Czech energy regulator to lead working group on preventing blackout-related problems

The Energy Regulatory Office (ERÚ) has initiated the formation of a working group to investigate the July blackout in Czechia. It will examine the role of the various entities during the outage, and its main objective will be to assess possible measures to prevent similar incidents. The office has also joined an expert panel investigating the causes of the blackout. The panel will hold its first meeting in September. ERÚ Council Chairman Jan Šefránek said this today on LinkedIn.

The massive power outage on 4 July, which lasted several hours, affected around one million customers. There are 6.3 million consumption points in the country.

According to Šefránek, ERÚ has been dealing with the events of 4 July since they began. The technical cause of the outage, including the actions of transmission system operator ČEPS, will be investigated by an independent panel of international experts, of which ERÚ is a member, the office said. “The panel will hold its first meeting in September, and a factual report will be completed within six months at the latest,” Šefránek noted.

In addition, the head of ERÚ initiated the creation of a working group in Czechia, which will assess the incident in a broader context under the regulator’s leadership. “The working group will address other issues related to the course of the outage and the role of the various actors, while also assessing interim findings from the ENTSO-E panel. If any suspicions emerge that need to be pursued within ERÚ’s remit, we are ready to take the necessary steps. The group’s main aim will be to assess this serious incident appropriately, learn from it and identify measures that will help prevent or address similar events in the future,” Šefránek explained.

In addition to ERÚ, the group will include representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, ČEPS, regional distribution system operators, key electricity producers and the market operator.

More than a week ago, ČEPS said that the extensive power outage in part of Czechia was caused by several outages occurring simultaneously, although the reason for this coincidence remains unclear. The system operator ruled out the possibility that the outage was caused by grid congestion due to electricity flows from abroad or by damage caused by a third party. The line whose failure led to the blackout had already been damaged last year, but that caused no further outages at the time.

According to ČEPS, the main mechanical cause was the breaking of a phase conductor, the cable that carries electricity between power plants and substations. This took the backbone V411 line out of service. The line is used to transmit high power output from power plants and carry electricity over long distances. Shortly afterwards, a unit at the Ledvice Power Station in the Teplice area and the large Krasíkov substation in the Ústí nad Orlicí area also went offline. Due to the heavy load, the dispatcher also switched off the V208 line, which connects substations.