Risk factors of the electric sector facing the phenomenon of El Niño

The atmospheric indicators of El Niño 2015-2016 have been materializing consistently, and have intensified during the past few months. The forecasts of the models and the opinions of experts suggest that it is probable that the temperatures of the water surface in the central and eastern parts of the Tropical Pacific Ocean will increase by 2°C above normal. This could lead to one of the four strongest episodes of El Niño since 1950. The previous episodes were: 1972 -1973, 1982-1983 y 1997-1998.

If it achieves the "very strong" category in coming months, El Niño and the South Oscillation (ENOS, for its acronym in Spanish) 2015-2016 could impact the five continents, thus affecting all the productive sectors. One case is the western coast of the United States and Canada, which traditionally are not affected by the phenomenon, but are currently feeling the effects of high temperatures and strong storms. At the same time, Latin America suffers floods and intense droughts. 

Facing a natural threat of such intensity and probability of occurrence such as this, there are two levels of exposure and physical fragility. 

The first type is those that directly depend on the threat, that is, the direct consequences of torrential rains, landslides, floods, mudslides, and other natural disasters. 

The second type is a result of the social, ecologic, and economic fragility, vulnerability factors and impacts that depend not only on the threat, and could generate damages with the economic, environmental, and social potential. For example, failures in the distribution of food, potable water provision, deterioration of the infrastructure, failures in the supply of electric energy, and in general, of basic services. 

In this context, some of the most relevant vulnerabilities have been identified for the supply of electric energy in Latin America: 

1. Most decision-makers do not work with meteorological models that forecast the effects of El Niño in advance.  
2. There is a weakness in the availability of funds to address emergencies or disasters. Many countries do not have funds or contingent insurances for disasters. Therefore, when the phenomenon arrives, they must incur in debts to get the resources.  
3. There is a need to identify and locate the areas that are threatened, and where works and services in general have been recurrently impacted. Disasters may be mitigated if the design of the infrastructure takes into consideration the possibility of landslides, mud avalanches, floods, inundations, and sites that have been repeatedly affected by El Niño.   
4. Lack of works that protect the infrastructure when facing floods, slides, and other threats. At the same time, in the countries affected by droughts it is crucial to maintain the corridors of transmission lines, cleaning the weeds and garbage that may catch fire.  
5. Electric plants do not have systems that respond automatically to unexpected situations, as for example, automatic closing elements in the water intake and download area, allowing them to operate in a brief period of time and prevent the works from being flooded when the volumes of water increase. 
6. Sensitization regarding expected effects. If people are not aware of the risks implied by the appearance of the phenomenon, precautions are not taken and they become more vulnerable.  It is essential to highlight that to reduce the risk at the time of the occurrence of the event, work must be done to have a control system for public policies, and to take actions that are both corrective and prospective.