David Vance SubstackRead More
Did you see that the Spanish grid operator Red Electrica has ruled out a cyber attack as the cause of a massive power cut that crippled Spain, Portugal and parts of France on Monday?
Red Eléctrica’s operations director Eduardo Prieto said preliminary findings suggest “there was no kind of interference in the control systems” to imply an attack, echoing Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro the day before. But the exact reason behind the unprecedented cut is still unclear.
Yet Red Electrica warned two months ago that the use of renewable energy risked ‘disconnections’ in the system Red Eléctrica (REE) which is partly state-owned, protected itself from the market recognising the ‘short-term risk’ caused by the introduction of renewables into the system, El Mundo reports.
The firm also told investors that the reduction of power provided by nuclear or gas in the grid ‘increases the risk of operational incidents’, according to news outlet El Confidencial. I guess that the power crashing across the entire country would appear to be one of those “operational incidents”!
REE’s System Operations Chief Eduardo Prieto admitted that it was possible that solar power could be to blame for Monday’s outages. Naturally the UK media plays down that pesky detail.
All of this comes as the first fatalities from the disaster have been reported, with four people said to have been killed as a result of domestic medical ventilator failures.
A family of three were found dead in Taboadela, Ourense, La Voz de Galicia reported today as the grid managed to recover power across the nation. Civil Guard officers said they found the married couple, aged 81 and 77, and their 56-year-old son.
The silence concerning the actual cause of this continental black out is very dark
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