A European committee of experts will investigate the causes of the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula.
Red Eléctrica assures that it has already provided the Spanish government with the "millions of data" requested.
BarcelonaThe European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) announced this Thursday the creation of a committee of experts to investigate the causes of the "very exceptional and serious incident" that caused the power outage in Spain and Portugal last Monday. The group's objective is to investigate "the root causes" of this unprecedented episode and prepare a comprehensive analysis of the events. According to the organization's statement, the result will be "a comprehensive report with all the technical details of the incident" that will include recommendations for the countries.
The committee will be chaired by operators who were not directly affected by the massive power outage, although it will include other European experts who were involved in the incident. National Regulatory Authorities and the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) will also be invited to participate in this panel of experts.
The network must submit regularly updated information to the European Commission and the Member States. According to European sources, the first technical report must be submitted within six months, and the final version must be delivered before the 2025 annual incident report, which is normally published in September 2026. In parallel, the "rapid recovery of electricity systems" in the Iberian Peninsula and praised "the cooperation" of transmission grid operators in recent years. "Starting from a zero situation in the Iberian Peninsula's electricity system, the rapid and full restoration of supply in Portugal and Spain has demonstrated the high level of preparation and efficiency of the transmission grid operators involved, with the support and collaboration of the French operator RTE and the Moroccan electricity company ONEE," the network stated in the statement.
European Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen welcomed the creation of the expert group. "Now that power has been fully restored, it is essential to determine the cause of the incident," said the commissioner, adding that "improvement measures must be based on objective data."
The reconstruction of the incident
The investigation into the causes of the blackout is progressing, but data collection will take time, as the commission created by the Spanish government has requested additional information from electricity companies. Pedro Sánchez's administration has asked the electricity companies to provide full details of the timing of the blackout—if there was any indication that such an extraordinary event could occur—and of the process of restoring power. The Ministry of Ecological Transition has requested in writing from the companies all information from the hours leading up to it and reported that it has received "much" of the data requested so far, but not all. "We want to know where we were before it happened, what happened during it, and what happened afterward," stressed Third Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen.
Red Eléctrica, the operator of the Spanish electricity system, confirmed this Thursday afternoon that it has completed the delivery of all the data requested by the commission created by the Spanish government to investigate the causes of last Monday's blackout. In this regard, she emphasized that the black box, which records all the information related to the system's operation, "represents a contingent of millions of data points," originating both from the system's operational activity on the day of the blackout and from the company's other IT systems.
The First Vice President of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, assured this Thursday that the executive "will get to the truth" about the causes of the power outage in Spain last Monday and asked for "patience to know the results." For her part, the Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, assured that, when the causes are known, "multi-million dollar" liability will be demanded. "From Beatriz Corredor or whoever it may be," she added in an interview on La 1, referring to the president of Red Eléctrica.