The massive power outage that wreaked havoc in Europe is being blamed on a pair of likely solar plant breakdowns in southwest Spain, a report said.
Spain’s electricity operator Red Eléctrica declared that over 99% of energy demand in the country had been reinstated by 7 a.m. local time on Tuesday. In a similar vein, Portuguese grid operator REN disclosed that all 89 power substations were back online since the previous night, with power fully restored to all 6.4 million customers.
A report by Reuters revealed that Red Eléctrica pinpointed two instances of power generation loss in southwest Spain, likely related to solar plants. These incidents not only caused instability in Spain’s power grid but also led to a disruption in its connection with France.
Estimates suggest that the financial impact of Monday’s blackout in the Iberian Peninsula could range from $2.5 billion to over $5 billion, as projected by investment bank RBC.
People wait on a platform as metro operations resume partially in Madrid, Spain, on Tuesday, April 29, following the nationwide power outage. (Reuters/Violeta Santos Moura)
“Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high-voltage lines, a phenomenon known as induced atmospheric vibration,” it was quoted as saying. “These oscillations caused synchronization failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
However, on Tuesday, Spain’s meteorological agency AEMET said that it had not detected any “unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena” Monday and no sudden temperature fluctuations were recorded at their weather stations.
Eduardo Prieto, Red Eléctrica’s chief of operations, said the instability in the power grid caused the Spanish and French electricity interconnection through the Pyrenees mountains to split, leading to a failure on the Spanish side, according to Reuters. The news agency reported that some parts of France suffered brief power outages on Monday as well.
People sleep in a sports facility designated for people who were stuck at a train station in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday, April 29. (Reuters/Bruna Casas)
Authorities were still investigating what happened on Tuesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
