Vlček: Czech power outage investigation should be completed within weeks

The investigation into Friday’s massive power outage in part of the Czech Republic should be completed within weeks. In a post on X this evening, Industry and Trade Minister Lukáš Vlček (STAN) said that, according to the available information, four mutually interconnected events occurred, with the link between them under investigation. He reiterated that the initial cause was the fall of a phase conductor and stressed that the event was unrelated to the so-called Green Deal. According to him, the incident showed that both the transmission and distribution systems need to be modernised and that investment in the energy sector is necessary.

"I want to stress one important point: this event has no connection whatsoever to the Green Deal. It was not a problem with the regulation of renewable sources or with overloading of cross-border electricity flows. The outage was caused by a technical fault on a backbone line. This is currently the only known cause. The debate on energy policy must be conducted objectively and on the basis of facts," the minister wrote.

ČEPS said on Friday that the main mechanical cause of the outage was the rupture of a phase conductor, which carries electricity between power plants and substations. This took the backbone high-voltage V411 line out of operation; the line is used to transmit high output from power plants and carry electricity over long distances. Another subsequent failure was the outage of a unit at the Ledvice power plant in the Teplice area. The V208 line, which connects substations, was also overloaded. The outage also affected the major Krasíkov substation.

"Thanks to good crisis management and the robustness of our system, the situation was brought back to normal within a few hours, but this situation shows that we must invest in our energy sector," Vlček said.

According to him, both the transmission and distribution systems need to be modernised. Energy infrastructure is ageing in many parts of the Czech Republic, and insufficient investment has been made in it in recent decades, he added.

The widespread power outage began around noon on Friday. Parts of Prague, the Central Bohemian, Liberec and Ústí regions, as well as eastern Bohemia, were without power. According to Vlček, around one million customers were without electricity after noon, while supply had been restored to all affected locations by the evening.