A historic and paralysing power outage struck vast regions of Spain and Portugal on Monday, plunging millions into darkness, halting transportation, severing phone services, and snarling traffic across the Iberian Peninsula.
By early Tuesday morning, Spain’s power distributor Red Eléctrica reported that 99% of the country’s electrical capacity had been restored. In Portugal’s capital, Lisbon, the lights flickered back to life after a long, tense night. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro both praised the rapid efforts of workers and neighbouring countries that provided emergency electricity.
Monday’s outage, described as “exceptional and extraordinary” by Eduardo Prieto, head of operations at Red Eléctrica, brought daily life to a grinding halt. Offices shuttered, subways stopped mid-route, traffic lights failed, and even mobile phone networks went down in Madrid and Barcelona. In the Catalan capital, residents took to the streets, directing traffic themselves along major avenues like Gran Via and rushing to purchase battery-powered radios.
Prime Minister Sánchez pointed to a “strong oscillation” within the European grid as a preliminary cause but urged the public to avoid jumping to conclusions. “No theory has been ruled out,” he said during a televised address. Meanwhile, Portuguese grid operator REN linked the outage to a rare atmospheric phenomenon triggered by extreme temperature swings in Spain, Reuters reported. Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Centre stressed that no evidence of a cyberattack had been found.
To stabilise the situation, Spain imported electricity from Morocco and France, while ramping up output from hydroelectric and thermal plants. Sánchez personally visited Red Eléctrica’s headquarters to oversee restoration efforts and convened an extraordinary meeting of the National Security Council. In Portugal, Prime Minister Montenegro held an emergency cabinet meeting at his official residence.
Although a full account of how many people were impacted remains unclear, the blackout affected large parts of both nations, which together house around 60 million residents. Spain’s Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, and the African territories of Ceuta and Melilla were spared from the disruption.
The blackout follows closely on the heels of a March 20 incident in the United Kingdom, where a fire at Heathrow Airport caused major power failures, amid rising European concerns about potential infrastructure sabotage linked to global tensions.
Data from Spain’s electricity grid revealed a sudden and dramatic drop in demand, from 27,500 megawatts to nearly 15,000, shortly after noon on Monday. By 7 a.m. Tuesday, production had rebounded to 21,265 megawatts, as Red Eléctrica confirmed near-full restoration.
Authorities continue to investigate the precise cause behind one of the most significant outages ever to strike Western Europe, as the Iberian Peninsula slowly returns to normal life under the still lingering shadow of uncertainty.
