Substation in Granada identified as start-point of Spain blackout

• a day ago (2025-05-15)
• David Flin

Distribution 138 Europe 1115 Transmission 211

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Sara Aagesen, Spain’s Energy Minister, said that a failure at a substation in Granada, followed by failures seconds later in Badajoz and Seville triggered the extensive blackout across Spain and Portugal last month.

She said that the three initial incidents, whose cause has yet to be determined, led to a generation loss of 2.2 GW, which triggered a series of grid disconnections. She said that establishing the cause of the outage will take time. “We are analysing millions of pieces of data. We also continue to make progress in identifying where these generation losses occurred and we already know that they started in Granada, Badajoz, and Seville.”

A spokesperson for grid operator REE said Spain's main transmission grid had no incidents on 28 April before the blackout and the power loss "occurred due to causes outside" the grid, possibly at generation plants themselves or in smaller grids not managed by REE.

Aagesen said that the investigation is looking at reports by operators of volatility in the days before the blackout and is examining excessive voltage as one possible cause for the loss of generation. She said that investigators had ruled out any cyberattack on REE’s grid, an imbalance in supply and demand, or insufficient grid capacity.