Technical report on the impact of the April 28 blackout on critical buildings

On April 28th, at 12:33 p.m., an unprecedented blackout left the Iberian Peninsula without power for several hours. The grid was automatically cut off from the European system, generating a severe impact on the operation of critical infrastructure, without prior notice and in the middle of the workday.

At JG Ingenieros, we launched an initiative to analyze this real-life stress situation. We sent a technical survey to more than 100 managers of critical buildings, receiving over 50 responses in record time.

The resulting report evaluates:

• The behavior of MEP installations
• The operational responses activated
• The most frequent problems
• The opportunities for improvement detected

It also includes a list of the main issues and a list of general recommendations, designed as a roadmap to strengthen the resilience of critical assets.

This work has been possible thanks to the agile collaboration of the professionals responsible for the centers and our technical teams. Transforming a crisis into useful knowledge is part of our commitment as engineers specializing in highly complex construction.

We sincerely thank all the centers, institutions, and professionals who participated. Their speed, vision, and willingness in a challenging environment have been key. Promoting technical exchange between users, operators, and designers is the only way to improve the readiness of our infrastructure.

We recommend that teams designing and operating critical buildings review the document to incorporate its learnings into new projects and strategic decisions.

Access the full report at the following link.