Paris – Damian Cortinas, president of the ENTSO-E council, which represents Europe’s electricity transmission system operators, described a recent outage as “the most severe that Europe has experienced in the last twenty years.” He noted that this incident is “the first of its kind” linked to “cascading overvoltages.”
“This has never happened before in Europe, and we are confident it hasn’t occurred anywhere else in the world,” he stated during a preliminary report presentation in Brussels on Friday.
Electrical voltage can be likened to the “pressure” in a water pipe; it determines the movement of electrons. When an “overvoltage” occurs, the electrical system must enact protective measures.
The outage took place on April 28, leading to significant disruption in Portugal and Spain, where residents lost access to electricity, as well as internet and mobile phone services.
This preliminary report, compiled by a group of 45 European experts, does not yet identify the causes of the initial incidents. (October 3, 2025)
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