Power Failure in Germany Triggers Blackouts in Europe (Update1)

By Maria Sheahan and Francois de Beaupuy

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Power failure in a German electricity grid operated by E.ON AG caused blackouts across western Europe last night, depriving millions of homes of electricity, disrupting trains and risking outages to hospitals and airports.

About 5 million households in France went without power for as much as an hour in the nation's biggest outage since 1978, Andre Merlin, the director of Reseau de Transport d'Electricite, France's power-grid operator, told the press today.

Overall, some 10 million households across Belgium, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Eastern Europe may have been affected, Merlin said. The grid failure in Germany led to the biggest pan- European power collapse in at least 30 years through a domino effect that swept through Western and Eastern Europe, he said.

``The main risk was a total blackout in Germany which could have spread to the rest of Europe,'' Merlin said. ``The likelihood of a significant incident is very weak,'' he said, adding ``a blackout is always possible, but we do everything to avoid it.''

E.ON, Germany's biggest utility, said today it may have triggered the blackouts by disconnecting a high-voltage power line over the river Ems in northwest Germany to let a ship pass safely, which in turn led a power grid in the region to overload.

`Priority Customers'

An automated safety system then went into play, selectively blocking power representing about 8 percent to 10 percent of electricity consumption in countries like France, Italy and Spain to safeguard ``priority customers, especially hospitals,'' Merlin said on today's conference call.

``This loss of production had to be quickly compensated for by a reduction in electricity consumption, not only in Germany but in the whole of Europe,'' Merlin said. Selective cuts ``allowed us to avoid a total blackout across the whole of France for several hours or days.''

Dusseldorf, Germany based E.ON is investigating the cause of the failure and will publish a statement ``as soon as there are more precise findings.'' The lights went out in many regions of Europe at 10:10 p.m., and power was restored by 11 p.m., E.ON said in a statement e-mailed today.

In Germany, Cologne-Bonn airport lost power and had to rely on an emergency generator, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported, citing a spokesman for the Cologne city government. The German rail system also suffered, with at least 100 trains stranded carrying more than 1,000 people, Agence France-Presse reported.

In France, the power cut stopped a dozen high-speed trains for about half an hour, according to SNCF, France's national train operator. French fire brigades were called to help free people from lifts, AFP said.

European Inquiry?

Italy's energy authority will call for an inquiry by the European Union's Council of European Energy Regulators, which is due to meet on Nov. 7, Ansa reported, citing the regulator's Chairman Alessandro Ortis. Power was cut in parts of the Italian regions of Piedmont, Liguria and Puglia, La Repubblica said.

The power outage also affected Austria, Croatia and the Netherlands, according to press reports. Parts of the Belgian regions of Flanders and Wallonia were affected, while Brussels was spared the blackout, Belga reported, citing an official from Sibelga, which distributes electricity in the Belgian capital.

``Consumption wasn't very high last night,'' Merlin said. France was importing 3,200 megawatts from Germany last night, while exporting almost treble that amount of electricity to the U.K., Belgium, Switzerland and Italy.

Call for Reinforcements

The head of France's power-grid operator couldn't immediately assess the cost of the incident, and couldn't say whether it would lead to litigation. He called for the creation of a Europe-wide electricity network coordination center which would supplement the role of national grid operators.

``Infrastructures aren't obsolete, though they need to be reinforced'' as European electricity consumption grows by 1.5 percent to 2 percent per year, Merlin said. ``We need more interconnections.''

Italy in September 2003 had its biggest blackout since World War II, which left almost 56 million people without electricity for as long as 18 hours after a tree struck a power line in Switzerland. Critics said at the time the blackout may have been exacerbated by Swiss grid operators failing to warn Italian utilities on time.

RWE AG, Germany's largest power producer, last year suffered at least 10 million euros ($12.7 million) in damages from snow storms that caused blackouts for about 250,000 people in western Germany. Storms and snow toppled pylons and iced power lines in North Rhine-Westphalia.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maria Sheahan in Frankfurt at msheahan1@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: November 5, 2006 12:09 EST