Spanish PM says Iberian blackout probe needs more time
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pleaded for patience Wednesday as pressure grows on his government to determine what caused last week's blackout that paralyzed the Iberian Peninsula.
The April 28 outage cut internet and telephone connections, halted trains, shut businesses and plunged cities into darkness across Spain and Portugal as well as briefly affecting southwestern France.
Fierce debate has raged in Spain over the possible causes, but no firm conclusion has emerged as the authorities gather and analyze data from electricity companies and the national grid operator.
"The process will take its time because we will have to examine meticulously around 756 million pieces of data," Sanchez told parliament, promising to "get to the bottom of the matter."
"Citizens want to know what happened... what we will not do is prematurely close any debate. We will not rush to conclusions," added Sanchez.
The Socialist premier said preliminary technical information indicated that three incidents occurred in southern Spain on April 28, the last of which sparked the grid collapse.
Previous official information had pointed to two incidents five seconds apart which triggered a loss of power generation equivalent to 60 percent of Spain's electricity consumption at the time.
The right-wing opposition has questioned the Socialist-led coalition government's phase-out of nuclear energy and reliance on renewables, saying they made Spain more vulnerable to blackouts.
Sanchez again insisted there was "no empirical evidence" to show that "an excess of renewables or the lack of nuclear power plants" caused the crisis.
