The Spanish government on Tuesday presented the findings of an investigative commission established to determine the causes of the blackout, revealing that the power collapse was due to a “combination of factors” that caused a significant voltage overload on the Spanish electrical grid, which the system was unable to control or absorb, despite having adequate response infrastructure.
The executive attributed responsibility to “poor planning” by Red Eléctrica de España (REE) and failures in the responses required from energy-producing companies, with suspicions of non-compliance with protocols provided for voltage overload situations.
Today, REE presented the conclusions of its internal inquiry into the blackout at a press conference in Madrid with the company’s top officials.
“If the generators obligated to comply with dynamic voltage control—the generators connected to the system at the time of the incident—had complied, there would have been no blackout,” said the Director-General of Operations at Red Eléctrica, Concha Sánchez.
According to the REE, the blackout resulted from a series of circumstances that accumulated and resulted in a voltage overload problem leading to the cascade shutdown of energy production facilities.
REE’s inquiry concluded that significant oscillations in the system were recorded starting at 12:03 local time on April 28 (half an hour before the blackout), with the first apparently being “forced” and resulting from possible internal anomalies in a production unit.
Subsequently, according to REE, production losses occurred in the system as units were disconnected “incorrectly.”
The first oscillation occurred at a photovoltaic facility in Badajoz, which was connected to the electricity transmission grid at the time, revealed REE, without providing further details.
This was followed by generation shutdowns that led to the total blackout, with the first occurring in the Granada area and being conducted “incorrectly,” breaching obligations since at that time the system voltage was “completely within legally established limits.”
Thus, according to REE, these initial “unjustified” disconnections of production units, coupled with the lack of overload absorption required from electricity generators, led to voltage overloads beyond normal limits and the blackout, with no possibility to activate system defense and balance mechanisms.
REE rejected the notion of “poor planning” by the company in the days and hours leading up to the blackout, as pointed out by the Spanish government, arguing that the collapse could have been avoided if companies with production units had fulfilled the obligations they had on that day, as requested by the operator.
Neither the report presented by the Spanish government nor the investigation by REE disclosed the names of the companies involved, citing legal confidentiality issues in both cases.
