Blackout Countries / European Union Blackout Countries 2024

Austria

Potential European Union blackout countries include Austria. This nation began to prepare for possibly living without electrical power in the last quarter of 2021. Austria became the first to warn people that live there about an EU blackout. Rise in gas prices and dwindling fuel supplies contributed to this decision.

Switzerland

This country also reportedly began to talk about preparing for a blackout in 2021. Switzerland could end up without power for at least two days by 2025. The Swiss government plans to incorporate renewable energy sources, including hydropower, however. They may not need as much electricity as they used to anyway.

However, Switzerland does also face losing some of the electrical supply they have if they sign an agreement with the European Union. Apparently, this country currently has power in more than one way right now.

They currently may have a potential monopoly of the Star of Laufenburg located in the Canton of Aargau, but they may lose support from the EU if they continue the power project alone. This may mean higher energy costs for the country at least until the renewable resources are fully implemented.

Spain

Along with other countries making the same preparations, the country of Spain found out they might end up without power for a few weeks. News spread from Austrian Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner to here and several other locations.

Tanner urged citizens to prepare with blankets, candles, non-perishable foods, and other emergency supplies. European University of Valencia Business Professor Roberto Gómez agreed.

Venezuela

A blackout did occur in Venezuela on October 14, 2021. It affected Caracas, the country’s capital city. Districts without power include the Plaza Venezuela, Los Palos Grandes, El Marqués and Altamira.

This country has become accustomed to power failures because of its subsidized electricity supply. It could mean the people here may have prepared more so than in other locations.

Australia

“The issue isn’t confined to Europe,” warned Strange Sounds staff in November 2021 concerning the EU blackout warning. Australia experienced some technical problems when attempting to connect to power, an issue at the time blamed on the wind.

This Aussie incident took place in 2016. Still, it causes a scare in some people because they already had an outage that affected 850,000 homes. They're probably not looking forward to possibly another one that serious.

The United States

In California, a total of 50, 015 blackouts occurred that affected more than 51 million people from 2017-2019. However, reports indicate that the state plans blackouts to reduce wildfire danger during extreme heatwaves, like what occurred in 2020. Los Angeles, San Jose, San Diego, San Francisco, Fresno and other large cities still have blackouts as of 2022.

Other U.S. states may have blackouts you don’t know about too. However, they may not always occur in the same magnitude as in California in 2020.

For instance, Arizona, Washington D.C., or Nevada had shorter (or less serious) outages than in California or Maine, Louisiana, or Alabama from 2013-2020. Most of these are weather-related and not connected to the 2021 EU warnings.

Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan and several other locations, such as Peshawar, Lahore, Quetta and Karachi experienced power outages in January 2021.

New York Times Reporter Salman Masood called this incident “one of the biggest power failures to hit the country of 200 million people.” Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan said an engineering fault at the Guddu Thermal Power Plant in Sindh may have caused it.