On April 28, a large-scale blackout occurred, throwing Europe into great chaos. In this outage that struck Western Europe, all of Spain and Portugal and some southern regions of France experienced a cutoff of power supply, and major infrastructure such as transport, communications, and finance was paralyzed. For the transport systems of large cities like Madrid and Barcelona in Spain to stop means that hundreds of thousands of citizens are isolated. Humans, facing a world without electricity, were powerless.
[*[Image unavailable: Europe thrown into chaos by the great blackout ©Reuters]*]
Was the Cause of the Blackout a Sudden Frequency Change Due to the Climate Crisis?
The exact cause of the blackout is currently under official investigation. However, according to experts interviewed by major European media, the expectation is that abnormal climate and the expansion of renewable energy likely acted as causes of this great blackout. First, regarding abnormal climate, attention is on a phenomenon in which the density and pressure of air layers changed abruptly amid recently severe daily temperature ranges in inland Spain. When cold air and warm air mix and atmospheric-molecule activity becomes abnormally active, ultra-low-frequency atmospheric vibrations occur. The analysis is that these vibrations resonated with a 2.8 GW (gigawatt)-class extra-high-voltage power line connecting Spain and France, shaking the transmission lines. Weight is placed on the possibility that this sudden change in frequency vibration automatically shut down the power system, which must maintain a constant frequency.
[*[Image unavailable: Citizens shine their phone lights in a supermarket to hurriedly buy groceries ©Reuters]*]
Or Was It a Problem with the Renewable-Energy System?
There is also analysis linking the Western European blackout to the expansion of renewable energy. As the share of renewable-energy generation such as solar and wind within Europe has recently risen, problems can arise in the real-time control of the power grid. Among the countries where the blackout occurred, Spain relies on solar and wind energy for 60% of its energy and Portugal for 80%—so high is their dependence on renewable energy. The "energy storage system (ESS)," which stores and supplies renewable energy, is supposed to play the role of stabilizing the power supply when grid frequency changes abruptly, but there is also a possibility that the ESS in these regions could not produce a sufficient response speed. An imbalance—the ESS deployment rate lagging relative to the pace at which renewable energy is expanding in southwestern Europe—can also be a cause of the problem.
[*[Image unavailable: Citizens wait inside a station as subway operations are suspended ©Reuters]*]
Concerns over the "Energy Island" of the Iberian Peninsula: the Chaos the Great Blackout Left Behind
The great blackout caused social and economic shock to the European continent at the same time. With banks and electronic-payment systems paralyzed, all commerce stopped. With the internet and communications cut off, smooth emergency-rescue requests and the provision of medical services also became impossible, and citizens had to experience anxiety beyond merely being unable to carry on daily life. In particular, there was an accident in which more than 100 trains of Spain's state railway made emergency stops, trapping some 35,000 passengers in the cars for about six hours. At airports, too, hundreds had to tremble in fear, stranded on the runway. International events such as the Madrid Open tennis tournament were immediately postponed. The economic loss of the great blackout, in which such incidents continued, is estimated at up to 7.3 trillion won (4.5 billion euros). Europe's GDP fell by 0.1%, and the cost of production disruptions from the paralysis of corporate activity was added on top.
Eighteen hours after the outage began, 99% of the power grid was restored and citizens cheered the return of electricity, but the weakened grid connectivity and the inadequate renewable-energy management system of the Iberian Peninsula—isolated as an "energy island" due to its geographic position at the far end of Europe's power grid—remained as problems to be solved.
Spain's power company "Red Eléctrica" announced that it would reinforce extra-high-voltage transmission lines in preparation for the expanding share of renewable energy and accelerate the "adoption of a Smart Grid," grafting information and communications technology onto the existing power grid. It also stated that it would introduce AI-based power-supply-and-demand forecasting technology to strengthen risk management regarding the "intermittency of renewable energy." It further set a goal of expanding transmission-line capacity with France—raised as a major problem—to resolve the "energy island" state of the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal's state-owned power and gas supply company "Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN)" stated that it would proceed with decentralizing the system for regional power stability by building "microgrids"—meaning small-scale ESS and distributed power grids.
[*[Image unavailable: Citizens walk through dark streets because of the great blackout ©Reuters]*]
The Importance of "Grid Resilience," Highlighted by the Great European Blackout
The great European blackout occurred as a complex interplay: facing situations such as extreme climate change and the transition of generation facilities to renewable energy, the intermittency problem deepened, and a shortage of ESS deployment combined with weakened transmission-grid connectivity. In particular, the point that extra-high-voltage-line resonance and the shutdown of the France-Spain transmission line triggered the grid collapse suggests that, when expanding renewable energy, technical stability, social stability, and risk management must be considered at the same time. This incident left the lesson that innovative infrastructure investment is needed for energy management—AI forecasting technology, distributed ESS, smart grids, and the like—and that "grid resilience" is as important as achieving carbon-neutrality goals.
by Editor N