Ireland could suffer a sustained total electricity blackout if critical energy infrastructure were targeted in acts of coordinated sabotage, an Irish engineering expert has warned. The alert follows two physical attacks on power substations in Germany that forced major energy generation capacity offline.

Dr Paul Cuffe, an associate professor at University College Dublin's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, highlighted the grid vulnerabilities following incidents in Germany. In eastern Germany's Brandenburg state, explosive devices damaged high-voltage power cables. Hours later, a second attack targeting overhead power lines near Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia triggered a short circuit that knocked five coal-fired power plant units offline.

Dr Cuffe noted that the Cologne incident abruptly removed 4.2 gigawatts (GW) of generation capacity from the German system—an amount equal to roughly 80% of all electricity consumed across Ireland during peak morning hours. Although Germany's robust grid absorbed the loss without customer outages, Cuffe described the event as a dangerous near-miss that underlines the potential impact of physical grid tampering.

Irish grid operators design the power system with safety buffers so it can withstand the loss of any single asset, such as an unexpected generator trip or a lightning strike on a transmission line. However, Dr Cuffe warned that simultaneous or coordinated attacks on two or more vital Irish grid assets—such as large fossil-fuel power stations or UK electricity interconnectors—could exceed built-in tolerances and cause a island-wide blackout.

German law enforcement authorities are investigating the substation attacks as potential terrorism or state-sponsored hybrid interference, prompting broader calls across Europe to strengthen physical security around energy infrastructure.