2 days ago
Thousands hit as Czech see 6-hour blackout due to fallen cable, power nearly back
A power outage in large parts of the Czech Republic, including Prague, trapped people in public transport and lifts and idled factories on Friday after a fallen high-voltage cable disrupted the incident is likely to add to concerns about the resilience of Europe's power infrastructure after Spain suffered the worst blackout in its history in April and a fire knocked out the power supply to London's Heathrow airport in was a massive power outage in part of Prague and in the northern and eastern Czech Republic around 12 pm (1000 GMT) today," the Industry and Trade Ministry said. "The cause was the fall of a power cable, not a cyberattack nor a failure of renewable resources."
The outage was nearly fully resolved by 1600 halted international and local trains and public transport in several cities, including Prague, where the underground was briefly shut down and trams were at a halt for hours. About 1,000 mobile phone network stations were affected and ran on backup transmission system operator CEPS declared a nationwide state of emergency after the V411 transmission grid line and Unit 6 of the Ledvice power plant failed. It was not known what caused the power cable to had knock-on effects, overburdening another line and substation, and forcing part of the grid to operate as an island, cut off from other parts of the European Czech Republic has dozens of substations - facilities that convert electricity into different voltages so it can be transmitted throughout the country and distributed had earlier said the fallen line on the 45-kilometre high-voltage line in the northwest of the country had affected eight of these substations and caused blackouts in five of the Czech Republic's 14 fallen line, serving an area with lignite power plants, has been included in a modernisation plan and is due to be doubled in capacity by Ledvice 6 power plant, which was also affected, is a 660-megawatt, coal-fired plant built in 2017 and operated by CEZ. CEZ did not comment on the RESTOREDAll affected substations had power back before 1300 GMT, CEPS said, but distribution companies were working for more hours to restore supplies to Minister Petr Fiala told a briefing that about 2,000 customers remained without power just before 1600 GMT. He said around half a million had been affected the country, the outage caused 215 incidents involving people trapped in elevators, fire brigade spokesperson Lucie Pipis told Reuters, adding everyone had been prison authority said 13 prisons had lost power, but that security had not been compromised. Three large hospitals in Prague temporarily ran on backup Unipetrol's Czech refinery and chemical plant at Litvinov went into emergency shutdown, the company said on power supplies resumed, it began restarting operations, but said the process would take several days.- EndsMust Watch
