, should not have happened. In its report, the ONS identifies that failures in the performance of equipment in wind and solar plants led to the shutdown of other lines, which resulted in the blackout. The system operator stated that the equipment should automatically compensate for the drop in voltage in the network caused by the shutdown of the transmission line in Ceará – the “zero event” of the blackout. Station identified as the site of failure that generated a blackout in Brazil, in the city of Quixadá, in the interior of Ceará Jackson Periogoso/Personal archive However, official data on the functioning of the equipment provided by the plants did not correspond to their performance after the line was disconnected in Ceará. For the ONS, the failure in the supply of data by the plants made it “impossible to previously identify” the risk of action of one of the network’s protection systems, which led to the cascade effect of the 15th, when around 30% of the energy demand was interrupted. TCU assessment In a preliminary opinion to the inspection process, the TCU technical area states that, during the process of approving the data provided by the plants, “there may be a failure in the actions of public agents that may have contributed to the blackout”. The plants need to go through some data submission steps to the ONS before operating. Afterwards, the operator issues a declaration certifying that the enterprises have complied with network procedures. However, to the TCU, the ONS stated that it can only verify the proper functioning of the equipment and mathematical models when the enterprise enters commercial operation. To this end, the operator issues a provisional declaration to the plants. According to the technical area of ​​the TCU, “several agents may be acting without sending the final commissioning report and without issuing a DAPR-Definitive [declaração definitiva], that is, without validation of the mathematical models by the ONS”. TCU technicians state that the absence of this definitive assessment may explain the difference between the data provided by the plants and the actual performance of the equipment, which prevented the ONS from predicting the risk of a blackout. Currently, Aneel is carrying out an inspection process over the ONS’s actions. In the opinion of the TCU, the technical area recommends waiting for the process to be completed to verify the performance of the system operator.

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