Spain suffered a historic large-scale blackout, with 15GW of power generation capacity disconnected from the grid within five seconds, causing the Iberian Peninsula power system to collapse

On April 29, Spain and Portugal experienced a serious power system accident, with a large-scale power outage in the Iberian Peninsula, and the impact extended to Andorra and southern France. According to a report by Red Eléctrica de España, a Spanish power grid company, 15GW of power generation capacity in the region was suddenly disconnected from the grid within five seconds, causing the Spanish power system to be urgently separated from the European interconnected power grid, equivalent to 60% of the country's total load at the time.

 

The accident occurred at 12:30 local time. As of 23:00 that day, about 50% of the power supply had been restored, but full restoration is expected to take 6-10 hours. Experts pointed out that with the increase in the proportion of renewable energy, the reduction in inertia of the power grid system and the increase in volatility, the resilience and backup capacity of the Iberian Peninsula power grid need to be strengthened urgently.