On Tuesday, most of Spain and Portugal’s lights came back on after a huge blackout devastated the Iberian peninsula, stranding travelers in trains and elevators and cutting out phone and internet service for millions.
REE, the grid operator, reported that approximately 90% of mainland Spain’s electricity had been restored by early Tuesday. According to the national electrical grid operator, around 6.2 million of Portugal’s 6.5 million households had their power restored overnight. The lights came back on in Madrid and Lisbon, Portugal’s capital.
Only a small portion of the peninsula, which has a combined population of about 60 million people, avoided the blackout. However, no concrete cause for the shutdown has emerged.
According to Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro, the source of the disruption was “probably in Spain”. Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, stated that all potential causes were being investigated and advised the public not to speculate due to the possibility of “misinformation”.
Previously, Portugal’s grid operator REN blamed the blackout on significant temperature changes, which left the two countries without trains, metros, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections, or internet access.
People were locked in elevators, stopped on trains, stalled in traffic, and abandoned at airports. Hundreds went into pitch-black metro tunnels with phone torches, while others hunted for necessities in supermarkets that only accepted cash or began long walks home from work.
At 12.33pm (11.33 BST), electricity went out, causing mobile networks and internet connection to go down. Hospitals postponed ordinary operations but employed generators to attend to critical cases, and while electronic banking was operational on backup systems, most ATM screens remained blank.
In images reminiscent of the 2003 outage that caused extensive blackouts in the northeast of the United States, rail services across the Iberian peninsula were halted, aviation travel was hampered, and traffic lights were turned off. Hundreds of people needed to be rescued from clogged lifts.
The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martinez-Almeida, had asked residents to limit their travel and stay where they were, saying, “It is critical that emergency services can circulate.” The Madrid Open tennis tournament has been suspended.
By 10 p.m. local time on Monday, 62% of Spain’s substations (421 of 680) were back online, and 43.3% of power demand had been met, while Portugal’s grid operator REN reported that 85 of the country’s 89 substations had been restored.
Red Eléctrica had earlier warned that it may take between six and ten hours to fully restore power following what it described as a “exceptional and totally extraordinary” catastrophe.
In the bustling Argüelles neighbourhood of Madrid, the restoration of the power supply sparked cheers of joy and enthusiastic applause from the crowd meandering along the street.
Sánchez stated that the power outage began at 12:33 PM, when, for a duration of five seconds, 15 gigawatts of the energy being produced – which accounted for 60% of the total energy consumption – abruptly vanished.
“That’s an occurrence that has never taken place before,” he added. “The reason behind this abrupt disappearance of the supply remains undetermined by experts.” However, they will … Every possible cause is under examination, and no theory or option is being dismissed.
Sánchez expressed gratitude to France and Morocco for providing extra electricity to Spain, noting that the existing shortfall would be mitigated through the use of gas and hydroelectric power.
The Portuguese operator, REN, reported that the outage resulted from a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” where extreme temperature fluctuations in Spain led to “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines.
REN stated that the occurrence, referred to as “induced atmospheric vibration,” resulted in “synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
Widespread outages are rare in Europe. In 2003, a hydroelectric power line issue between Italy and Switzerland led to blackouts lasting approximately 12 hours. Then, in 2006, an overloaded power network in Germany resulted in electricity cuts affecting various regions in the country as well as France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
The prime minister announced that more national police and Guardia Civil officers had been deployed nationwide to guarantee the safety of citizens overnight, noting that hospitals were operating effectively due to the dedication of healthcare workers.
He mentioned that telecommunications services continued to experience interruptions, primarily due to insufficient electricity supply to the antennae.
Sánchez stated that just 344 out of the 6,000 flights in Spain on Monday were cancelled, and that the country’s road network was functioning effectively, aside from a few delays.
Significant travel disruption took place on the rail network, affecting 35,000 passengers stranded on over 100 trains, who received assistance from rail companies and the military emergencies unit. Eleven additional trains that had halted in isolated regions were still awaiting assistance.
In Madrid and various other cities, traffic lights stopped working, leading to gridlock as vehicles slowed down to prevent accidents, while metro services were suspended. Spain’s national road authority, DGT, advised drivers to refrain from using the roads whenever possible.
El País newspaper shared images and footage on its website showing passengers making their way through dimly lit metro tunnels in the Spanish capital, alongside police managing traffic on the city streets. Video also captured its own journalists operating by the light of torches.
The Spanish health ministry announced via social media that it was coordinating with regional authorities to evaluate the extent of the widespread blackout, while assuring the public that hospitals were equipped with backup systems.
The outage affected the capital, Lisbon, along with nearby regions, as well as areas in the north and south of Portugal. Metro carriages in Lisbon were evacuated, and ATMs along with electronic payment systems were disabled.
Sánchez announced that eight of Spain’s autonomous regions (Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Valencia) have declared category 3 emergencies, entrusting the reaction to the federal government. He stated that schools in certain locations would be open on Tuesday but would not be holding regular lessons.
Sánchez announced that eight of Spain’s autonomous regions (Andalucía, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Valencia) have declared category 3 emergencies, entrusting the reaction to the federal government. He stated that schools in certain locations would be open on Tuesday but would not be holding regular lessons.
He stated that the situation across the country remained quite “asymmetric” on Monday night, with some districts already having 90% of their power restored and others having recovered less than 15%.
