Final report: Why Spain's electricity
Photo: Emilio Morenatti/AP/TT

Final report: Why Spain's electricity grid collapsed

The massive power outage in Spain and Portugal last spring had no single cause, but was triggered by a 'perfect storm' of many factors, according to the final report of a Spanish investigation.

Advertisement

The outage was "the biggest and worst we have seen in Europe's electricity system in over 20 years," said Damian Cortinas, CEO of the European industry organization ENTSO-E, which commissioned the investigation.

It knocked out internet and telephony, stopped elevators and darkened cities for up to ten hours.

The investigation confirms that several cases of overvoltage were important links in the chain of events, but they had different causes. A network should be able to handle such events, but the safety systems failed.

"There is no single cause. This was a 'perfect storm' with many factors contributing to the outage," Cortinas said.

In this story
AuthorTT News AgencyEnglish edition by Sweden Herald, adapted for our readers
Was this useful?

What do you think?

Keep readingmore from World

All