Blackout in Spain and Portugal 'first of its kind', report finds

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A power surge that caused a widespread blackout in Spain and Portugal was the "most severe" in Europe in the last 20 years, and the first of its kind, a report has found.

Damian Cortinas, president of the association of electricity grid operators Entso-e, said the incident was the first known blackout to be caused by overvoltage, which occurs when there is too much electrical voltage in a network.

"This is new territory," Cortinas said, adding the role of Entso-e was "not to apportion blame to any party" over the cause.

A series of "cascading overvoltages" - an increase in the electrical supply voltage above the established norm - was behind the outage, it concluded. Overvoltage can be caused by surges in networks due to oversupply or lightning strikes, or when protective equipment is insufficient.

Source: Wikipedia