Brussels, 16/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - In a report presented on Wednesday, the German energy company, E.ON, which recognised its responsibility the day after the incident, revealed that the causes of the giant power failure that plunged over 10 million European citizens into darkness on 4 November (EUROPE 9300) was due above all to “errors of human assessment”, thus excluding the hypothesis of technical failure. In order to explain the origin of the failure, E.ON confirms that the stoppage of a very high voltage line in northern Germany, intended to allow a cruise ship on the River Ems to cross over to the North Sea, caused a overload on other lines thus entailing power cuts in several other Member States. According to E.ON, during this routine operation, the control centre made a wrong assessment in its haste regarding the continuity of the electricity supply on the network should there be sudden damage on any other line. Overload occurred just half an hour later on another very high voltage line “for reasons still to be determined”, E.ON states. The attempts to compensate for this overload then failed, and automatic procedure to stop power flow on the second line occurred, entailing a “domino effect” with the power failure on the European electricity grid. The investigation will be continuing in order to determine the origin of overload on the second line. E.ON, however, gives its assurance that, at this stage, it has never diagnosed any technical problems at the level of the network. The German energy operator states that several systems functioned correctly to prevent total blackout. Insufficient maintenance or a lack of investment may therefore be excluded from the possible causes. It thus refutes the criticism, mainly from Germany and France, that the major German national operators have neglected maintenance on their networks while making enormous profits. (eh)