Spanish and Portuguese gas demand fell sharply this afternoon, after sweeping power outages disrupted energy systems in the Iberian peninsula.
Spanish gas grid operator Enagas had revised down its initial intra-day consumption forecast to 580GWh as of 17:00 local time (13:00 GMT) today from 749GWh at 10:00. Within those figures, expected demand from homes, businesses, industry and LNG trucking fell to 420GWh from 565GWh, while power-sector gas burn was revised down to 160GWh from 184GWh.
By comparison, Spanish consumption had totalled 819GWh on 21 April, a week before the blackout.
The Spanish gas system was positioned to meet all demand and measures were taken to ensure security of supply, Enagas said. And the operator forecast on Monday afternoon that aggregate Spanish consumption would recover to 715GWh on Tuesday, significantly lower than the 804 GWh/d average on working days this month before the blackout.
Portuguese hourly gas demand also plummeted on Monday to lows in a 1.2-1.3GWh range at 12:00-13:00 local time (11:00-12:00 GMT) from 3.0-4.8GWh at 0:00-11:00, but was forecast to recover to 3.6-4.5GWh at 14:00-23:00, according to Portuguese gas and power grid operator REN. That would leave aggregate Portuguese consumption at 87.5GWh on Monday, down from 117GWh a week earlier, grid data show.
Iberian blackout
Spanish power demand dropped significantly as electricity systems in the Iberian peninsula stopped delivering power on Monday afternoon.
Electricity demand in Spain fell to around 10.5GW at 13:25 local time from around 25GW at 12:30 to 14.2GW at 12:35, data from Spanish system operator Red Electrica show. The operator said that by around 13:30, it had recovered voltage in parts of mainland Spain, and by around 15:30, substations in northern, southern and western Spain were operational and generation units were being connected to secure supply.
All of Spain's four active nuclear plants stopped generating on Monday, taking 3.4GW of base-load generation off line. Output from solar photovoltaic (PV) installations also dropped sharply, while wind output appeared little affected. Output from hydroelectric dams almost completely halted, while run-of-river sites cut generation by around two-thirds. And demand from pumped storage sites for refilling fell to just above 100MW from around 3GW before the outage.
Spain's nuclear security council CSN stated at 16:30 local time that four nuclear plants — Asco 1 and 2, Almaraz 2 and Vandellos 2 — had automatically disconnected from the grid following the outage, but were recovering external electricity supply and were preparing for a possible return to operation once the external supply was established.
Portugal also experienced an outage from around 11:33 local time, an hour behind the Spanish timezone, REN said.
French electricity grid operator RTE confirmed that there was a minor outage lasting "several minutes" in the French Basque Country. But generation and demand appeared little affected, either at a national level or in the Nouvelle Aquitaine and Occitanie regions bordering Spain. The Iberian network was "automatically disconnected" from the European network from 12:38 until 13:30 French local time, RTE said. France is supplying 700MW of exports to Spain and can increase this to 950MW as soon as the Iberian network is able to receive it, RTE said.
Red Electrica, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez and Spanish ecological transition minister Sara Aagesen on Monday afternoon held an emergency meeting to discuss the outage with the country's national security council at the Moncloa statehouse.
After the meeting, Sanchez said the cause of the outages remained unclear, but interconnections with France and Morocco had helped re-establish supply in the north and south of mainland Spain.
The Spanish government is managing the crisis in the Andalusia, Extremadura and Madrid regions, which had all declared emergencies, Sanchez said. The Spanish security council is scheduled to reconvene at 19:00 local time to continue discussing the issue.
Red Electrica issued an update at 16:24 local time, saying it had restored power to parts of 10 out of the 15 regions of mainland Spain.
