Where a power outage is not unusual: "We pay the same and we live in a third-world country."

GironaThe general blackout Monday, which left millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula without electricity or mobile phone coverage for hours, was an absolutely historic and exceptional day. However, not for everyone, as in several rural areas of Catalonia, far from large cities, some residents are accustomed to dealing with prolonged power outages on a more or less regular basis. These are small mountain or coastal villages, isolated rural farmhouses, or residential areas far from the city center that occasionally lose power due to an incident in the grid. They represent a small percentage of the population who, despite paying the same as the rest for services, have long since grown accustomed to living with generators, wood fires, lanterns, and gas stoves in their back pocket.

This is the case of Molló (Ripollès), a town of fewer than 400 inhabitants, north of the Camprodon Valley, where power outages lasting half a day or an entire day are recorded approximately once a month. They are often scheduled shutdowns for infrastructure maintenance (like the one planned for next Monday, when part of the neighborhood will be without power for five hours), but power outlets also stop working unexpectedly when the weather is bad and a fallen tree damages the cables or antennas in the area. Furthermore, when the power goes out, it often leads to the loss of telephone coverage, as happened in Catalonia on Monday, making it very difficult to contact them for assistance.

"We feel abandoned"

"The media hype is enormous when a situation like this happens in big cities, but in rural areas we've been used to it for a long time. We feel abandoned and unheard, but at the same time we're more prepared and adapted, since people have candles, firewood, gas... We've learned to have alternatives because, if not, you can have a very bad time," explains Josep Coml. Paradoxically, on Monday they were among the first to have power restored, but coverage, on the other hand, didn't return until 48 hours later: "The feeling of abandonment is total. When Civil Protection considered that the majority of the population already had coverage, the emergency was closed, literally saying that only a few cases remained." residuals like ours," the mayor certifies.

Eva Martínez, a resident of Espinavell, a town in the same municipality, criticizes the discriminatory treatment of large companies towards the rural world: "It's as if it were our fault for having decided to go and live in the mountains, as if we didn't have the same rights or pay the bill. idyllic, but you live in a permanent situation of precariousness, with the feeling of needing the famous kit of the European Union's survival plan, thinking of alternative methods to avoid being stranded." Martínez, who has installed solar panels and batteries to be self-sufficient, is also in charge of her father, a dependent person with Alzheimer's, so the recurring power cuts represent an added headache, "Obviously without electricity. My father, when the power goes out and the clocks or appliances don't work, he worries and everything is a mess," she concludes.

The farmers opt for a backup generator

In addition to a few specific small towns, the situation is also complicated in some remote farmhouses or rural homes, where electricity companies must specifically send the grid. Carme Rosset, a farmer from Vilademuls who runs two pig and cattle farms with her son, complains that five or six times a year she is left without power for hours due to lack of maintenance of the facilities: "People want their farms away from roads and urban centers so we don't disturb them, but then companies don't make the investments. We milk and the cattle suffer, so we have no other solution than to have generators or generate electricity with the tractor," she laments. And she criticizes: "We live in a third-world country, farmers pay the same taxes, but we have to spend more money than the rest to have electricity. I had to spend 100,000 euros on a generator and I have to make sure I don't run out of diesel."

Aside from mountain towns like Molló, coastal areas have historically also experienced power supply problems, especially during the summer, when the population grows exponentially due to sun and beach tourism, and sometimes the electrical infrastructure is insufficient to meet such high demand. This was an endemic problem on the Girona coast until 2023, when the mayors of Palamós, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Platja d'Aro, and Calonge met with Endesa, with the mediation of the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government), demanding urgent action to reverse the situation. Since then, the situation has improved substantially, and hardly any incidents were reported last summer.

Power outages in a residential area of 1,500 inhabitants

Large, remote residential areas, with outdated facilities and population growth that hasn't been matched by service improvements, are among the other areas that sometimes experience setbacks. This is the case, for example, in the Santa Coloma Residencial area, home to some 1,500 people, 3 km from Santa Coloma de Farners. Last December, they suffered repeated power outages lasting days on end due to a lack of power from the transformer that supplies them. "Everything here is electric: cooking, heating, hot water... With the general blackout on Monday, everyone saw the inconveniences of not having electricity, but we already suffered it at Christmas, when it was much colder and it got dark earlier," explains Cristina González, president of the neighborhood association. "Since not everyone in the neighborhood went out, most residents organized themselves by going to nearby houses of friends or relatives who did have electricity to cook or take hot showers." Following the problems in December, residents put a lot of pressure on the City Hall, involved the ombudsman, and met with Endesa. So far (apart from Monday's), only one more outage has been recorded in the last three months. However, some residents remain skeptical, prepared to wait for a repeat incident and have already started looking into where to buy generators.