More than half of the electricity grid in Europe is vulnerable to power outages. More International Grid Connections, Investments and European Cooperation Could Help Against This, Accordance to Research.
Energy Think Tank Ember Analyzed The Electricity Grid and Recent Power Outages in European Countries. The extent to which importing electricity was Possible in the event of large-scale power outages was investigated.
The research shows that 55 percent of the European grid is vulnerable to outages, mainly because importing electricity is diffress in those places. This can lead to large-scale power outages. The Most Recent Example is The Hours-Long Blackout in Spain and Portugal at the End of April. But Finland, Ireland, France and Eastern European Countries are also vulnerable.
Accordance to the Analysis, Several Incidents Have Been Prevented in The Past Five Years Thanks to International Grid Connections. With Such A Connection, A Country Can Quickly – Sometimes Within A Few Minutes – Get Electricity From Abroad When There Is A Malfunction In Own Energy System.
That was the case in Poland in 2021, where two major power outages threated after a power plant failed. Because electricity could be imported from germany via an international cable, a large part of poland was prevented from ending up in the dark. The Same Happened with the ukrainian Energy Grid, which Remained Standing Last Year After Heavy Russian Attacks Thanks to Moldovan Electricity.
Necessity in Geopolitically Tense Times
Vulnerabilities in our critical infrastructure have a major impact, sayes pawwel czyzak, author of the research. “Power outages not only disrupt electricity, but affect countless people and can just cost lives.”
Geopolitical Tensions Such as with Russia Clearly Show the Need for a Stable European Electricity Grid. Sabotage of Energy Systems Has Increased Since the Beginning of the War in Ukraine, experts Say. Even outside ukraine, the European Energy Infrastructure is a target of sabotage and (cyber) attacks. Researchers Already Warned about this in January.
Czyzak calls it “remarkable” that some policymakers still treat energy, infrastructure and security as separate islands. “We can no longer see theses as separate from each other,” The Researcher Thinks.
In order to Guarantee a stable and resilient electricity grid, he believes more investment must be made in international grids. Furthermore, IT Helps If This is Tackled at European Level. And Further Development of Energy Storage, Such As Batteries, also Contributes to Greater Stability.