Electricity blackout affects 70,000 people in Lanzarote and disrupts drinking-water supply

A major power failure across Lanzarote this morning shut down the island’s desalination plants, interrupting drinking-water production and prompting warnings of possible temporary supply cuts and pressure drops.

The electrical failure began at 5:44am on Saturday when an incident occurred on the 66kV network at the Mácher substation in Tías.

According to the Canary Islands Government, approximately 51,700 customers initially lost electricity. Four minutes later, a further incident involving the San Bartolomé and Punta Grande substations caused a loss of generation, taking the number of affected customers to approximately 73,600.

Playa Blanca was largely unaffected because the area receives its electricity through its connection with Fuerteventura.

Desalination plants forced to stop

The blackout had an immediate impact on another essential service, with desalination plants serving Lanzarote and La Graciosa forced to shut down and drinking-water production interrupted.

Water service teams began carrying out manoeuvres across the distribution network to preserve available reserves and manage stored water while production facilities were restarted.

Although electricity supplies were progressively restored, the return of power does not mean desalination plants can immediately resume normal production.

The facilities must undergo start-up and stabilisation procedures before returning progressively to their normal output.

Temporary water cuts possible

As a result, temporary water-supply interruptions, reduced pressure or other problems could occur in different parts of Lanzarote and La Graciosa during Saturday.

No definitive list of affected areas has been issued because the situation depends on available reserves and the progress made in restoring production.

Residents and businesses have been asked to use water responsibly and avoid unnecessary consumption while the system recovers.

Emergency plan activated

The Canary Islands Government activated a PLATECA pre-alert for Lanzarote at 7:15am because of the impact of the blackout on essential services.

At 6:47am, around 39,000 customers were still without electricity, although that number subsequently fell rapidly as the network was progressively restored.

The emergency declaration allows authorities and essential-service operators to coordinate their response and monitor the consequences of the outage.

The cause of the original electrical failure has not yet been publicly established.