Lessons from recent blackouts
Lessons from recent blackouts: 12th Balkan Energy School seminar in Skopje
On 24 September 2025, Skopje hosted the 12th Balkan Energy School seminar, titled “What recent relevant incidents are teaching us on the verge of the ecological transition.” The event took place in the framework of the CEI-supported project for the implementation of the new electricity package adopted by the Energy community ministerial council, co-financed by the Central european initiative know-how exchange programme with contributions from the Italian Government.
The seminar was opened by Paolo Palminteri, ambassador of Italy to North Macedonia, and Marko Bislimoski, president of the Energy regulatory commission of North Macedonia (ERC), who welcomed participants and underlined the importance of strengthening regional cooperation for secure and sustainable energy systems.
Learning from Past Incidents
The discussions began with an in-depth look at the 8 January 2021 event, when the Continental Europe synchronous power grid – serving over 200 million people across 26 countries – was unexpectedly split into two areas due to cascading failures. As Terna illustrated, quick activation of automatic reserves and coordinated TSO response were crucial in restoring stability within an hour.
This historical perspective set the stage for more recent case studies:
21 June 2024 – Albania and Montenegro: a major blackout left large portions of the Balkans in the dark for hours.
28 April 2025 – Iberian peninsula: Spain and Portugal experienced a full-system blackout.
18 May 2025 – North Macedonia: a national-scale disturbance left much of the country in the dark for about an hour.
Representatives from OST (Albania), ERSE (Portugal), and MEPSO (North Macedonia) shared their analyses and lessons learned, stressing the importance of timely detection, vegetation management, system observability, and flexible resources.
From technical to regulatory solutions
Technical reflections were complemented by regulatory perspectives. Experts from ARERA (Italy) and Terna emphasized how the upcoming EU Grid Package and the EU Action Plan for Grids – focusing on modernization, digitalization, and investment in transmission and distribution networks – are central to avoiding future crises.
A particularly debated topic was the curtailment of renewable energy sources (RES). As highlighted by ARERA, integrating high shares of renewables requires new approaches to ancillary services, inertia provision, and redispatching.
Open dialogue for the region
The seminar concluded with an open roundtable among Balkan regulators, who reflected on the incidents and explored common strategies for strengthening operational security and regulatory coordination. The Balkan Energy School (BES) reaffirmed its mission to foster knowledge exchange, capacity building, and EU integration in the energy field.
