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Reuters
10-07-2025
- General
- Reuters
Power line that triggered major Czech outage was not over-burdened, operator says
PRAGUE, July 10 (Reuters) - A high-voltage power line that snapped at the start of a major power outage in the Czech Republic on Friday was not over-burdened at the time, grid operator CEPS said on Thursday, adding it was still investigating the cause. The outage hit about million customers, halted hundreds of trains, and shut down industrial sites including a major oil refinery. It also added to concerns about the vulnerability of European power grids after recent outages in Spain and Britain. Giving details about the sequence of events that affected the central European country's power grid - which is also linked to neighbouring countries - CEPS said the problem appeared to start at 11.51 a.m. (0951 GMT) when a cable on the 400 kilovolt V411 line in north-west of the country snapped. The reason for this is still under investigation, but there was no third-party interference, CEPS Chairman Martin Durcak told a news conference. The grid is designed to cope with such a failure and should not disintegrate, he said. However, the incident was followed less than two minutes later by the failure of unit 6 of the Ledvice power plant in the north of the country, which was running at around 300 megawatts. "We are looking into this with our colleagues (from Ledvice owner CEZ ( opens new tab), if there is any causality," Durcak said. At 11.59 a.m., network operators were forced to turn off the 200 kilovolt V208 high-voltage power line in the centre of the country after it became over-burdened, and after that an eastern substation failed together with the V401 high-voltage link. This created breaks in the grid, with insufficient power production across the north-east of the country and parts of the centre, and then the outage. The affected area included nine of the country's 45 substations, and about one sixth of all customers. All substations were back up within three hours, CEPS said, and by 10 p.m. the snapped cable was fixed. The grid was carrying large, but routine cross-border flows, as traders bought power from abroad due to lower prices there.
India Today
04-07-2025
- Climate
- India Today
Thousands hit as Czech see 6-hour blackout due to fallen cable, power nearly back
A power outage in large parts of the Czech Republic, including Prague, trapped people in public transport and lifts and idled factories on Friday after a fallen high-voltage cable disrupted the incident is likely to add to concerns about the resilience of Europe's power infrastructure after Spain suffered the worst blackout in its history in April and a fire knocked out the power supply to London's Heathrow airport in was a massive power outage in part of Prague and in the northern and eastern Czech Republic around 12 pm (1000 GMT) today," the Industry and Trade Ministry said. "The cause was the fall of a power cable, not a cyberattack nor a failure of renewable resources." The outage was nearly fully resolved by 1600 halted international and local trains and public transport in several cities, including Prague, where the underground was briefly shut down and trams were at a halt for hours. About 1,000 mobile phone network stations were affected and ran on backup transmission system operator CEPS declared a nationwide state of emergency after the V411 transmission grid line and Unit 6 of the Ledvice power plant failed. It was not known what caused the power cable to had knock-on effects, overburdening another line and substation, and forcing part of the grid to operate as an island, cut off from other parts of the European Czech Republic has dozens of substations - facilities that convert electricity into different voltages so it can be transmitted throughout the country and distributed had earlier said the fallen line on the 45-kilometre high-voltage line in the northwest of the country had affected eight of these substations and caused blackouts in five of the Czech Republic's 14 fallen line, serving an area with lignite power plants, has been included in a modernisation plan and is due to be doubled in capacity by Ledvice 6 power plant, which was also affected, is a 660-megawatt, coal-fired plant built in 2017 and operated by CEZ. CEZ did not comment on the RESTOREDAll affected substations had power back before 1300 GMT, CEPS said, but distribution companies were working for more hours to restore supplies to Minister Petr Fiala told a briefing that about 2,000 customers remained without power just before 1600 GMT. He said around half a million had been affected the country, the outage caused 215 incidents involving people trapped in elevators, fire brigade spokesperson Lucie Pipis told Reuters, adding everyone had been prison authority said 13 prisons had lost power, but that security had not been compromised. Three large hospitals in Prague temporarily ran on backup Unipetrol's Czech refinery and chemical plant at Litvinov went into emergency shutdown, the company said on power supplies resumed, it began restarting operations, but said the process would take several days.- EndsMust Watch
Straits Times
04-07-2025
- Climate
- Straits Times
Czech Republic hit by major power outage triggered by fallen cable
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Trams are immobilized during a major power outage in Prague, Czech Republic, July 4, 2025. CTK/Ptacek Jan via REUTERS PRAGUE - A power outage in large parts of the Czech Republic, including Prague, trapped people in public transport and lifts and idled factories on Friday after a fallen high-voltage cable disrupted the network. The incident is likely to add to concerns about the resilience of Europe's power infrastructure after Spain suffered the worst blackout in its history in April and a fire knocked out the power supply to London's Heathrow airport in March. "There was a massive power outage in part of Prague and in the northern and eastern Czech Republic around 12 pm (1000 GMT) today," the Industry and Trade Ministry said. "The cause was the fall of a power cable, not a cyberattack nor a failure of renewable resources." The outage was nearly fully resolved by 1600 GMT. It halted international and local trains and public transport in several cities, including Prague, where the underground was briefly shut down and trams were at a halt for hours. About 1,000 mobile phone network stations were affected and ran on back-up systems. National transmission system operator CEPS declared a nationwide state of emergency after the V411 transmission grid line and the Unit 6 of the Ledvice power plant failed. It was not known what caused the power cable to fall. This had knock-on effects, overburdening another line and substation, and forcing part of the grid to operate as an island, cut off from other parts of the European grid. The Czech Republic has dozens of substations - facilities that convert electricity into different voltages so it can be transmitted throughout the country and distributed locally. CEPS had earlier said the fallen line on the 45 kilometre (29 miles) high-voltage line in the northwest of the country had affected eight of these substations and caused blackouts in five of the Czech Republic's 14 regions. The fallen line, serving an area with lignite power plants, has been included in a modernisation plan and is due to be doubled in capacity by 2028. The Ledvice 6 power plant, which was also affected, is a 660 megawatt, coal-fired plant built in 2017 and operated by CEZ. CEZ did not comment on the plant. SYSTEM RESTORED All affected substations had power back before 1300 GMT, CEPS said, but distribution companies were working for hours more to restore supplies to customers. Prime Minister Petr Fiala told a briefing that about 2,000 customers remained without power just before 1600 GMT. He said around half a million had been affected earlier. Across the country, the outage caused 215 incidents involving people trapped in elevators, fire brigade spokesperson Lucie Pipis told Reuters, adding everyone had been rescued. The prison authority said 13 prisons had lost power, but that security had not been compromised. Three large hospitals in Prague temporarily ran on back-up power. Orlen Unipetrol's Czech refinery and chemical plant at Litvinov went into emergency shutdown, the company said on X. After power supplies resumed, it began restarting operations, but said the process would take several days. Following the outage in Spain in May, analysts said that Europe's ageing power grid and lack of energy storage capacity will require trillions of dollars in investments to cope with rising green energy output and increasing electricity demand. REUTERS
France 24
04-06-2025
- Business
- France 24
Czechs sign nuclear deal with S.Korea firm KHNP: PM
A Czech court had blocked the multi-billion-dollar deal in May after French energy group EDF filed a complaint, questioning the transparency of the tender which it lost. But a higher court threw out the ruling on Wednesday over procedural flaws, enabling the government of Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala to ink the deal. "A while ago we signed an agreement on the supply of two units for the Dukovany nuclear plant," Fiala told reporters. "We did our best to make sure the deal can be signed the instant the legal obstacles are removed," he said. He hailed the signature as a "fundamental step on the way to higher energy security and self-sufficiency". KHNP is due to build the two units at the southern Czech nuclear plant of Dukovany run by the state-run CEZ group. The Czech Republic, an EU member of 10.9 million people, relies on nuclear power -- produced by Dukovany and the Temelin plant also in the south -- for 40 percent of its electricity consumption. With the two new units and small modular reactors due to be built by 2050, the share of nuclear energy is expected to rise to 50 percent as the country shifts away from burning fossil fuels. Fiala said earlier KHNP won the tender as its bid was "better in all criteria assessed" than EDF's offer. On Wednesday, he said KHNP has vowed to hand 60 percent of the contract to Czech suppliers. KHNP has offered to build the two new units for around 200 billion Czech koruna ($9 billion) each. Prague expected to finalise the deal with KHNP by March this year, but complaints by EDF delayed the process. CEZ expects construction to begin in 2029 and the first new reactor launched in trial operation in 2036.
04-06-2025
- Business
A deal to build nuclear reactors worth $18B unblocked after court clears the way
PRAGUE -- A deal to build at least two nuclear reactors in Czechia was unblocked Wednesday, after an appeals court dismissed on Wednesday a lower court ruling that blocked the government from signing a deal with South Korea's KHNP power utility. The Supreme Administrative Court said that the ruling was not in line with law, meaning the signing of the deal could go ahead. KHNP won a lucrative public tender last year, beating a competing bid by France's EDF. The two new reactors will be built at the existing Dukovany power plant in an effort for the country to wean itself off fossil fuels. The contract between the dominant power company CEZ, where the Czech state has a majority stake, and KHNP was due to be signed on May 7 but EDF lodged a legal challenge at the regional court in the second-largest Czech city of Brno after the Czech anti-monopoly office dismissed its complaint about the tender. The regional court said on May 6 that the deal could not be signed before it rules on the EDF case, because then there would be no way to change it even if the French company won. CEZ and KHNP challenged that. The two new reactors will complement Dukovany's four 510-megawatt units that were completed in the 1980s. The total cost is estimated to be over over 400 billion koruna ($18 billion). The first new reactor is expected to become operational for a trial by 2036, the second about two years later.
