By Rannveig Loken, Norway
Ukraine – 22 March 2024: The main 750 kilovolt (kV) “Dniprovska” power line supplying Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was down for more than three hours. The six reactors at the Zaporizhzhia plant, are not in operation but it relies on external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a catastrophic accident.
Chile, Santiago, 6 June 2024: Around 428,000 customers in Santiago, Chile, faced a significant power outage after a fallen tree severely damaged a high-voltage transmission tower in Santiago’s southeastern region. It caused a failure in the 110 kV Florida – Ochagavia line. This incident impacted power consumption at the Macul, Santa Elena, San Joaquin, and Club Hípico substations. The disruption caused an estimated loss of 260 MW of consumption, equivalent to about 10% of Santiago’s total demand.
Uganda, Kampala, 7 June 2024: Uganda suffered a rare nationwide electricity blackout for several hours. The grid shutdown happened during the testing the newly completed 600 megawatt Karuma hydro power plant, on the Nile River in the country’s north. The national blackout was registered following a load rejection test at the Karuma hydro power plant. Uganda has an installed power generation capacity of 2,000 MW.
San Juan, Puerto Rico – 12 June 2024: A widespread power outage hit Puerto Rico, leaving more than 340,000 customers without electricity after two of the U.S. territory’s power plants shut down. The capital of San Juan was left without power, as well as neighbouring municipalities including Bayamon, Caguas and Carolina. Luma Energy, which operates transmission and distribution for Puerto Rico’s power authority, said on X that the outage was tied to an issue with the power plants’ transmission lines.
New Delhi, India – 17 June 2024: A power outage lasting several minutes at India’s busiest airport in Delhi caused minor disruptions to some services within the terminal. The power back-up system was started within a few minutes and the main power supply was restored shortly after. Air conditioners in the terminal stopped working during the outage which lasted about 7 minutes but were restored soon after.
Quito, Ecuador – 19 June 2024: A full blackout occurred in the Ecuadorian power system. The massive power outage, affecting a population of 18.0 million (4000 MW), started with a fault in a double transmission line 230 kV caused by burning cane under the line. Automated actions by SIPS were not initiated to prevent the blackout because the trip of the transmission line was not simultaneous. A series of cascading events provoked a voltage collapse in six minutes by heavy loading of the Ec
Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania, Croatia – 21 June 2024: A major voltage collapse hit Montenegro, Bosnia, Albania and most of Croatia’s coast, followed by a total blackout in the area. Just before the incident, the affected area was importing about 2000 MW from neighbouring countries and exporting 417 MW to Italy through the HVDC sub-sea cable between Montenegro and Italy (Monita). Within a short period of time, two unexpected tripping of overhead lines occurred. Immediately after the second tripping, the voltage started to drop in a wide area. These voltage drops continued until they reached such low levels to cause high currents and further low voltages on many lines in the region. This triggered protection devices to disconnect these lines, resulting in the separation of the affected area from the Continental Europe power system. The affected area continued to experience a voltage decrease as well as a frequency drop. Finally, this led to a blackout in the affected area. After the disruption of electricity supply, the affected TSOs worked together in a coordinated effort to restore the voltage on the 400 kV grid, which was restored in less than 3 hours. Subsequently, the power to local load was restored shortly thereafter.
Manchester, United Kingdom – 23 June 2024: Britain’s Manchester Airport had a power outage that caused widespread disruption at Terminals 1 and 2. Power was restored but services was affected throughout the day, and flights were affected.
Houston, TX, USA – 8 July 2024: Roughly 2.2 million customers lost power after the Category 1 hurricane struck the Houston area on July 8. CenterPoint restored power to 1 million in the first 48 hours and finished restoring power to all remaining customers who are able to receive power on July 20.
Florida, USA – 6 august 2024: Hurricane Debby drenched northern Florida and killed several people and caused a week of torrential downpours and flooding across the region. More than 350.000 homes and businesses in Florida were without power due to Hurricane Debby. 3,000 out-of-state crews were assisting its Florida team with outage restoration
Frankfurt, Germany – 6 August 2024:Parts of Frankfurt airport suffered a power outage because of a technical defect at an external substation nearby. The backup power supply was activated and flights at Germany’s busiest hub were not affected.
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