Spanish grid blackout risks remain, Endesa CEO says

The widespread 'blackout' that affected Spain and Portugal last year could be repeated under similar circumstances, according to the CEO of Endesa, who blamed the Spanish grid operator REE, for the outage.

On April 28, last year, Europe's biggest blackout in over two decades paralyzed cities and left passengers stranded aboard trains throughout Portugal and Spain.

After the outage, grid operators increased the use of stable power generation, such as?gas plants. This helps better control voltage, but increases costs. REE is owned and operated by Redeia, in which the government owns a 20% stake.

Endsa CEO Jose Bogas said at a hearing of a Senate committee on Thursday that a blackout could occur without additional power generation because the grid might not be able to handle a surge in electricity.

Bogas said that Spain's energy policy is good, but it should be better implemented.

An investigation by the government last summer found that REE's failure in calculating the correct energy mix?could possibly have caused the blackout. The government also blamed conventional power plants that used coal, gas or nuclear energy for not maintaining the appropriate voltage in the power grid on that day.

Redeia's spokesperson declined to comment Thursday.

REE's own report, published in June on the blackout, stated that they disagreed that the energy mix was incorrectly calculated but that certain privately owned?thermal plants failed to maintain a suitable voltage during the lead-up to outage.

The company also stated that it had detected anomalies with the disconnecting of power plants prior to the outage without naming the plants.

Bogas informed the committee that Endesa power plants did not violate any rules or disconnect improperly on that particular day. He said there were signs of instability in the months and the hours leading up to the blackout.

He told the senators that REE was responsible for ensuring the stability of the system.

The outage cost Endesa around 200 million Euros due to fixed-price contracts which prevented Endesa passing on increased costs to its customers.

Both the Spanish government and the European network of electricity Transmission System Operators, as well as the competition watchdog in Spain, have begun their own investigations. This latter will report its findings in the second half of this year.

(source: Reuters)