Spain and Portugal investigate the cause of the blackout after the return of light
Kyiv • UNN
The authorities of Spain and Portugal have restored electricity supply after massive outages. The causes of the failure are being investigated, but there are questions about renewable energy.
Electricity supply was restored in most parts of Spain and Portugal early on Tuesday morning after massive outages across the countries, although authorities are still trying to figure out what caused the sudden outage, Reuters reports, UNN writes.
Details
In Spain, schools and offices reopened, public transport resumed after long delays, traffic jams cleared, and many hospitals resumed power, while others continued to operate on generators.
Spanish grid operator Red Electrica said it was able to meet virtually all of the country's electricity demand on Tuesday morning, while Portuguese counterpart REN said that by Monday evening all 89 substations in the country had been restored and were operating.
Authorities are now under pressure to explain what caused one of the biggest power outages ever seen in Europe.
Spain is one of the largest producers of renewable energy in Europe, but Monday's outage has already sparked controversy over whether the volatility of electricity supplies from solar or wind has made its energy systems more vulnerable to such an outage.
John Kemp, an energy analyst and public policy expert, said it could take investigators several months to identify the clear causes of the sequence of failures that led to the blackout.
"The region has one of the highest rates of renewable generation from wind and solar in the world, so the blackout will be an example of how renewable generators affect reliability, as well as restart after a major outage," he said.
The Portuguese government said hospitals had resumed operations, airports were operating, albeit with delays in Lisbon, while the capital's metro was resuming operations and trains were running.
French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci told RTL radio on Tuesday that France is better prepared to prevent power outages similar to those that occurred in Spain and Portugal, and that the impact on France was "minimal" - some areas of France also experienced brief power outages on Monday.