Power outage reported between France and Spain on 24 July 2021

As reported from ENTSO-e website, on Saturday, 24 July 2021, due to a major incident originated in France, France and Spain were disconnected at 16:36 CEST and were brought back into normal operation by the responsible TSOs of Spain and France at 17:09 CEST.

Investigation and verification are currently ongoing on whether the forest fire along the line route was the root cause of the event.

During the disturbance, the frequency deviation of the large part of the Continental Europe was kept within a narrow margin between 49.96 and 50.07 Hz, whereas in the Iberian Peninsula the deviation was more substantial and involved further emergency measures according to the predefined plans. The load and customers which were disconnected in the Iberian Peninsula after 16:36 CEST, were again connected and re-supplied after 17:09 CEST.

REE later communicated via a first Twitter post that an incident with a seaplane has generated a problem in the French very high voltage network, causing the temporary disconnection of the peninsula from the rest of Europe. The problem was solved, as affirmed bu the Spanish TSO, by restoring the interconnection and the affected electricity supply.

Then, with a second Tweet, REE stated that 36 minutes after the incident occurred, the first interconnection line with France was restored. At 5:33 p.m., the interconnection was fully coupled and at 5:38 p.m. the supply was recovered throughout the system.

To read the full article:

https://www.ree.es/es/sala-de-prensa/actualidad/nota-de-prensa/2021/07/comunicado-red-electrica-repuesto-el-suministro-electrico