By Rannveig Loken, Norway
France, Paris: A power blackout briefly hit parts of Paris on due to a technical incident at a substation, southwest of the French capital. The outage halted a few metro and suburban trains, initially leaving some 170,000 households without electricity, but power was quickly restored.
Cuba, Havana: A partial collapse left capital Havana and much of western Cuba in the dark, that left millions suffering from prolonged blackouts. Cuba experiencing daily blackouts extending as much as 20 hours or more. Havana faces 10 hours or more without electricity each day.
Brazil, Sao Paulo December 11, 2025: More than 1 400 000 residents had no electricity after strong winds of about 100 km/h, caused several trees to collapse onto the Brazilian metropolis’ grid. 231 trees have fallen due to an extratropical cyclone formed in the south of Brazil.
USA, San Francisco December 22, 2025: A blackout affected about 130,000 residents in the California city of around 800,000 people. Waymo’s autonomous vehicles started malfunctioning when they didn’t have traffic signals to look at. The cars are designed to treat each intersection as a four-way stop, and the scale of the outage meant that vehicles remained stationary longer than usual to confirm the state of the intersections affected.
Ukraine, Kyiv January 9, 2026: Russian drone attacks plunged two southeastern regions into near-total blackout overnight, about 900 000 households. Twenty-nine apartment buildings were damaged and more than 70,000 remained without power.
German, Berlin: A blaze destroyed a cable duct over a canal, cutting off power in about 45,000 households and more than 2,000 businesses in southwestern districts of Berlin at a time of freezing temperatures. Left-wing militant activists claimed responsibility for the attack on the power station that caused the longest electricity blackout in Berlin since World War Two.
Japan, Tokyo: A railway power outage in Tokyo disrupted the morning commute for roughly 673,000 passengers as two main lines servicing some of the world’s busiest stations were halted. A failure to restore power after overnight maintenance work left both lines without electricity early.
Brazil, Sao Paulo January 20, 2025: A blackout in Sao Paulo and municipalities in the metropolitan region left more than 130 000 consumers without electricity supply. Heavy rains and strong winds caused damage to the power grid in different municipalities within its concession area.
Ukraine, Kyiv January 22, 2026: Russia has long targeted Ukraine’s energy system, but the attacks have intensified in recent months, inflicting heavy damage on networks and knocking out power and heating to large parts of the population. The latest difficulties were caused by a series of factors, constant shelling as well as damage to generating equipment and transformers. Two nights of strikes on the capital Kyiv have cut power to thousands of apartment buildings. Ukraine’s energy system endured its most difficult day since a widespread blackout hit the network in November 2022.
USA, Texas January 25, 2026: Because of the freezing that occurred overnight, ice-coated branches of trees close to power lines and limbs snaped and broke down lines beneath them. Half an inch if ice can add as much as 500 pounds of extra weight to power lines. Thousands of Texans were without power after a winter storm bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain.
USA, January 25, 2026: A massive winter storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow across much of the USA, bringing subzero temperatures and halting air and road traffic. Tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and about 100 000 homes and businesses in the Southeast were left without electricity. About 11,500 flights were cancelled and more than 16,000 delayed.
Ukraine, Kyiv February 4, 2026: Repair crews are working to restore power in Kyiv following widespread deadly Russian attacks targeting the country’s energy sector with more than 100.000 homes without power. Residents have been forced to spend the night sheltering in Kyiv’s metro stations, with some pitching tents on the platforms to protect them from the freezing cold.
New Zealand: Heavy rain and strong winds disrupted flights, trains and ferries, forcing the closure of roads across large parts of New Zealand’s North Island, while snapping power links to tens of thousands. More than 30,000 properties were without power, including about 10,000 customers in Wellington. Raw sewage discharged after this month’s failure of Wellington’s main wastewater treatment plant in a storm was washed back onto the south coast by the weekend storm, in an incident some residents called a “poonami” on social media
Paraguay, Asuncion: Some key transmission lines tripped and led to blackout of the power across Paraguay. The cause of the outage is under investigation. The blackout led to chaos for drivers in the capital, where traffic lights suddenly went dark. Paraguay faced a heatwave with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
USA, Massachusetts February 24, 2026: Power outages hit more than 290,000 homes and businesses across Massachusetts as a storm swept through the area. Wind was a major issue with this storm, with peak wind gusts reaching 83 mph. In addition, the heavy, wet snow brought down trees and power lines
Biography:
Rannveig J. S. Loken – Head of Protection department, Statnett, Norway, CIGRE TC Chair.
Received her Master of Science in Electric Power engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 1992. She works in Statnett, the TSO of Norway, currently Head of Protection department in Statnett. In August 2024 she became the TC Chair of CIGRE. Her special field of interest is protection and control for the transmission system. In addition, working in Cigre Working groups is of great interest – she is currently a member of WG B5.86. Rannveig is in the Advisory board of PAC world, Committee member of IET DPSP, and Member of the International Advisory Committee APAP.
