DANA teaches some lessons

IBERDROLA announced that Alicante province’s electricity supply was safeguarded against “extreme climatological conditions.”
A year on from the DANA (Isolated high altitude depression) that battered the Costa Blanca coast and inland areas, the energy company pointed out that its distribution network, now renamed i-DE, had been able to cope with the devastation.
Emergency repairs, coordinated from Iberdrola’s control centre, together with the “good behaviour” of the smart systems and automation installed in recent years, meant that the electricity supply was restored in less than 30 minutes to the majority of homes with power outages during the DANA.
The principal problem that Iberdrola employees had to contend with during the storm and in following days was the difficulty in physically accessing installations.
Many roads were cut off and in some areas, especially the Vega Baja, streets were flooded for days.
These problems prompted Iberdrola to prepare a plan of action for i-DE, working from the lessons learnt during the September 2019 DANA.
The company also explained that it was introducing measures to increase its operational response in situations like these.
Steps that have been taken to minimise the impact of future catastrophes include modifications to the technical design of installations, together with analysing data to improve predictions of climate events.