Power outage in Czech Republic: what are the takeaways?
Large swaths of the Czech Republic were left without power for several hours on Friday. About one million people in Prague, central, northern and eastern Bohemia were impacted. A number of businesses were unable to operate, people were trapped in lifts and public transport and trains ground to a halt. The outage was triggered by a phase conductor failure. Local press discuss causes and consequences.
Civilisation not bulletproof
Český rozhlas reflects on fundamental considerations:
“It turns out that the protective coating of civilisation is not that thick and the institutions and systems on which our lives are based are not bulletproof. ... It's clear that as a state, as communities and as individuals we are approaching an era of investment in resilience and independence across the board. This will come at a cost, because every crown spent on these goals will be diverted away from other, more urgent objectives. ... In this sense, the blackout, in which no one came to harm, is a useful reminder that things are not always as we wish them to be, but actually as they are.”
Blackout should be top priority
Echo24 blames the blackout on a grid overload caused by an excess of renewable energy from neighbouring Germany:
“If this hypothesis is confirmed it means that even a robust transmission grid in the Czech Republic could not withstand excess production of green energy. ... Yet there will be an excess every summer, and alongside Germany our government has also committed itself to local green energy production. We're supposed to increase the share of renewable energies in electricity generation from around 17 percent today to 28 percent within five years and then keep it going up. ... If these were normal, rational times, the blackout would top the agenda for the rest of the election campaign.”
Don't jump to conclusions
Hospodářské noviny comments:
“The minute the blackout occurred, people started jumping to conclusions: 'It's just like what happened in Spain. The Green Deal, the EU's green policy, is to blame' ... But in fact, according to the transmission network operators, the blackout was caused not by green energy sources but by the failure of a phase conductor, in other words a broken cable in north-west Bohemia - a problem no solar power plant can cause. ... We should be wary of making hasty judgements that can leave us looking like fools a few hours later. ... An ideological view that automatically blames problems on a pet peeve (in this case green energy) leads to mental blackouts and often prevents real problems from being solved.”