State of emergency remains in place as 99% of electricity restored

More than 99% of power has been restored to Spain following mass blackouts that left millions of people without power and saw the country’s transport network grind to a halt.

The power cut hit the Iberian Peninsula at around 12.30pm local time on Monday, leaving swathes of Spain, Portugal and parts of France without electricity, and prompting Spain to declare a state of emergency.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said yesterday that there were no “definitive reasons” reasons for the blackout, though Portugal’s prime minister Luis Montenegro said there was “no indication” a cyberattack was the cause.

Spain’s King Felipe is set to chair a national security meeting later today to look into the cause of the power cut, which grounded flights and left people trapped in lifts and on trains as the grid went down.

The state of emergency remains in place in Spain to maintain order as the country deals with the aftermath of the cuts.

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Mon 28 April 2025 at 11:51 pm GMT-7

Power restored to 6.2 million homes in Portugal

Heavy traffic in Lisbon, Portugal, during Monday’s blackout. (Getty Images)

Portugal’s national grid operator REN has said that power has been restored to 6.2 million out of 6.5 million households.

Portugal’s entire grid has been “stabilised” and all power substations were back on line before midnight, grid operator REN said on Tuesday.

In Portugal, the power cut affected traffic lights across the country and the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto.
Mon 28 April 2025 at 11:41 pm GMT-7

Net zero blamed for blackout chaos

A reliance on net zero energy left Spain and Portugal vulnerable to the mass blackouts engulfing the region, experts said on Monday night.

In what is believed to be Europe’s largest power cut, tens of millions of people were left without electricity, while flights were grounded, trains halted and whole cities were left without power, internet access or other vital services.

The cause of the initial fault in the region’s electricity grid is still being investigated, and the EU has insisted that there were no indications that it was a cyber attack.

Read the full story from The Telegraph.
Mon 28 April 2025 at 11:27 pm GMT-7

Sudden drop in supply led to massive power cut, says grid operator

People wait outside a closed train station, during the major power outage in Barcelona, Spain. (AP)

A massive blackout that hit most of the Iberian Peninsula on Monday was due to a sudden, large drop in power supply that caused the grid interconnection between Spain and France to trip, according to Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica.

The network lost 15 gigawatts of electricity generation in five seconds at around 1033 GMT, the Energy Ministry said on Monday evening, without explaining the reason for the loss.

Red Eléctrica’s system operations chief Eduardo Prieto told reporters the loss of power supply was beyond the extent that European systems are designed to handle and caused the Spanish and French grids to disconnect, which in turn led to the collapse of the Spanish electricity network.