The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, stated this Saturday that the blackout registered during the early morning hours in Lanzarote and La Graciosa evidences "the obsolescence of the equipment" electrical of the islands and confirmed that the regional government will open an investigation to clarify the causes of the incident.
Clavijo made these statements to journalists after being officially designated as the candidate of Coalición Canaria (CC) for the next regional elections following the meeting of the National Political Council of the party in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Although the supply was restored "in a matter of hours," he insisted on the need to renew energy infrastructures to prevent new outages.
"That demonstrates once again what we have claimed: the obsolescence of the equipment, which due to state regulations could not be renewed," said the Canarian president.
The head of the regional Executive also indicated that the recently installed backup systems have allowed energy to be injected into the grid and accelerate the recovery of the service.
"The investigation, when we have it, we will make it public," added Clavijo, who also highlighted the "rapid action" to restore "almost all of the supply" in a few hours.
A failure in the Mácher substation
Sources from Red Eléctrica informed EFE that the incident originated at 5:44 AM due to a failure in a position of the Mácher 132/66 kV substation and the subsequent disconnection of the Punta Grande power plant, which caused the loss of supply in the center and north of Lanzarote.
The same sources indicated that, once the incident was identified and isolated, the affected lines and substations were restored, and the supply was re-established at 7:13 AM.
"The company is in permanent communication with the Canarian and insular authorities in monitoring the incident, which has already been resolved," they assured.
They also recalled that the Mácher substation is awaiting the grid meshing works associated with the completion of the 132 kV double-circuit axis between Mácher and Playa Blanca, an infrastructure intended to reinforce the electrical system of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
The company added that it is working together with the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Energy of the Canarian Government and the Cabildo of Lanzarote to complete the pending last section of the power line.
The Cabildo of Lanzarote has declared the Lanzarote Insular Emergency Plan (PEIN) in a pre-alert situation due to impact on basic supplies, with the objective of maintaining coordination and monitoring possible impacts on essential services.
The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote and La Graciosa, Oswaldo Betancort, stated in a press release that from the early hours they have been monitoring the evolution of the situation and the possible impacts on essential services.
"Although the electricity supply has been restored, we are keeping our services active and the PEIN on pre-alert to address any incident that may occur," he said.
For his part, the president of the Lanzarote Security and Emergencies Consortium, Francisco J. Aparicio, assured that since the energy blackout occurred, "the firefighters from both stations have been at the service of possible incidents."
"So far, only one incident has been detected in an elevator due to the power outage. However, we remain on alert for any consequences produced by this period without energy," he added.
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