No light, no refrigerator and no television for hours. A power outage is annoying, but they have been happening all the time in recent weeks. On Tuesday morning, more than a thousand addresses in Roosendaal were still without power. Last week there were disruptions in Oisterwijk and Uden. The reason why it happens so often now? “The extremely wet weather,” explains spokesperson Tim van Ham of network operator Enexis.
There are tens of thousands of kilometers of electricity cables underground in Brabant. Normally they can withstand some moisture. “But there are always cables that are slightly damaged. For example, due to minor excavation damage or a stone in the ground,” says Van Ham. “If moisture gets to the cable, it can lead to a short circuit.”
That explains some of the larger disruptions in Brabant. It is difficult to say whether this was also the cause of the power outage in Roosendaal, according to the Enexis spokesperson. “But we see a clear connection between the extremely wet winter and the number of disruptions.”
“Extreme weather is never good for our electricity grids.”
It has been a bit drier in recent days, but that has not solved the problems, the Enexis spokesperson explains. “The high water has subsided, but the groundwater is still extremely high. Deeper cables are still in the wet ground.”
In the Netherlands, almost all medium and low-voltage cables are underground. As a result, we have one of the most reliable networks in the world. The weather has little influence. “But extreme weather is never good for our electricity grids,” says Van Ham. “Very hot, very cold, very wet or very dry, that can cause malfunctions. But fortunately, these are often resolved within a few hours.”
The risk of power outages will increase in the coming years because we are increasingly experiencing extreme weather. Finding a solution that works everywhere is difficult, according to Van Ham. “In areas that regularly flood, we have taken measures to keep the transformer stations dry. But we cannot replace tens of thousands of kilometers of cable.”