The Governing Council imposed a fine of 8,001,129 euros on Red Eléctrica de España for the blackout that occurred in the south of the island on June 15, 2020. At his meeting yesterday, he gave his approval to the decree that resolves the sanctioning procedure initiated against the company responsible for energy transport in the Canary Islands. The regional Executive argues that on this occasion there was “a very serious administrative infraction, provided for in Law 24/2013, of December 26, of the Electricity Sector (LSE)”.
The event itself consisted of a “voltage zero” recorded at the 66 kilovolt (kV) substations located in the Granadilla, Granadilla, Arona, Chayofa, Los Olivos and Guía de Isora Industrial Estates. The blackout began at 1:08 p.m. on June 15, 2020 and ended 54 minutes later, at 2:02 p.m. In that period of time, a total of 149,970 subscribers remained without power supply.
54
minutes
- The blackout suffered by Granadilla de Abona, San Miguel de Abona, Vilaflor, Arona, Adeje, Guía de Isora and Santiago del Teide on June 15, 2020 was corrected in 54 minutes.
In the statement made public yesterday after the meeting held by the Governing Council, The Autonomous Executive stated that in the instruction of the file it is proven that Red Eléctrica de España, SAU incurred in the following infraction classified as very serious in article 64.31 of the LSE: «The interruption or suspension of the supply without the mediation of the legal requirements or established regulations or outside the legal or regulatory provisions.
The decision adopted yesterday by the Canarian Government takes into account the proposal made by the instructor. Therefore, “it is considered that the penalty imposed, amounting to 8,001,129 euros, is proportionate, considering that for very serious infringements the range indicated by article 67.1 of the LSE ranges from 6,000,001 and up to 60,000,000 euros».
the entire population of Granadilla de Abona, San Miguel de Abona, Vilaflor, Arona, Adeje, Guia de Isora and Santiago del Mount Teide –which has around 260,000 registered residents– was affected by this energy shortage.
30
millions
- The previous penalty against Red Eléctrica amounted to 30 million, for the blackout of September 29, 2019. It was communicated to the company five days before the one that causes this fine.
The replacement of the service was applied gradually from 1:40 p.m., although intermittent supply cuts were recorded in the process, which also affected the quality of the mobile telephony service in some points of the seven municipalities.
in five days
It so happened that this blackout happened five days after the Canary Islands Government imposed a fine of almost 30 million euros on Red Eléctrica de España (REE) –and another of 10 million on Endesa– for the incident that left the island without electricity for almost nine hours on September 29, 2019. On that occasion , the blackout began at 1:11 p.m. as a result of a failure at the Granadilla de Abona substation (as in the case of the fine imposed now) and the service was not fully restored until 10:25 p.m.
The Canarian Government clarified yesterday that it is the instruction of the sanctioning file that is responsible for interpreting the application of what the law establishes, “given that there is no regulation that develops article 67.4 of the LSE in which it is indicated how the Graduation criteria when imposing the amount of the penalty and, specifically, whether or not they should receive a different weight.
During some improvement work
Red Eléctrica explained yesterday that “in order to be able to make an evaluation of the decision of the Governing Council, it is necessary to know the agreement, which has not yet been notified and on which there is an appeal.” It points out that the incident that took place on June 15, 2020 occurred “during some improvement work in a critical sector of the Tenerife transport network, which was resolved in less than an hour.” Sources from Red Eléctrica explained that the company “is committed to improving the quality of the electricity transmission network in the Canary Islands”. He assures that “this commitment has already materialized in an investment effort of more than 850 million euros, both in the development of new transport infrastructures and in the renovation, improvement, and maintenance and reinforcement of said network since 2011, the date on which that Red Eléctrica began to manage the assets acquired from the Canarian Transport Network. In this sense, the company maintained that “the execution of these actions has allowed, on the one hand, to adapt the condition of the assets of the Canary Archipelago to the quality standards of the rest of the national territory and, on the other, to reduce very significantly the average interruption time (TIM) to reach 2.1 minutes in the past year 2021, from an average of 86 minutes in the five-year period prior to 2011. | jam
