On Monday morning, April 28, a blackout of colossal proportions hit Portugal and almost all of Spain. Millions of people were plunged into darkness, triggering at least $177 million in economic disruptions across the region. The incident was felt elsewhere, including in several regions of southwest France. Workers and commuters were left stuck on metro trains in cities across Europe, including in Lisbon and Madrid. Hospitals had to rush to evacuate patients as officials raced to determine the source of the unparalleled outage.
Portugal’s electricity network provider, Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), has announced a fascinating one. They suspect the cause of the blackout was a rare phenomenon known as “induced atmospheric vibration.” This situation allegedly resulted in damaging oscillations due to synchronization mismatches between the electrical grids of Ecuador and Colombia.
“The blackout that hit the entire territory of mainland Portugal today is the result of a significant voltage fluctuation in the Spanish grid at a time when Portugal was importing energy from Spain,” – REN.
Victor Becerra, a power systems engineering professor at the University of Portsmouth, pointed out a key concern. When major generators are lost—which is often experienced during storms, for example—it can create a dangerous imbalance of supply and demand for power. Make no mistake — more technical imbalances like the one described above have the ability to snowball into massive, regional outages, as was the case here.
“The loss of large generators can create a sudden and significant imbalance between power supply and demand in the power grid, potentially escalating into widespread outages,” – Becerra.
Becerra further suggested that a wide variation between hot and cold temperatures in Spain could have played a role in the swings.
“If these conditions have been in place they may have triggered abnormal oscillations in very high-voltage power lines,” – Becerra.
Against these allegations, REN was subsequently emitted rebuttal the explanation for “induced atmospheric vibration” as the cause of blackout. To this day, their investigation has remained focused through collaboration with European electricity operators’ authorities to identify the definitive cause of the event.
As Grazia Todeschini, an electrical engineering researcher at King’s College London told us, there are a lot of complexities when it comes to electrical grids. She stressed that a variety of equally complex and interconnected social, environmental, and economic systems is necessary. It depends on a delicate dance between electricity production and consumption.
“Electrical grids are large interconnected systems, and their stability is related to a very close balance between electricity generation and demand,” – Todeschini.
This unprecedented blackout had dire consequences spanning the entire Peninsula. Airports across the country came to a standstill, with thousands of flights canceled or delayed, and passengers stranded. The transit systems in Lisbon and Madrid faced severe delays, leaving commuters stuck for hours.
Failed battery backup Authorities are exploring other potential reasons for the blackout. Eduardo Prieto, head of services for Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica, rejected the possibility that cybersecurity incidents played a contributory role.
With thousands of residents just starting to regain power by Tuesday morning, how exactly this incident unfolded is still unclear. This blackout is massive. It calls to mind the world’s largest blackout that occurred in India in 2012, a blackout that affected more than 600 million people.
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