Power outage caused by high-voltage cable fault

A power outage occurred on Saturday, March 29, at around 10:30pm due to a system disturbance at the North Mole Power Station. Initially, the issue was believed to be linked to a loss of gas supply from the LNG Terminal, but further diagnostics confirmed a high-voltage (HV) cable fault on the distribution network.

The affected areas included the Upper Town, Catalan Bay, Sandy Bay, Hassan Centenary Terraces, and Beach View Terraces. Engineers faced difficulties restoring power remotely due to the cable fault.

The Gibraltar Electricity Authority confirmed that the LNG Terminal remained fully operational, with no safety concerns or gas venting.

Engineers were deployed to substations to manually restore power. Supply was reinstated in stages with the Upper Town having power by midnight, Hassan Centenary Terraces and Beach View Terraces just after 12:30am and Catalan Bay and Sandy Bay at 4:45am

The fault was traced to a cable running from the entrance of Eastern Beach to the old Caleta Palace Hotel site. After isolating this section, HV circuits were reconfigured, and power was safely restored.

Initial assessments indicate that the failure was due to cable degradation rather than damage from external works.