UK energy operator probes unexplained power plant outages just hours before Spain & Portugal blackouts

BRITAIN’s electricity grid operator is investigating mystery outages in the UK’s system hours before Spain and Portugal were plunged into blackouts.

The control room staff at the National Energy System Operator (Neso) noticed suspicious activity on Sunday.

ReutersPower lines connecting pylons of high-tension electricity in Ronda, Spain[/caption] A worker assists a customer with a torch at a supermarket during a power outage which hit large parts of Spain AlamyTravellers were stranded amid travel chaos[/caption]

It confirmed there were unexpected shifts in the power frequency in the early morning and the evening.

A steady frequency within certain limits is vital to keeping power flowing.

The first problem in the UK, around 2am, was an outage at the Keadby 2 gas-fired power plant in Lincolnshire.

That was followed by the unexplained failure of the Viking Link interconnector between the UK and Denmark.

Neso, which manages the British grid, told The Telegraph that officials are investigating the cause.

It comes as power was almost fully restored to Spain and Portugal on Tuesday.

Many questions remain about what caused one of Europe’s most severe blackouts.

Spain’s grid operator on Tuesday ruled out a cyberattack as the cause.

Authorities were still trying to establish the cause of the crisis, with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pleading with people “not to speculate” and avoid spreading “misinformation”.

“With the analysis that we have been able to carry out up to now, we can rule out a cybersecurity incident in the facilities” of national grid operator Red Electrica, its director of operations Eduardo Prieto told a news conference.

“There was no type of intrusion in Red Electrica’s control systems that may have caused the incident,” he added.

After the authorities worked tirelessly during the night to restore power progressively across Spain, Prieto said the electric system had been “normalised” and “working in a stable and correct way”.

Portuguese grid operator REN denied on Tuesday it was behind a message circulated on social media attributing the blackout to a rare atmospheric event.

The message in Portuguese said there was a “fault” in the Spanish electricity grid linked to “abnormal oscillations were recorded in the very high-voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’.”

“REN confirms we did not put out this statement,” spokesman Bruno Silva told AFP, without giving further details.