Power Engineering - EU's power blackout surveillance system working well: Commission

3 September 2007 - The European Union's electricity supply surveillance system - set up in the wake of severe blackouts in Italy and Sweden in 2003 as a means to help coordinate a response to any major power supply disruptions - is working well,according to the Commission.

"On July 10, the combination of high temperatures and a shortage of water (for hydro generation) prompted the European Commission to set up a reinforced group to ensure the correct measures are taken in case of a major blackout," the EC's transport and energy spokesman Ferran Tarradellas said.

The EC said the system had fortunately not had to be tested under "crisis conditions", as defined by the Commission, this summer but it said there had been some supply interruptions in recent months that the system had monitored.

"The system followed closely a number of supply interruptions--like the one in Barcelona on July 23 and the ones in the UK in and around
Gloucestershire at the end of July following flooding--but those did not require a response at European level. Officials managing the system have also been in close contact with Greek authorities to evaluate the impact of the forest fires on the electricity system," Tarradellas said.

The EC has been testing the surveillance system this summer after the last time there was a major supply problem--in November 2006 in Germany which resulted in outages across western Europe--the EC found that the "existing reporting system of the transmission system operators did not appear to be very robust."

"For this reason, the subject of better coordination between TSOs will be addressed in the third internal market package to be adopted by the Commission on 19 September, 2007," the EC said.

Tarradellas reiterated that the EC was proposing to set up an EU-wide energy agency to coordinate cross-border power flows.

"We have already set out the general objective of this new body. The question of how cross-border power flows are regulated is one that has a
European added value, if you like. But I can't comment any further on how this agency will work," Tarradellas said, explaining that details will emerge in the third internal market package on 19 September.

He said a final report on the electricity supply surveillance system, which the EC has put in place with the support of organizations like the European Transmission System Operators, the Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity and electricity producers association Eurelectric, would be published in the near future.

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