Near the end of last year, thousands of European travellers saw their holiday plans unravel after a prolonged power outage in the Eurotunnel – the underwater train passage linking Britain and France – caused by a fault in the overhead supply.
For many, this brought back memories of chaotic scenes the previous April, when rolling blackouts struck much of Portugal and Spain. The United States also suffered from multiple power outages last year, including major disruptions in California – most recently in San Francisco, where a substation fire cut electricity to around 130,000 homes days before Christmas.
