WEMO 2025 (complet) - Flipbook - Page 32
W E M O 202 5
O U T LO O K
√ Blackout root causes and recommendations. Over the
past decade, several signi昀椀cant electrical blackouts
have disrupted regions worldwide, often exposing
vulnerabilities in aging infrastructure, lack of vegetation
management or inadequate power grids operations.
The damage costs related to Iberia’s huge April 2025
blackout calculations are still not 昀椀nalized231. Spain’s
main business lobby CEOE232 estimated the outage
would shave 1.6 billion euros or 0.1%, o昀昀 gross
domestic product. It took oil re昀椀neries a week or
more to resume their operations fully, some industrial
equipment’s had been damaged and food had to be
thrown away because of the lack of refrigeration.
On April 28, 2025, the Iberian Peninsula,
encompassing Spain and Portugal, su昀昀ered
one of Europe's most severe blackouts233,234,235
impacting 55 million people for up to 18 hours,halting
transportation and causing eight deaths. Three reports
from Spanish Ministry (MITECO), the Spanish TSO REE
and the Spanish association of energy companies AELEC
analyzed the event, with other reports pending236.
The blackout began with frequency oscillations (0.2–
0.6 Hz) from 12:03, culminating in a cascading failure
triggered by a transformer trip in Granada at 12:32:57.
This was followed by disconnections in Badajoz and
Seville, losing 15 GW of generation, mostly solar.
Exact costs vary due to deferred economic
impacts
and
recovery
e昀昀orts.
These
are
direct costs excluding health related issues.
Let’s examine some signi昀椀cant black-outs and their root
causes.
Causes include insu昀케cient voltage control due to
poor planning by REE, with too few conventional
plants scheduled to compensate for a possible grid
unbalance. Indeed, in the South, there was a high share
of solar (73%) energy and a low grid inertia. Also, some
●
Confederación Española de Organizaciones Empresariales
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/29/
what-caused-the-blackout-in-spain-and-portugal-and-did-renewable-energy-play-a-part
234
https://theconversation.com/spain-portugal-blackouts-what-actually-happened-andwhat-can-iberia-and-europe-learn-from-it-255666#:~:text=REE%20sources%20indicate%20
that%20the,for%20balancing%20supply%20and%20demand.
●
●
On July 4, 2025, a major blackout struck the
Czech Republic237, a昀昀ecting Prague and six regions,
disrupting public transport, trapping people
in elevators, and halting industrial operations.
The root cause was a fallen high-voltage phase
conductor triggering a cascading failure across eight
substations. The incident exposed vulnerabilities in
aging grid infrastructures, with heat-related stress
and equipment fatigue as possible factors. A detailed
investigation into the precise cause is ongoing.
These incidents underscore recurring themes: grids
strained by high intermittent renewables, insu昀케cient
cross-border interconnections, and fragility of grids
with low inertia due to increasing renewable energy
integration and closure of conventional plants. Thus,
grid operators can struggle to maintain frequency and
voltage stability during sudden losses of equipment
or generation.
232
https://pinkerton.com/our-insights/blog/the-impact-of-power-outages
228
https://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/昀椀les/昀椀les/HSEM/2021-Winter-Storm-Uri-AARFindings-Report.pdf
230
https://www.bloomenergy.com/bloom-energy-outage-map/
231
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2025/04/30/821937.htm
228
233
235
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/02/
blackouts-energy-outage-risks-europe-worldwide-spain-portugal-france
236
https://hayaenergy.com/blog-iberian-peninsulas-blackout-on-28-april-new-information/
237
https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-07-09/
czech-republic-without-power-lessons-blackout
WEMO 2025
√ Blackout costs: the 2021 Texas blackout cost an
estimated $195 bn in damages.229 In 2019-2020,
California had several outages and blackouts. A single
blackout, on October 7, 2019, likely costed small
commercial and industrial businesses $2.4 bn.230
plants failed to follow voltage regulation protocols in
this disturbed grid situation. Moreover, inadequate
interconnection capacity with France and cascading
disconnections from a transformer failure explain
the blackout. Grid restoration, completed by April 29,
relied on hydropower, gas turbines, and imports from
Morocco (900 MW) and France (2 GW).
31
• Blackouts: When these challenges are mismanaged, the
power system fails, triggering widespread blackouts.
Though rare, these events are immensely costly228, disrupting
economies and people's lives.
