The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) has announced the establishment of a specialized expert commission to thoroughly investigate the power outage that occurred in North Macedonia’s electricity network on 18 May.
The disruption happened in the early morning hours and caused an almost total loss of load across North Macedonia’s power system. The outage lasted about 90 minutes, from 04:59 to 06:27 CEST.
Thanks to rapid response by MEPSO, North Macedonia’s transmission system operator, power was restored relatively quickly. The wider Continental European electricity network remained mostly unaffected by the incident. Before the outage, MEPSO’s network showed unusual conditions, including abnormally high voltage levels, very low electricity demand, and minimal cross-border electricity flows with neighboring systems. These anomalies will be a key focus of the investigation as experts seek to understand their potential role in the failure.
Following ENTSO-E’s standardized incident classification procedure, an independent expert panel will lead the inquiry. The panel will be chaired by a recognized expert from a transmission operator not affected by the event and will include representatives from multiple system operators, regional coordination centers (RCCs), the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), and national regulatory authorities.
The investigation will take place in two phases. In the first phase, the panel will collect and analyze all relevant data to identify the root causes of the outage, with findings published in a factual report. In the second phase, the commission will provide recommendations to prevent similar incidents in the future, presented in a final report.
