Spain excludes cyber attack

The Spanish network operator has turned off a cyber attack as a reason for the massive reduction in electricity that cripples Spain, Portugal and parts of France on Monday.

The Red Eléctrica Eduardo Prrito operating director said preliminary findings suggest that “no interference with control systems” implies an attack, sounding Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro last day.

But the exact cause of the incision is still unclear.

The network operator said on Tuesday that they “cannot draw conclusions” until they receive specific data. Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said investigators are trying to determine the cause and then take all the necessary measures “to ensure that this is not repeated.”

The information is imitated on what happened during the abbreviation, leading to theories of what could cause it. Experts told the BBC that it was probably caused by several failures.

Here’s what we know and what questions are left unanswered.

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Sanchez on Monday night said 15GW power – the equivalent of 60% of demand at the time – was “suddenly lost to the system … in just five seconds.”

Mr. Receive said during a press conference on Tuesday that there were two events to “interrupt the relationship” only in a second separately in the southwestern part of Spain, where there is significant production of solar energy.

One of the problems that the Spanish network operator may concern is when energy companies identify a mismatch of the supply and supply of electricity that could lead to instability and interrupt their connection to protect their systems.

However, Sanchez said later that the reduction of electricity “is not a problem of excessive renewable energy sources.” He said there is no failure of the coverage – which means supply – and in the days there is a relatively low demand for electricity, which is quite normal, which comes to the crisis.

So what exactly happened? It is not clear, especially since many systems fail in electricity supplies quite often, not only renewable energy sources, but interruptions on this scale occur somewhere around the world about once a year.

The mismatch between supply and demand for electricity can change the frequency of the electrical grid, which is 50Hz in Europe and the UK.

If this frequency changes from a narrow range, it can cause damage to the equipment.

“When a large company discovers that the frequency is exported from their tolerance, they can come out offline to protect their equipment,” said Prof. Hannah Kristensen of the University of Oxford.

If many companies do this in a quick order, this can have “cascading effects” and lead to redness, she added.

But when it comes to renewable energy sources, operators have very accurate short -term weather forecasts to predict when there will be excess solar energy, so they correct the power supply, said Prof. Christensen.

Renewable energy has different challenges to the energy of fossil fuels “because of its interruption,” she said, but this is a well -known problem that is planned.

“It is a little disturbing that this would not be foreseen,” she said.

Prof. Keith Bell of the University of Stratclid added that “if a system relies on solar and wind, they design a system that reflects this,” suggesting that additional energy supply from renewable energy will not be a surprise to the network.

“Spain has a lot of experience in wind and solar energy and a long -standing system for predicting time and its impacts,” he said.

“All types of systems fail,” he added. “Things can go wrong, whether it is from renewable energy sources, fossil fuels or nuclear energy. This can be the model of Swiss cheese where the holes in the system are aligned.”

Red Eléctrica also suggested that the power decline caused the interconnection between Spain and France to travel.

Two basic technologies are used to connect parts of a network or sides – a standard transmission line that carries alternating currents and increasingly directly direct high -voltage current lines.

Spain has a high -voltage line that came into operation seven years ago, which means it is well tested, said Prof. Bell.

The Iberian Peninsula is often called the “island of electricity” because it relies on only a few connections through the Pyrenees to France, which means it can be vulnerable to failure.

Sanchez said Power was returned online thanks to ties with France and Morocco, as well as sources of gas and hydropower.

Portugal grid operator Rehn denied his original reports attributed to the agency on Monday, which said the eclipse was caused by a rare atmospheric event.

A Portuguese message says that “due to extreme temperature changes in the interior or Spain, there are abnormal vibrations in the high voltage lines (400 kV), known as” induced atmospheric vibration “.

“These vibrations caused damage to synchronization between electrical systems, which led to consistent interference with the interconnected European network.”

Ren Bruno Silva spokesman, however, told AFP on Tuesday that the network operator “did not state this statement” without giving further details.