Spain
New theory: Atmospheric phenomenon behind the power outage
Linnea BlombergUpdated 17.20 | Published 16.10
Suddenly, the power went out throughout Spain and Portugal.
Speculation has been about cyberattacks – but now the electricity network company REN announces that an atmospheric phenomenon seems to be behind the outage.
– A major reason could be that the demand for electricity increased significantly as a result of this, says meteorologist Lasse Rydqvist from Klart.
At lunchtime on Monday, power suddenly disappeared from all of Spanien and Portugal.
The extensive power outage affects up to 50 million people.
Spain's state cybersecurity company Incibe has investigated whether the power outage was caused by a cyberattack.
But during the afternoon, new information came. According to the Portuguese electricity company REN, an atmospheric phenomenon is behind the power outage.
"Vibrations"
The rare phenomenon is said to have caused "abnormal vibrations" in the high-voltage lines, and is caused by temperature changes."The vibrations caused synchronization errors between the electricity systems, which led to disturbances in the interconnected European grid," writes REN according to Reuters.
The weather theory has not been established, but there seems to be much that indicates that the temperature had something to do with the outage.
Meteorologist Lasse Rydqvist at Klart confirms that Spain has recently had "unstable weather".
- The meteorological factor I can see is the extreme temperature variations that have been happening now, mainly over the interior of Spain, he says.
For example, Cordoba, Spain had 38.8°C (new Spanish heat record for April) and Mora, Portugal 36.9°C (heat record for April for that location) yesterday. The high temperatures are due to extremely hot air from northern Africa.
- A major reason may be that the demand for electricity increased significantly as a result of this, says Lasse Rydqvist.
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