Power cut debate highlights pressure on Gib’s ‘island electricity network’

A fresh power cut in Gibraltar prompted a tense exchange in Parliament on Friday, with ministers facing renewed questions over repeated outages, the resilience of the electricity grid and the challenges of operating an island network.

The Rock-wide power cut happened just before 2pm and it was two hours before electricity was restored, causing disruption to individuals and businesses during the lunchtime period.

Gemma Arias Vasquez, the Minister with responsibility for power supply, made a statement in Parliament to provide details on what she described as “a totally unacceptable” outage.

“I am not here to give excuses,” she said.

“The Gibraltarian public has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in Gibraltar’s energy infrastructure, including the new Power Station, the LNG plant, the BESS system and upgrades to the grid.”

“I fully appreciate the disruption and frustration that an outage of this nature causes to families, to businesses, to essential services and to the wider community.”

She said the Gibraltar Electricity Authority had suffered “a major earth fault in the Ocean Village area”, which was reflected on Engine 4 in the North Mole power station and consequently affected its operation.

At the time of the outage, she said, the GEA was generating approximately 36.6 megawatts.

Mrs Arias Vasquez said no injuries had been reported because of the incident and said the latest outage appeared to be wholly unrelated to previous recent failures.

She told Parliament that teams had been working to restore power across Gibraltar and thanked engineers and staff involved in the response.

“Their priority was to restore electric system safely, methodically and in a controlled manner so as to avoid causing any further instability to the system,” she said.

Mrs Arias Vasquez said the Gibraltar Government had already held a series of meetings involving the Chief Minister, herself and relevant stakeholders at director level following recent outages, including separate discussions with the directors of the company engaged in relation to the battery energy storage system, the directors of PX and the Acting CEO of the GEA.

A wider meeting involving all relevant parties had already been scheduled for Tuesday at 11am, she said, to examine the cause of the previous outage and how to prevent a repeat.

Mrs Arias Vasquez said the Gibraltar Government considered it “entirely unacceptable” that failures of this nature continued to happen and told the House it had already been in discussions with a third party with the technical and managerial experience to support the GEA in carrying out its functions and helping to ensure resilience and reliability. She said that individual would be in place by the end of July.

Mrs Arias Vasquez also said she had requested a full and comprehensive report from the GEA by 10am on Monday, after which Cabinet would meet to consider the findings and the options available to the Government.

RESILIENCE PROBLEM

The parliamentary exchange that followed quickly broadened beyond the immediate fault to the wider issue of how Gibraltar generates and distributes power, and the difficulties of doing so through what Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described as “an electricity island”.

Responding to Opposition questions, Mr Picardo said that while power cuts were unacceptable, Gibraltar’s circumstances had to be understood in the context of its self-contained network.

“If you operate an electricity island and Gibraltar is, and in my view should forever be, an electricity island, you are susceptible to power cuts,” he said.

Mr Picardo said Gibraltar should never rely on anyone else to provide its electricity, but told Parliament that such an island system could never be completely immune from faults, even if the aim was to reduce outages as much as possible.

“You’re never going to get to zero,” Mr Picardo said.

“It’s impossible because a fault can undo you.”

That point became a central feature of the debate, with ministers seeking to explain that the existence of a new power station and BESS battery system did not mean Gibraltar could isolate every fault or guarantee uninterrupted supply across every part of the network.

Mr Picardo said the battery system did not allow one district to remain supplied independently of another unless Gibraltar had battery coverage in every district.

“What the battery does is enable you to keep an engine running and not lose all power to a power station,” he said.

In the latest case, he said, that support had not been possible because the fault had not originated at the power station itself but elsewhere on the network.

The Chief Minister also said that although Gibraltar had a new power station, the wider grid had not yet been fully upgraded. He told Parliament that the grid was being improved on an ongoing basis, but that the work could not all be carried out at once because of the disruption that would cause across Gibraltar’s roads.

“We are making an investment in the grid,” he said.

“It’s a constant investment.”

Mr Picardo said there had been seven power cuts in 2026 so far, describing that as “seven power cuts too many” in six months.

He said the current record was not good enough, even while arguing it compared more favourably with earlier years before the GSLP/Liberals took office.

He pointed to 2009 and 2010, when he said there had been 27 general power cuts in each year.

The worst year was 2013, when the number had reached 56 after an explosion at a rundown power station “inherited” from the GSD.

“Our record is not good enough for me,” he said.

“I want it to be better.”

Mr Picardo said the Government’s aim was to return to the lower number of outages achieved in 2016, when he said there had been only one power cut in 12 months.

He said ministers were pressing for answers and committing the necessary financial and operational resources to reduce the risk of further failures.

Keith Azopardi, the Leader of the Opposition, highlighted the impact of recurring outages and questioned why the system did not appear more resilient given the level of investment in energy infrastructure.

He said the consequences went beyond inconvenience for households and extended to tourism, flights, hotels, restaurants and businesses.

On Friday, the BA flight was diverted to Malaga after the outage impacted air traffic control, even though the air terminal had power throughout.

“It’s not just disruption to citizens, it’s disruption to tourists, it’s disruption for people taking flights to Gibraltar,” Mr Azopardi said, describing Government assurances as "empty words".

“It’s hotels, restaurants, loss of business. And indeed, it’s embarrassing for this jurisdiction that is promoting itself as being ready for business.”

Mr Azopardi asked whether the latest earth fault had been caused by works, an accident or some other factor, and sought further clarification on the third-party support due to be brought in by the end of July.

He also questioned why a fault in one area could apparently affect the whole system rather than being contained locally.

“What most people don’t understand is why, if power cuts happen repeatedly, our system is not more resilient,” he said.

Mr Picardo replied that it was known the latest incident involved an earth fault, but that it was not yet clear whether that had been caused by contractors working or by another issue.

TENSE EXCHANGES

At times the exchanges became heated, including over a procedural disagreement over who should answer Opposition questions, after the Chief Minister stood to respond to questions Mr Azopardi had asked of Mrs Arias Vasquez.

Mr Picardo said the issues and the answers went further back than Mrs Arias Vasquez’s time in office.

Beneath the political friction was the wider concern about how a small, isolated power system can be made more robust when a single fault can have consequences across the whole network.

GSD MP Craig Sacarello questioned why the battery system did not appear to step in and asked why other engines could not be brought online quickly when the fault happened.

He also raised the impact of repeated outages on businesses and events, saying people were now even asking whether compensation should be considered.

His Opposition colleague Joelle Ladislaus focused on the effect of the outage on vulnerable people, asking for clarification on reports that generators had failed at Ocean Views and Hillsides, and on the disruption caused when the 999 line went down during the blackout.

Opposition MP Damon Bossino said the frequency of the power cuts was damaging Gibraltar’s reputation and could affect key sectors of the economy including financial services and tourism.

While acknowledging Gibraltar’s position as an island electricity network, he asked whether the public was effectively being told to expect frequent power cuts as part of that reality.

He also pressed again for more detail on the external support the Government said it was bringing in.

In reply, Mr Picardo said there could never be a cast-iron guarantee against faults but that this did not mean the public should accept frequent outages.

He said the Government had already shown it was possible to operate an island network with very low numbers of general power cuts and was working to that end.

Both Mr Picardo and Mrs Arias Vasquez said the battery system was not designed to deal with an earth fault outside the power station itself, and that once the system trips it is not simply a matter of switching from one engine to another.

On the third-party support, Mrs Arias Vasquez said an individual was being engaged to assist the acting CEO of the GEA on both technical and governance issues, adding that the move had been under consideration for some time but had been accelerated by the latest power cut.

Mr Picardo later clarified that the Government was negotiating with a company to identify the right person, which was why no name could yet be given.