A power outage is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
The Argentine Interconnection System is a wide area synchronous grid that links the regional networks of all Argentinian provinces, with the exception of Tierra del Fuego. It is also connected to the power grids of several neighboring countries.
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT.
The Comisión Federal de Electricidad is the state-owned electric utility of Mexico, widely known as CFE. It is the country's dominant electric company, and the country's second most powerful state-owned company after Pemex. The Mexican constitution states that the government is responsible for the control and development of the national electric industry, and CFE carries out this mission. The company's slogan is "Una empresa de clase mundial".
ANCAP is a state-owned company in Uruguay, it was created by Law No. 8.764, on October 15, 1931 during the administration of Gabriel Terra. Its Fundamental Law entrusts it with the power to exploit and administer the monopoly of national Alcohol and Fuel, portland cement, as well as import, refine and sell petroleum derivatives. It operates the only oil refinery in Uruguay in La Teja, inaugurated in 1937 next to its working-class neighborhood with homes with patios and gardens, President Gabriel Terra described the company as the "pride of Uruguay", it has a capacity of 50,000 barrels per day. ANCAP has a long-term corporate credit rating "BB−" with positive outlook by Standard & Poor's.
The electricity sector in Argentina constitutes the third largest power market in Latin America. It relies mostly on thermal generation and hydropower generation (36%). The prevailing natural gas-fired thermal generation is at risk due to the uncertainty about future gas supply.
The 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout was a power outage that occurred throughout much of Brazil and for a short time the entirety of Paraguay, on Tuesday, November 10, to Friday, 20 November, 2009, at approximately 22:15 BST. The blackout affected an estimated 60 million people in Brazil.
The 2010 Chile blackout was an electric power outage that affected most of Chile on March 14, 2010. It began at 8:44 pm on Sunday and continued into the next day. The power was restored in a few hours in some areas, and by midnight in most areas, except in the Biobío Region.
The 2011 Chile blackout was a major power outage that occurred on 24 September 2011, approximately between 20:30 and 21:45 local time, although the time of reinstatement varied geographically. It mainly affected the regions from Coquimbo to Maule, where the blackout was total, but it also reportedly partially affected the Atacama and Bío Bío regions. The blackout affected approximately nine million Chileans.
Several major power outages have occurred in the country of Malaysia.
Two severe power outages affected most of northern and eastern India on 30 and 31 July 2012. The 30 July 2012 blackout affected over 400 million people and lasted about 13.5 hrs. During that period, it was the largest power outage in history by number of people affected, beating the January 2001 blackout in Northern India. Similar conditions caused a blackout on the next day, which remained the largest power outage in history as of June 2024. The outage affected more than 620 million people, spread across 22 states in Northern, Eastern, and Northeast India. An estimated 32 gigawatts of generating capacity was taken offline. Of the affected population, 320 million initially had power, while the rest lacked direct access. Electric service was restored in the affected locations between 31 July and 1 August 2012.
Juan José Aranguren is an Argentine businessman. He was Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell of Argentina for fifteen years and served as Minister of Energy during the Mauricio Macri's administration.
Nationwide recurring electrical blackouts in Venezuela began in March 2019. Experts and state-run Corpoelec sources attribute the electricity shortages to lack of maintenance and to a lack of technical expertise in the country resulting from a brain drain. Nicolás Maduro's administration attributes them to sabotage. Since March, various nationwide blackouts occurred in the country.
Venezuela has experienced a marked deficit in the generation of electrical energy. The immediate cause of the energy crisis was a prolonged drought that caused the water in the reservoir of the Simón Bolívar Hydroelectric Plant to reach very low levels. Although various measures were taken to overcome the crisis, one of the most controversial was the implementation of a program of electrical rationing throughout the country, except in the capital Caracas, which was ultimately officially suspended in June 2010, due to the recovery of reservoirs due to the rains, and not to interrupt the transmission of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Power cuts have continued to occur in the interior of the country, although with less frequency and duration, this time driven by failures in other parts of the system. The situation of "electrical emergency" decreed by the government on 21 December 2009 was suspended on 30 November 2010; however, on 14 May 2011, after the country experienced two national blackouts, the government of Hugo Chávez announced a temporary rationing plan and acknowledged that the electricity system continued to face "generation weaknesses" that they did not expect to surpass until end the year.
An energy collapse in the state of Zulia, Venezuela occurred as a result of the country's ongoing general crisis, and it is the largest of its kind in the history of the state. With previous events in 2015 and 2016, the collapse intensified in 2017, when in September an alleged theft of cables left the city of Maracaibo and its surroundings without electricity. Since then long and short-term blackouts have been reported, which also cause the suspension of water supply, failures in cable television, telephone coverage and Internet access, among other services, as well as difficulty conducting business transactions, caused by the scarcity of banknotes and the dependence on the large-scale use of the point of sale terminals as well as electronic payments that are deficient in the absence of electricity and the Internet, resulting in closing of establishments, absence of work, damage of food and electrical appliances, the decrease in quality of life, among other factors, which added to the high temperatures suffered by citizens, affect the normal development of the population. Authorities such as the national government and the government of Zulia have attributed these failures to an alleged sabotage, but the opposition and experts denounce that it is due to lack of maintenance, also arguing that only less than half of what is consumed regularly is produced, reason for which there is "cargo administration" (rationing). The National Assembly of Venezuela, of opposition majority, declared the region in a state of electrical emergency. The service has also been interrupted but to a lesser extent in other states such as Bolívar, Carabobo, Falcón, Mérida, Miranda, Nueva Esparta, Táchira, Vargas and the country's capital Caracas.
The West Side of Manhattan in New York City experienced a power failure on July 13, 2019, at approximately 7 p.m. EDT. Con Edison is the energy utility serving the area, and they reported that approximately 73,000 customers were without power. Power was fully restored by midnight. The power failure occurred on the 42nd anniversary of the New York City blackout of 1977, which left nine million customers without power.
LUMA Energy is a private power company that is responsible for power distribution and power transmission in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. They are also in charge of maintaining and modernizing the power infrastructure. Previously, these duties belonged exclusively to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, but as of July 20, 2018, permission was granted for PREPA assets and service duties to be sold to private companies, and on June 22, 2020, a 15-year contract with LUMA was signed, making LUMA the new operator. The takeover took place on June 1, 2021.
In mid-January 2022, the Southern Cone had a severe heat wave, which made the region for a while the hottest place on earth, with temperatures exceeding those of the Middle East. This extreme weather event was associated with the Atlantic anticyclone, a particularly intense La Niña phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, and the regional effects of climate change.
The 2024 Venezuelan blackouts were a series of interruptions to Venezuela's electrical service nationwide. The interruptions began on 27 August with a blackout that affected 12 states in the country at around 7:12 pm VET, lasting until service restorations began at approximately 8:30 pm. On 30 August, another blackout was recorded that left more than 20 states in the country without electricity, beginning at 4:50 am and leaving a significant portion of the nation without power for 12 hours, with harder-hit areas not having power for 20 hours. Outages were again reported in Caracas on 1 September, continuing as of 3 September and through 5 September.
