On 28 April 2025, at 12:33 CET, the power systems of Spain and Portugal experienced a total blackout. Investigation is still in progress.
Above and below is 30 minutes of high-resolution waveform data we could extract from a meter in the Portuguese grid. We could see three oscillations preceding the blackout (12:03, 12:16 and 12:19 ) in both voltage and frequency.
A key to understanding events like this and finding the root causes is measurement data. Traditional triggers initiate high speed recordings for a few seconds but in a power grid with a lot of distributed renewable generation, batteries and other new technologies triggers are not easy to set up. You could easily miss events that are below the trig limits or because the trigger is on the wrong parameter. Recordings are also often too short.
Our Continuous Scan feature doesn’t need triggers and records waveform for all parameters continuously with high resolution.
Please contact us if you want to know more about the blackout or our measurement capabilities.
