A historical blackout: unprecedented in Spain and among the most massive in Europe | Spain

More than 12 hours without light and two affected countries. Monday’s blackout has not only been the largest in the history of Spain, but also is, by affected population, among the largest in the world in recent years. In Europe, it would only exceed the registered in Italy in 2003, which left 56 million people without supply, according to estimates. Monday would have reached about 55 million, if the population of the Iberian Peninsula is taken as a reference.

The table also detailed the causes of each of the events. In most incidents there is an alteration of the network that causes chain blackouts, but its origin can be diverse: a technical failure, a human accident or a meteorological phenomenon. There are triggers as apparently nimios as the rubbing of a tree in a high voltage line.

Here are some of the most prominent blackouts of the last decades.

It is considered the largest in history in terms of affected population. On July 30, 2012, a first wave affected approximately 370 million people in northern India. The next day, a second more severe blackout left without electricity more than 600 million people in 22 of the 28 states of the country. The blackout It turned out of three failures chained in the networks of the north, the east and northeast of the country.

A strong increase in demand from the north as a result of the drought at the time of Monzón saturated the supply corridor from the west, which had two of the four out of service lines. This generated a domino effect that threw the other two networks.

A decade before, the country had already suffered a similar incident, with a fall that affected more than 200 million people in five states. Again, the system was unable to balance the fluctuation generated by an excess of demand.

Despite affecting fewer people, the blackout recorded in January 2023 in Pakistan affected its entire population. The event began early in the morning and lasted for more than eight hours in large cities, while in some rural areas the restoration of electricity exceeded 24 hours.

According to the authorities of the country, a voltage fluctuation in the province of Sindh triggered cascade dwarf in the electric power plants throughout the country. In a posterior internal note published by Reuters, the government pointed to an excess of generated energy that triggered the frequency of the network.

The blackout was the most important in the country, which had already suffered two similar events in 2015 and 2021.

On March 31, 2015, some of the transmission lines between the east and western Turkey were in maintenance. One of those that were in operation had to be disconnected by overload, which caused in just two seconds the disconnection of the rest of the lines, dividing the Turkish electrical system into two.

After cutting the transmission, the western system suffered an important sudden deficit of energy that sank the frequency below 47.5 Hz by collapsing the western system completely in 10 seconds.

In the west, the excess of generation raised the frequency and, although many generators went out automatically, the system collapsed due to the extreme imbalance.

The blackout closest to Spain and more similar in terms of affected population occurred in Italy and part of Switzerland in 2003. 56 million people ran out of electricity after a failure in the Switzerland network that overloaded the interconnections on the border with the Italian peninsula. The origin was the disconnection of one of the lines by the rubbing of a tree.

The final report of the Committee investigated by the incident pointed to the lack of immediacy in the response as part of the problem: Switzerland warned Italy 10 minutes after detecting disconnection and Italy took another 10 minutes to reduce its import of energy.

The largest blackout recorded in the history of the United States originated in Ohio in August 2003. A cocktail of technical failures and human errors caused great power oscillations that left eight states of the northeast and part of Ontario (Canada) without supply.

The incident lasted four days in most of the US and more than a week in some ontarium areas. According to him Final Report Prepared by the two affected countries, this blackout was a cost of between 4,000 and 10,000 million dollars for the US economy. Canada suffered losses worth 0.7% of its GDP. The same analysis cited lack of maintenance, poor formation, poor vegetation management and a late reaction between the factors that contributed to the problem.

Other European blackouts

A compilation of 478 severe blackouts registered in Europe in the last thirty years places the episode of Monday at the head of the contine The instability of the network are usually more severe. In addition, there are more blackouts in high demand schedules.

The following map can consult its location, the cause of the event and, in the cases available, the number of households affected.