Grid failures in Lanzarote cut power and desalination supply

What happened

On 3 October 2026, an incident involving the 66 kV network at the Mácher substation in Tías, Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain, left about 51,700 customers without electricity at 5:44 am, according to a report by Canarian Weekly cited by The Cool Down. By 5:48 am, a further failure at the San Bartolomé and Punta Grande substations had caused a loss of generation, raising the total affected to about 73,600. At 6:47 am about 39,000 customers still lacked power while crews worked to restore supply.

The outage shut down desalination plants serving Lanzarote and La Graciosa, interrupting drinking-water output. Some areas were warned of reduced pressure and temporary cutoffs. The Canary Islands Government activated a PLATECA pre-alert for Lanzarote at 7:15 am. Officials had not identified the original cause of the electrical failure when the report was published.

Contributing factors

The source reports two failures in quick succession at different substations, one causing the initial outage and the second causing a loss of generation. The original cause had not been identified at the time of reporting.

Lessons learned

1. Desalination and water plants that depend on grid power may need backup supply or a documented restart plan, so that a grid loss does not stop drinking-water production.
2. Restart of desalination plants can take time after power returns, so operators should plan for extended recovery periods.
3. Water distribution may need to be managed from stored reserves, with clear public messaging to conserve supply during prolonged outages.

More lessons on outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

thecooldown.com