In the morning after the blackout that took down the electricity system in the Iberian Peninsula and part of France, Red Eléctrica, which is Spain's electricity grid operator, announced that 99.95% of the electricity demand in Spain (around 25,794 MW) had already been restored.
All Spanish companies and workers have been directly affected not only by the power cut, but also by the impact it had on the telecommunications network (both telephony and internet) and transport, with hours of confusion and lack of communication.
In the fruit and vegetable sector, companies from all provinces and all segments have shared the problems they suffered when it came to communicating with clients, suppliers and relatives, as well as carrying out the day's work, since the vast majority of them are dependent on the power supply.
"In our case, we are in the middle of the stone fruit campaign, which started last week," says an operator from Murcia. "After the blackout, it was impossible to communicate with anyone, and orders couldn't leave the warehouses. There was no way of talking to supermarkets or shippers to find out what was going on, and in the end, if any trucks came in, we couldn't load them because, among many other things, the ramps on the docks wouldn't go up and they couldn't be loaded."
"Around midnight, the warehouse's electricity supply was restored, and at that time, we had to start working to put back all the fruit that was outside and that we had been unable to pack or send."
Mariano Zapata, President of Proexport, says that "it's too early to estimate the financial losses that the incident may have caused in the fruit and vegetable sector. We must take into account that we are dealing with fresh produce and, for example, some companies have generators that have allowed them to keep their cold stores on, but others haven't been able to do so."
"In general, yesterday was a day of chaos and disorder, because we are highly dependent on electricity. On an administrative level, the inability to communicate with customers and suppliers has made it very difficult to manage orders. We know that many haven't even made it, and other operations, such as loading or pre-cooling, have been unfeasible. Later on, we will also have to make claims and see how insurers respond," he says.
Even the morning after, some companies located in Almeria didn't have 100% of the electricity supply restored. The power came and went, as did the internet and telephone connections.
"By now, everything has been restored," says Kees Havenaar, of the Almeria-based company Frutas Luna, who says that the consequences, apart from some delays, seem limited. "We had to go back to basics for a few hours. Since there was no internet or electricity, you had to stop. You also realize how dependent everyone is on the internet. One hour is still manageable, but this has lasted 20 hours. You lose all communication. At first, you assume that the issue is only affecting you, and you go check your electricity installation to try figuring out what's going on, but then you find out that it's happening at the provincial level, that is, in all of Almeria. Then it turns out that the whole Iberian Peninsula is affected. Then things get a bit exciting, because you can't get information without the internet. The truth is that it was like going back to those times when everyone sat around battery-operated radios to find out what was going on.
"In the end, the power was back on at 8.15 am, and by 9 am, everything was back up and running for most of us, so things are now back to normal," says Kees. "Everything is going to be a little delayed, and customers are going to have to be a bit flexible, but in general, there has been understanding. Luckily, it 'only' lasted 20 hours, but if it had gone on for two or three days, there would have been real problems and the situation could have become dramatic."
The impact was expected to be much more evident in one of the sectors with the highest electricity demand, the freezing sector, but it has been relatively limited, according to Frozen Ibérica. "The good thing about this sector is that many of the large freezers, including those used for fruit and vegetables, have backup generators or batteries to be ready to deal with such emergencies. Also, in these cases, the durability of an ultra-frozen product is greater than that of a refrigerated fresh product."
"We work with temperatures ranging between 24 and 30 degrees below zero, and we looked into setting them at -15 degrees Celsius, so in most cases, we have prevented cold chain breaks, because the number of hours without electricity has been limited."
"However, it must be said that the electricity supply had still not been fully restored in all parts of Spain in the morning after the blackout, and in southern Cordoba, where there is an important frozen vegetables company of French origin, there was still no electricity."
In the Valencian Community, Ava-Asaja reports that nurseries and greenhouses suffered problems due to the interruption of plant ventilation systems, especially in those cases where there were no generators available as an alternative. Moreover, the blackout caused failures in the refrigeration and storage systems for agri-food products.
In the field of irrigation, some entities also reported problems, as the lack of electricity supply left irrigation pumps and other devices out of service. Irrigation could also not be carried out the morning after because the systems had been de-programmed. This situation has taken a toll on the crops that are most sensitive to water changes, which are in the full growth period, and has been aggravated by the high temperatures recorded this weekend.
"Fortunately, by 13:00, we already had the production processed and dispatched, so we were not significantly affected. We simply finished our working day earlier," says an important mandarin and orange grower and marketer in the province of Castellón. After waiting for half an hour, we realized that something was happening on a large scale, and we sent everyone home because nothing could be done, anyway."
In Huelva, which is currently in the middle of the berry season, work in the warehouses was affected during the hours that the blackout lasted; however, the fruit and vegetable plants resorted to backup generators, which allowed activity to continue, and by late yesterday, the situation was back to normal. And in Seville, where the stone fruit and potato season is beginning, the blackout caused the activity in the warehouses to come to a standstill, but today activity has fully restored.
Ive Lambert, from the Belgian importer Starfruit, reports that there is certain tension. "Above all, there is some nervousness," he says. "Yesterday, nothing could be packed. Melons are starting to arrive, and stone fruit is available, but when suddenly everything comes to a standstill at midday, after large amounts of fruit had arrived at the packing centers in the morning, you have problems. Today everything is already packed, but the products won't arrive until Thursday, which is a public holiday in many countries, so everything has been delayed until Friday, and things have got a bit messed up."
In general, the agricultural sector has not been immune to the problems that affected other economic sectors, with interruptions in IT management, monitoring systems, inventory controls and logistical difficulties resulting from the blackout. In many cases, the closure of gas stations prevented the supply of fuel to agricultural machinery.
The exact reason for the blackout that paralyzed Spain and Portugal is not yet known, but Red Eléctrica has assured that the possibility of a "cybersecurity incident" has been ruled out. According to Portuguese grid operator REN, a rare weather phenomenon in Spain, possibly caused by temperature differences, could be to blame.