By Rannveig Loken, Norway
29 May 2025, Texas, US: Severe weather swept through Central Texas bringing intense winds, large hail and flooding, 72,500 homes lost power at the height of the storm. Multiple structures were damaged including the dome of the state capitol building.
4 June 2025, Cuba, Havana: Cuba is the the nation with the most elderly population in Latin America and the Caribbean, with over one-quarter of the population aged over 60. An unexpected blackout in Havana led to power outage in the middle of the class dance with 30 or so of their friends and fellow seniors. They didn’t stop dancing because nothing could take away these moments of joy.
10 June 2025. Canaries’ La Palma, Spain: La Palma suffered a blackout caused by the failure of a generator at the Los Guinchos power plant in eastern La Palma. Power was restored two hours after.
23 June 2025, Chios, Greece: A state of emergency was declared on the Greek island of Chios where five separate wildfires were burning and being fanned by strong winds. Residents in 17 communities were evacuated, and there has been extensive damage to a number of houses and at least one distillery. The local power grid was damaged by the fires, causing outages in the wider Vrontados area.
23 June 2025, Venezuela: Venezuela’s second-largest refinery, the 310,000-barrel-per-day Cardon plant remained halted after a power blackout. Venezuela’s aging refining network has frequent outages after years on insufficient investment.
4 July 20205, Prague, Czech Republic: A power outage in large parts of the Czech Republic, including Prague, trapped people in public transport and lifts. This was caused by a transmission line fault and fault in Unit 6 of the 660 MW Ledvice power plant. This had knock-on effects, overburdening another transmission line and substation, and forcing part of the grid to operate as an island, cut off from other parts of the European grid .
3 July 2025, Crete, Greece: A major wildfire in eastern Crete forced the evacuation of about 5000 people and caused widespread damage to homes and businesses, as strong winds continue to hamper firefighting efforts.
4 August 2025, Ireland: Ireland was hit by strong winds brought on by Storm Floris. In the Republic of Ireland, about 10,000 properties were left without power. In Northern Ireland about 540 properties were without power. Several flights were cancelled to and from Belfast City and Dublin Airports as a result of the storm.
4 August 2025, Scotland: Storm Floris caused widespread disruption during an amber weather alert, with cancelled trains, flights and road closures. More than 71,000 households were without power in the Highlands, Moray and Aberdeenshire, in the north of Scotland.
4 August 2025, Beijing, China: Beijing evacuated more than 70,000 residents due to heavy rainfall. Up to 200mm of rain hit parts of Beijing over a six-hour period. The city of 22 million people receives on average 600mm of rainfall each year. The flooding caused part of the power system to be out of operation
11 August 2025, Bagdad, Iraq: A sudden shutdown at the Hamidiya power plant in the western province of Anbar led to a fault in the electricity transmission network. The outage hit the central and southern regions of the country while the temperature in the capital Baghdad reached a high of 47 degrees Celsius.
12 August 2025, United kingdom: Two separate field fires disrupted overhead power lines, resultingin a complete power outage to more than 500 homes in Rutland and Whissendine area.
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.
