Brussels, 06/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs called for an inquiry to be opened into the cause of the gigantic power cut of German origin that affected several Member States in the western part of the Union on Saturday 4 November. Urging for the security of European electricity networks to be strengthened, Mr Piebalgs confirmed that the Commission will be putting forward measures, in 2007, to prevent a reoccurrence of the incident.
“Whilst these blackouts lasted for relatively short periods of time, they are unacceptable. The EU needs an internal market based on the very highest levels of system security”, the Energy Commissioner deplored on Monday in a press release. “These incidents show, once again, that events in one part of Europe impact on other parts and again confirm the need for a proper European energy policy. Energy security is better delivered through a common European approach rather than 27 different approaches”, he stressed. Visibly annoyed, Mr Piebalgs announced he had written to the industrial regulator groups and operators of the European electricity network, the Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity (UCTE) and the European Transmission System Operators (ETSO) to “rapidly establish the precise cause of the blackout and establish the measures that will be taken to ensure that it does not reoccur”. He also called on the European Regulators Group for gas and electricity to “meet as soon as possible to provide a report to the Commission on the lessons to be learned from this event”. Furthermore, calling once more for the security of European electricity networks to be strengthened, the Energy Commissioner promised that this matter would be part of the Commission's proposals early 2007. Mr Piebalgs above all recommends the creation of a European group of transmission network operators that would be entrusted with the task of proposing common solutions, mainly to the security problems identified by the Commission, and which could impose technical standards on all Member States to ensure that electricity circulates as it should throughout Union networks. Such a group already exists but it is informal and its recommendations do not have binding value for the other operators, Ferran Tarradellas, Mr Piebalg's spokesperson, told the press. This is why the Energy Commissioner hopes that a mechanism will also be set in place to ensure that such standards are binding for network operators. Finally, Mr Piebalgs hopes to propose a European Priority International Plan to “make quicker progress on ensuring that essential new interconnectors are built”.
The causes of the blackouts that plunged the inhabitants of a large part of western Europe into darkness on Saturday evening from 22h00 to 23h00 (ten million people throughout Germany, Spain, France and Italy and, to a lesser extent, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and the Czech Republic, as well as, outside the Union, Croatia) further to a fault on the German electricity network, had not been fully elucidated on Monday afternoon. The first explanations state that the failure was due to the programmed stop of a very high voltage line in north-west Germany to allow a boat to circulate on the River Ems. The failure is said to have separated the German network in two and entailed a sudden production imbalance in Europe with a 10,000 megawatt deficit (the equivalent of about ten nuclear power stations) in the western sector, the president of the French transport network (RTE), André Merlin, said on Sunday. At the origin of the failure, German electricity company E.ON confirmed on Monday that the stop on the very high voltage line to allow a boat to navigate was at the origin of the failure but went on to add that this could not be the only explanation.
This new incident provides a need for enhanced coordination among the Twenty-Five, the RTE president said, again calling for the establishment of a European centre for the coordination of electricity networks that, in his view, would increase the security of electricity power highways within the Union. Going still further, the leader of the Italian government, Romano Prodi, stressed for his part on Sunday evening that it was necessary to set a common European authority in place. He went on to say that it is absolutely contradictory to have several European connections and not to have a single European authority. The incident is a good illustration of how urgent it is for Europe to move along the road towards an energy policy, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Monday morning.
MEP Claude Turmes (Greens, Luxembourg) said it is above all necessary to improve the work between the managers of electricity transport networks, such as French RTE, regulators and producers, so that electricity production can start up again rapidly to bring the situation back into balance when there is a problem. This incident shows, moreover, that real separation must be sought between the transport network activity and the electricity production activity, he explained on Monday. Mr Turmes deplores the fact that, as he sees it, until now German operators have not invested enough in electricity transport networks, preferring to focus their efforts on production activity which, unlike the former, are open to competition. (eh)