It was “perceptible to us like a larger power plant failure,” said Christiner. Spain exported 800 megawatts (MW) of electricity at the time of the network collapse.
“When Spain was in the blackout, these 800 megawatts were missing in the system. And that was very well balanced by the rest of Europe. This led to a small waste of the frequency because there was too little performance, but the rule reserves that existed in the rest of Europe were able to compensate for,” said Christiner.
“There is always residual risk”
The APG boss pointed out that a power grid is a “highly complex technical system” and that a failure cannot be completely excluded. “There is always a residual risk, although we consider it very, very low.”
- On the subject: power failure in Western Europe: Expert warns to prepare
The reason why the entire network collapsed on the Iberian Peninsula on Monday is still unclear. A rare weather phenomenon is also speculated. The Portuguese electricity supplier Ren said that the power failures were due to extreme temperature fluctuations in the interior of Spain. This triggered “induced atmospheric vibrations” in the 400 kilovolt high-voltage lines.
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Image: Topleaders/Richard Tanzer (Topleaders/Richard Tanzer)
Source: Nachrichten
