Argentina’s National Electricity Regulatory Body (ENRE, by its Spanish initials) has announced that it will order power company Edesur to pay its users AR$471,080,973 (US$1.8 million at the official rate, US$983,858 at the MEP dollar rate) in compensation to users who suffered long power outages in March.

The company will be required to discount the compensation payments from the energy bills of 202,287 users whose power was cut for 10 hours or more between March 6-20. Exact values will depend on the number and duration of the outages.

This is the third penalty Edesur has faced over outages from December 2022 to March 2023. Overall, the company has been required to compensate nearly 340,000 users for over AR$730 million, according to ENRE.

“For each of the utility companies’ infractions, we will apply the greatest penalty the concession contract allows,” said ENRE head Walter Martello in a statement. “It is crucial that users complain, both to the companies and to ENRE, so we can continue applying this kind of penalty.”

An Edesur spokesperson said the company has no comment to give regarding the fines at this time.

In March, Economy Minister Sergio Massa announced that the government would perform a six-month audit of Edesur, a process known in Spanish as an intervención (intervention). The audit is administrative: the company will continue to oversee general operations, and none of its property or assets will be affected. 

ENRE also presented criminal charges against Edesur for fraud, abandonment of persons (a form of negligence charge in Argentina), and hindering the functioning of public services.

The move came after over a hundred thousand users were left without power around Greater Buenos Aires in the middle of an unseasonal March heatwave. For many, power cuts not only affected appliances such as fans, air conditioning units and fridges, but also pumps, leaving them without running water. 

Edesur has had the exclusive concession to distribute electricity in the south of Buenos Aires since 1992 – a 95-year contract that expires in 2087. The company is part of the Italian holding Enel, which owns several companies related to the Argentine electricity system. However, Enel announced in November that it would sell its operations in Argentina, as well as Peru and Romania, in a bid to reduce its debt. It said at the time that it hoped the sales would be completed by the end of 2023.