By Rannveig Loken, Norway
Odessa Ukraine, 19 February 2025: A mass drone attack on Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa knocked out power and triggered a blackout for some 5,000 residents. Nearly 90,000 people had been left in the dark in Odesa district in and around the city from the successive nights of attacks.
Havana, Cuba 14 February 2025: A blackout left the entire nation of 10 million people in the dark, prompting scattered protests and unrest. Residents across the capital Havana reported outages ranging from six to ten hours within a week. Provincial cities and smaller towns in the countryside reported outages of as much as twenty hours a day.
Colombo, Sri Lanca: A nationwide blackout in Sri Lanka was blamed on a monkey that intruded into a power station south of Colombo, came in contact with a grid transformer, and causing an imbalance in the system. There were no immediate details on whether the monkey survived the incident. Power was gradually restored across the island nation of 22 million people.
Australia: More than 8,000 properties remain without power across northern Queensland, due to a flooding that has caused damage to the area’s homes, crops and coastline. Located in the tropics, northern Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.
United Kingdom 1 February 2025: A large area of Wiltshire was affected by a power cut, with about 30,000 customers were left without power. Many customers would have been “automatically reconnected within a few minutes” before power was restored fully.
United Kingdom and Irland: Storm Éowyn caused nearly a million properties to be without power across the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Many road and rail links were blocked due to the storm. At its peak, Storm Éowyn brought winds of more than 90 mph.
Los Angeles, CA, USA: Multiple wildfires led to destruction of hundreds of homes and more than 100,000 people had to evacuate. More than 413,000 customers were without power, and more than 450,000 customers were under public safety power shutdown program. The Palisades wildfire burned more than 15,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades area between the beach towns of Santa Monica and Malibu. Other wildfires including a 10,600-acre fire near the city of Pasadena and the Hollywood Hills forced further evacuations. Parts of Malibu and Santa Monica were under evacuation orders.
Ireland: Thousands of customers in the Republic of Ireland were without water and electricity as snow and icy weather conditions continue to grip much of the country. About 43,000 customers needed to have the water supplies restored and 6,500 customers remain without power across the country.
San Juan, Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico was plunged into darkness on New Year’s Eve by a nearly island-wide blackout. About 90% of almost 1.5 million customers had no electricity. A failure in an electric line at one of the main power plants, Costa Sur, caused cascading issues across the island.
Kenya: Kenya suffered a widespread power outage that affected most of the country, about 9.6 million customers, with electricity supply restored about six hours later. The blackout significantly reduced internet connectivity across the country.
Mayotte: Cyclone Chido brought wind speeds of more than 225km/h (140mph), the worst storm in 90 years to hit the French Indian Ocean territory, flattening areas and leaving about 85% of the territory without power.
UK 14 December 2024: Storm Darragh with wind gusts in excess of 90mph (145km/h) caused widespread disruption and left with more than 250,000 customers without power. It was the lower-voltage electricity distribution network, which includes 60,000 miles of overhead lines, that was impacted by Storm Darragh, leading to the power outages a.
Nigeria: Suffered a widespread electricity blackout after its national grid collapsed, probably due to faults or vandalism at power installations. Electricity generation plunged from 3087 megawatt before the grid collapse, to zero after the blackout.
Zimbabwe: A power cut plunged Zimbabwe’s parliament into darkness. Zimbabwe has daily 12-hour blackouts driven by a prolonged drought that is crippling energy generation at the Kariba Dam, the country’s main power source.
Lusaka, Zambia: Zambia suffered a nationwide blackout following a power system disturbance, which also affected neighboring Zimbabwe. Zambia and Zimbabwe are experiencing prolonged hours of electricity rationing after the worst drought in decades in the region hit hydropower generation. Zambia’s largest hydroelectric power plant, the Kariba North Bank Power Station with an installed capacity of 1080 megawatts (MW), is currently producing only 120 MW due to lack of water.
USA, Canada: 20 November 2024: A storm off the coast of the USA north-west and western Canada – bringing high winds, flooding, and snow to over seven million residents living in states along the Pacific Ocean. The storm has caused widespread power outages and knocked down trees into buildings and roadways. More than 700,000 homes and businesses in Washington were without power, and around 15,000 customers were experiencing outages in California. Around 140,000 customers were without power in British Columbia.
Tokyo, Japana: large-scale blackout affected some 365,300 homes in the prefectures of Kagawa, Ehime, Tokushima and Kochi. The blackout likely arose due to a problem with a power line connecting Shikoku with Japan’s main island of Honshu.
Biography:
Rannveig J. S. Loken – Head of Protection department, Statnett, Norway, CIGRE TC Chair.
Received her Master of Science in Electric Power engineering from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 1992. She works in Statnett, the TSO of Norway, currently Head of Protection department in Statnett. In August 2024 she became the TC Chair of CIGRE. Her special field of interest is protection and control for the transmission system. In addition, working in Cigre Working groups is of great interest – she is currently a member of WG B5.86. Rannveig is in the Advisory board of PAC world, Committee member of IET DPSP, and Member of the International Advisory Committee APAP.
