Massive Power Outage Hits Spain and Portugal: What We Know

A power outage of historic proportions hit Spain and Portugal on Monday which became one of Europe’s most severe disruptions affecting tens of millions of people in the Iberian Peninsula. The blackout which began in early afternoon continued until nighttime caused major disruptions to businesses and hospitals and transit systems and cellular networks. The investigation into the incident continues but officials have not provided many details.

The Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sánchez reported that Spain experienced a 15-gigawatt power loss which reached 60% of its total demand at 12:30 p.m. The grid operator Red Eléctrica Spain reported two previous disconnection events. Operations director Eduardo Prieto explained that the first incident was tolerable but the second grid disconnection from France resulted in a “massive temporary disconnection.” The CEO of Whisker Labs Bob Marshall observed voltage changes in Madrid homes starting at 9:30 a.m. that grew into 15-volt oscillations every 1.5 seconds by noon which indicated unstable grid conditions.

The exact cause remains unclear. Eamonn Lannoye from the Electric Power Research Institute believes that multiple simultaneous events possibly caused by maintenance activities could be responsible for the incident. Enric Bartlett from Esade described how supply-demand balance functions like a tandem bike while explaining that power outages usually result from natural disasters and equipment failures and grid imbalances. King’s College expert Grazia Todeschini explained that big supply-demand discrepancies can create extensive network disruptions even when protective systems are in place.

The two countries which lead renewable energy adoption (Spain and Portugal) must address their grid resilience challenges because more than half of Spain’s 2024 energy supply came from renewable sources. The theory that solar and wind power’s variable output contributed to supply fluctuations has not been confirmed by Lannoye who warns against rushing to blame renewable energy sources. The Spanish High Court launched an investigation into the power outage while confirming that cyberattacks were not responsible. The power outage in Spain and Portugal caused France to shut down because European power grids are connected which exposed regional weaknesses according to IEEE’s Shreenithi Lakshmi Narasimhan.