Lecciones del terremoto de Chile 2010 y su

impacto en el suministro eléctrico

Hugh Rudnick
Seguridad de abastecimiento eléctrico

 Preocupación en la sociedad moderna

 Suministro seguro de servicios básicos
 Alta dependencia de suministro eléctrico
 Impactos diversos en suministro eléctrico por
Problemas de abastecimiento de combustibles
Guerras, conflictos políticos, terrorismo
Desastres naturales (huracanes, terremotos,
maremotos, erupciones volcánicas, etc.)
 Necesidad estar preparados para enfrentarlos
2
Araneda, Juan Carlos
(Transelec), Rudnick,
Hugh (PUC), Mocarquer,
Sebastian (Systep), Miquel,
Pedro (Systep), "Lessons
from the 2010 Chilean
earthquake and its impact
on electricity supply", 2010
International Conference
on Power System
Technology (Powercon
2010), Hangzhou, China,
October 24-28, 2010

3
 Large earthquakes in Chile

 1575 Valdivia 8.5

 1730 Valparaiso 8.7
 1751 Concepción 8.5
 1835 Concepción 8.5
 1868 Arica 9.0
 1906 Valparaíso 8.2
 1922 Vallenar 8.5
 1943 Coquimbo 8.2
 1960 Valdivia 9.5
 1985 Santiago 8.0
 1995 Antofagasta 8.0
4
The 2010 earthquake
• 03:34 hrs. February 27 2010
• 8.8 Richter shakes 6 regions of Chile
along 500 km (80 % of population)
• Tsunami hits the cost minutes after
• Death toll: 521; Missing: 56
• Injured: 12,000; Displaced: 800,000
• Infrastructure affected:
• 370,000 houses
• 4,013 schools
• 79 hospitals
• 4,200 boats damaged
• Economic loss: 30 billion US dollars
• Acceleration of 0.65 g in Concepcion
• 10 meter average plaques displacement

5
Large acceleration for long time
 Peak acceleration of 0.65 g for one of the horizontal
records. Duration of strong shaking for 70 seconds

6
Its effects– structural collapses

7
Its effects– building collapses

8
Effects of the tsunami

9
Norms and standards in Chile

 High standard of seismic requirements for its civil works. Building

codes in Chile are substantially the same as US codes (ACI 318, a
leading concrete design reference for building codes worldwide
issued by the American Concrete Institute).
 High voltage electrical facilities, the national technical standard
establishes that facilities must obligatorily fulfill the ETG 1.015
Chilean standard or the IEEE 693 standard in the condition of High
Performance Level. It specifies a maximum 0.50 g acceleration and a
maximum horizontal displacement of 25 cm. to be considered in the
design as the seismic intensity at the facility location.
 Specific electrical requirements for installation construction and
maintenance through Technical Norm of Security and Quality of
Service, which defines technical and economic evaluations to
determine the reliability level on the planning and operation of the
power system.
10
SIC

 Immediate blackout for

4,522 load (peak demand
of 6,145 MW and installed
capacity of 11,023 MW)
 Longitudinal transmission
system over 2,200 km long
 Grid lines mainly at 220
kV and 500 kV
 Five, then two, island
scheme for grid supply
recovery
 Distribution networks
severely damaged 11
Evolution of electricity supply

12
Evolution of electricity demand

 Black out with loss of 3,000 MW

13
Impact on operation
 Severe impacts on country communication
systems. Basic systems (mobile networks,
emergency alert schemes, public order control),
electricity dependant, did not operate as desired
and caused additional harm.
 Difficulties also arose in the communications
and telecontrol schemes of most electricity
installations, transmission substations and
generating plants, complicating plant and
system recovery and operation. No alternative
backup radio systems.

14
Impact on operation
 System operator (CDEC-SIC) had additional
difficulties throughout the emergency as the
SCADA system in use (for over ten years), was
not able to provide information required for
system recovery (alarms could not be trusted as
they were often incorrect).
 Traditional phone calls had to be used to learn
on local conditions and supervise actions for
equipment and system restoration.

15
Dispatched generation at event

 4,522 MW dispatched
 Immediate blackout

16
Damage in generation plants

Bocamina plant

17
But most remain available

 3,000 MW became unavailable immediately

 693 MW (13 plants) went to major repairs

 950 MW
being built also
damaged

 Cooling systems,
transformers,
communications,
lines, etc.

MW (thermal plants) unavailable

18
Damages in lines

 Transelec has 8,239 km.

of lines, 50 substations,
10,486 MW
transformation capacity

Hualpen-Bocamina line (3 towers)

19
Damages in substations

20
Damages in substations

21
But most remain available

 Capacitor bank
without damage

22
But most remain available

 Circuit breakers
with sufficient
damping

23
Transmission assesment
 Damages concentrated in one transmission line
3 towers 154 kV line (1.6 km)

 Substation damage (12 out of 46 substations,

26%). Mainly focused at:
500 kV bushings (high failure rate, particularly in
transmission bushings)
500 kV pantograph disconnector switches
220 kV circuit breakers (live tank type)
154 kV circuit breakers (air compressed type)

24
Transmission interconnection recovery
 Recovery process of the interconnected system

25
Worse extended damage in distribution

26
Worse extended damage in distribution

27
Worse extended damage in distribution

28
But most remains standing

29
Distribution damage
 4.5 million people were initially affected by the
extended blackout that took place because of the
earthquake and it took days, and even weeks in
some areas, to recover full electricity supply.
 Most affected areas supplied by CGE, Emelectric
and Emelat. Chilectra also affected in Santiago.
 80% of clients were without supply the day after
the earthquake and this reduced to 0.4% two
weeks after (related mainly to Concepcion and
Talcahuano, next to the earthquake epicenter).

30
Distribution damage
 Some distribution networks were destroyed by
the effects of the earthquake, as houses fell over
street lines or simply were washed away by the
tsunamis (for example 40,000 houses were
destroyed out of 1.5 million supplied by CGE).
 Besides those distribution installations directly
damaged, there was little damage elsewhere.
Distribution poles in Chile are mainly
compressed pre-stressed concrete poles, which
are well founded, and support important
mechanical stresses. Exceptions in overloaded
city poles.
31
Worse extended damage in distribution

 Heavily loaded poles in main cities

32
Small percentage damage

760,000 poles in CGE 50,000 transformers in

and 300,000 in CGE and 20,000 in
Chilectra Chilectra.
33
Challenges in supply recovery

34
Damage in distribution
 Distribution aerial transformers are often placed
between two poles and a steel support, thus they also
withstand well an earthquake.
 Main difficulties in restoring supply to houses took place
at the connection point between the low voltage lines
and the buildings.
 Companies have equipment and human resources to
repair normal failures within one or two days. But when
several hundred thousand of those connections fail, as in
an earthquake, the problem is quite different.
Communication problems, difficult physical access to
locations, no resources to manage the huge number of
needed repairs. Companies involved human resources
brought from other regions.
35
Damage in distribution
 Mobile generating sets brought to support recovery of
supply, particularly in more isolated areas.

 Challenges for distribution companies lasted months

after the earthquake (many latent faults, caused by the
quake, that could not be detected when repairs were
been made days after the event, or if detected, were
secondary to the objective of supplying consumers as
fast as possible).
 Arrival of winter, with rain and wind, started igniting
these faults in a a massive way, demanding the
companies to comply.

36
Araneda, Juan Carlos
(Transelec), Rudnick,
Hugh (PUC), Mocarquer,
Sebastian (Systep), Miquel,
Pedro (Systep), "Lessons
from the 2010 Chilean
earthquake and its impact
on electricity supply", 2010
International Conference
on Power System
Technology (Powercon
2010), Hangzhou, China,
October 24-28, 2010

37
Balance y conclusiones
 Experiencia internacional indica mayores daños
en transmisión y distribución
 Altos estándares y códigos constructivos civiles
y en equipos eléctricos de generación

 Imposible evitar impactos de desastre natural de

esa magnitud en instalaciones eléctricas
 Necesidad aprovechar experiencia y producir
necesarios cambios en métodos de prevención y
de recuperación

38
Balance y conclusiones
 Balance negativo de capacidad de respuesta del
país y su institucionalidad de emergencia.
 Inaceptables niveles de fallas de infraestructura
de comunicación

 Balance positivo del nivel sísmico de la

infraestructura eléctrica (particularmente en
generación/transmisión)
 Claras oportunidades de mejoras,
particularmente a nivel de CDEC y de redes de
distribución
39
Balance y conclusiones
 Cuidado con reacciones excesivas a evento de
baja frecuencia de ocurrencia
 Necesidad evaluar económicamente acciones
preventivas versus correctivas.

40
Agradecimientos

 Transelec
 CGE Distribución
 CGE Transmisión
 CDEC-SIC
 Chilectra
 American Society of Civil Engineers’ Post-
Disaster Assessment Teams (Dr. Anshel Schiff,
Stanford University)

41
Lecciones del terremoto de Chile 2010 y su
impacto en el suministro eléctrico

Hugh Rudnick