Not a cyberattack: blackout in Spain and Portugal explained by network failures and poor planning
Kyiv • UNN
The Minister of Ecological Transition of Spain stated that the April power outage, which affected tens of millions of people, was caused by technical errors. A cyberattack was also ruled out.
The Spanish government said on Tuesday that a massive April power outage in Spain and Portugal, which left tens of millions of people without electricity in seconds, was caused by technical and planning errors that prevented the grid from coping with a surge in voltage, UNN reports, citing AP.
Details
Minister for Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen, who is in charge of the country's energy policy, said that a sharp jump in voltage caused minor disruptions to the grid, mainly in southern Spain, which then escalated into larger ones and knocked out the system in the two countries of the Iberian Peninsula.
She ruled out that the failure was caused by a cyberattack.
"It all happened in 12 seconds, with most of the power loss occurring in just five seconds," Aagesen said.
The incident was caused by several technical reasons, including poor planning by Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica, which failed to find a replacement for one power plant that was supposed to help balance power fluctuations, the minister said. She also said that some power plants that utilities shut down as a precaution when the outages began could have remained on the grid to help manage the system.
The government report was due to be released later on Tuesday - 49 days after the event - and include an analysis from Spanish national security agencies that concluded, according to the minister, that there was no sign of cyber sabotage by foreign actors.
Addition
The outage began shortly after noon on April 28 in Spain and lasted into the night, disrupting businesses, transit systems, cellular networks, Internet connectivity and other critical infrastructure. Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity - or about 60% of its supply. Portugal, whose grid is connected to the Spanish one, also failed. Only the country's island territories remained unaffected.
Power was fully restored by the early hours of the next day.