The electric blackout in Spain (Peninsular, Portugal and parts of the south of France), an ‘energy zero’ of magnitude never seen in Europe, is the cover issue of the national media. The reasons for the ruling are still unknown, but over the hours The alleged cyber attack is diluted and the idea of the multicausal technical failure is taking shape.
Spain is recovering normality and the time to write this article the main operator of the electrical system, Red Eléctrica de España, together with the large supply companies, says they recovered 99.5% of demandabout 25,794 MW. While technicians comment that there may be specific problems when recovering a network from zero to one hundred percent, the worst has already happened and a replica like the one we suffer yesterday is not predictable.
Although there are still transport problems (especially in the railway and the vicinity), road mobility presents large jams in large cities to get to work and there are still hundreds of people who yesterday were thrown into different points, throughout this day the situation must be normalized.
The “anguish” produced by a global energy blackout is not taken away from anyone and there is no need to quantify the economic losses of citizens and companies, but it must be said that The disaster recovery protocols of the Electric Red have workedreactivating in phases and by order of priority the critical points that begin by the electrical plants of combined and hydroelectric cycle. And, although it has become eternal for many citizens, technically the recovery time has been reasonable.
Cyber attack in the electric blackout in Spain?
A situation of energy zero, something that had not happened in Europe until now, is land paid for misinformation. Fortunately, as yesterday we could “rest” from social networks many hours because of the blackout, the diffusion of the bulles was limited. But there were …
An example: the information that said “The CNI had detected a great unusual activity from North Africa” Days before the blackout, it is completely false. Nor was it true that there would be “Registered no fire” In the line between the French cities of Perpiñán and Narbona, which some information had pointed out as the cause of the blackout.
Today the bulos and theories of conspiracy will follow. Also attempts on online scams that are already circulating taking advantage of the blackout. Make sure the information is truthful. The only certain thing is that at this time “There is no conclusive information about the reasons for these cuts”as explained last night the president of the Spanish Government, who requested “Not specular”and inform themselves from official media.
However, the executive head He did not rule out “No hypothesis” on the causes of «A very strong oscillation of the potency of networks» that, at 12:33 h and for five seconds, «15 Gigawatios (GW) of the electricity network disappeared suddenly»which is equivalent to 60% of all the energy that was being consumed at that time in Spain.
Although all hypotheses are open and the National Cni Cryptological Center is investigating it, Right now there is no evidence that a cyber attack has been. It must be said that critical infrastructure is the point of the view of cybercriminals, and the Spanish electricity grid (and that of any country), hundreds of intrusion attempts that are neutralized. From the Vice Presidency of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera, it has been ensured that “There is nothing to indicate that the mass blackout in Spain and Portugal has been intentioned”.
And that is what we know until now while the country continues to recover normality. We insist: do not spread bulos and confirm the information from official media. Of course, over time the precise answers of everything that happened and also of a complete and technical study of what is right now is the ‘Energy Island’ of southern Europe. With the problem that this means and that must be addressed in the future.
UPDATE:
Eduardo Prieto, director of Red Electrico Services has assured at a press conference that It can be ruled out that the electric blackout in Spain is due to a “Cybersecurity incident”. Although the investigation has not yet been finished, “We have been able to conclude that there has not been any intrusion in the electrical network control system”.
