Irish Examiner view: Blackout should remind us to prepare

A man and a child walk through a local market during a massive power cut in Vigo, northwestern Spain, on Monday. Picture: Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty

The power outage in Spain, Portugal, and some parts of France earlier this week was a frightening event in and of itself, but it should also serve as a timely call for Ireland. The scale of the outage was unprecedented. On Monday, Spain’s power grid lost 15GW, or the equivalent of 60% of its national demand, in just five seconds.

The suddenness and scale have led inevitably to speculation about the cause, with Spanish government officials specifically refuting suggestions of a cyber-attack — though their cause was not initially aided by the contradictory explanations on offer, with both atmospheric issues and heat in the country’s interior being blamed.