A massive power outage that left much of Spain and Portugal without electricity for about 10 hours this spring is fuelling renewed debate in Lithuania over energy security and resilience.
On April 28, a failure in the Iberian Peninsula’s grid shut down power across large parts of Spain and Portugal, disrupting telecommunications, transport systems and other critical infrastructure. Authorities have linked the incident to at least eight deaths.
The outage began with a generator failure that triggered voltage fluctuations, according to preliminary findings. That wave disconnected rooftop solar installations in Spain, which suddenly shifted from producing to consuming energy, adding roughly 9 gigawatts of demand. France then disconnected its cross-border line with Spain to protect its own system, further reducing supply. With little backup generation available, the peninsula – an “energy island” – went dark.
It showed how quickly the system can collapse when supply and demand fall out of balance, explained Gediminas Uloza, CEO of energy company E energija, who experienced the blackout firsthand during a business trip to Spain.
He advised conference participants in Vilnius to keep cash, an external battery and a paper map – because “Google Maps would not work” – handy in case of such emergencies.
Lithuania’s grid operator Litgrid says the country is better prepared thanks to recent investments made in preparation for synchronisation with continental Europe’s networks.
“We had to reorient our system from East to West, build new transmission lines and install synchronous compensators in each Baltic country,” said Donatas Matelionis, head of Litgrid’s system operations department. “We also have battery storage that could be used in a similar incident.”
Still, Matelionis warned that cyber and physical threats remain, and noted that Europe has already seen three large-scale power disruptions this year – an unusual uptick.
The April blackout was not caused by hacking, experts said. But past incidents, including a 2015 cyberattack on Ukraine’s grid, demonstrate the risks.
“A hybrid attack against an electric grid leaves people not just without electricity, but also without information, the worst thing in this kind of situation,” Uloza said, recalling that mobile networks and ride-hailing apps in Spain failed within hours of the outage. “You don’t know when, how and what will happen.”
Lithuania’s emergency services recommend households keep a battery-powered radio to receive news if both power and internet fail.
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