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The severe weather conditions which have swept the U.S. and caused disruptions in the power grid have stretched their reach to Mexico, with Cancun also reported to suffer from blackouts.
The Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has released a report stating that in Cancun, service of electricity was temporarily suspended in at least five regions.
The following areas of Cancun were affected:
Superblocks 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 96, 209, 210, 310, 325 and 507; the Malibu, La Joya, Villas del Mar 3, Tierra Maya, El Petén, Villas del Arte, Cumbres and Santa Fe subdivisions, and areas along Huayacán avenue.
The areas of Bacalar, Playa del Carmen, Chetumal and Felipe Carrillo Puerto were also reported to experience disruptions.
In totality, the state of Quintana Roo experienced blackouts affecting an excess of 55 thousand people. The CFE states that the service has now been stabilized in its entirety.
The CFE has acknowledged that the disruption of electricity services was a result of efforts to maintain the stability of the national electric system, by scheduling temporary interruptions to the electricity supply.
The interruptions were also scheduled for other states in Mexico, including Aguascalientes, Colima, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas, as well as the Yucatán Peninsula.
Adverse weather conditions occurring in the North of the country, particularly in the region bordering Texas, were responsible for a lapse in Mexico’s ability to receive natural gas, causing the balance between load and generation to be affected.
In order to avoid a significant blackout, scheduled power outages were used by the CFE to maintain the balance.
The CFE has denied reports of any risk of massive blackouts. Accordingly, the CFE stated:
“These are rotating and random load cuts. There is no risk of massive blackouts, as has been erroneously reported in some media. The Federal Electricity Commission has made available to Cenace all its generation plants to achieve load-generation balance, which has managed to reduce load shedding.”
Overall, the blackouts throughout Mexico have been reported to affect millions of people.
Hail Storm in Quintana Roo
Earlier this week, the FCE had also temporarily cut power due to an atypical hail storm in Quintana Roo.
On Monday, residents of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, a region to the southwest of Tulum, reported occurrences of hail hitting the ground. The storm was stated to have lasted for about 30 minutes.
The aftermath of the storm resulted in damage to some CFE electric lines, necessitating the requirement of temporary power cuts in order to repair the lines.
Prior to the storm, the region had not experienced hail fall in nearly 40 years.
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