The blackout that took down the Iberian grid serving Spain and Portugal in April was the result of a number of smaller interacting problems, according to an investigation by the Spanish government. The report concludes that several steps meant to address a small instability made matters worse, eventually leading to a self-reinforcing cascade where high voltages caused power plants to drop off the grid, thereby increasing the voltage further. Critically, the report suggests that the Spanish grid operator had an unusually low number of plants on call to stabilize matters, and some of the ones it did have responded poorly.

The full report will be available later today; however, the government released a summary ahead of its release. The document includes a timeline of the events that triggered the blackout, as well as an analysis of why grid management failed to keep it in check. It also notes that a parallel investigation checked for indications of a cyberattack and found none.

Oscillations and a cascade

The document notes that for several days prior to the blackout, the Iberian grid had been experiencing voltage fluctuations—products of a mismatch between supply and demand—that had been managed without incident. These continued through the morning of April 28 until shortly after noon, when an unusual frequency oscillation occurred. This oscillation has been traced back to a single facility on the grid, but the report doesn’t identify it or even indicate its type, simply referring to it as an “instalación.”

The grid operators responded in a way that suppressed the oscillations but increased the voltages on the grid. About 15 minutes later, a weakened version of this oscillation occurred again, followed shortly thereafter by oscillations at a different frequency, this one with properties that are commonly seen on European grids. That prompted the grid operators to take corrective steps again, which increased the voltages on the grid.

The Iberian grid is capable of handling this sort of thing. But the grid operator only scheduled 10 power plants to handle voltage regulation on the 28th, which the report notes is the lowest total it had committed to in all of 2025 up to that point. The report found that a number of those plants failed to respond properly to the grid operators, and a few even responded in a way that contributed to the surging voltages.

By Pietro Lombardi

MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish grid operator Redeia disputed the findings of a government report that said failure by the operator to calculate the correct mix of energy was one of the factors that led to a massive blackout in Spain and Portugal on April 28.

Redeia operations chief Concha Sanchez also told a news briefing on Wednesday its own investigation had discovered anomalies in the disconnection of power plants on April 28 even though voltage in the system was within legal limits, as well as an anomalous growth in demand from the transport network.

Then, in the first seconds of the blackout, a combined-cycle plant that was supposed to provide stability to the system disconnected when it should not have, she said.

“Based on our calculation, there was enough voltage control capabilities planned” by Redeia, she said. “Had conventional power plants done their job in controlling the voltage there would have been no blackout.”

The government’s report released on Tuesday said Redeia’s miscalculation was one of the factors hindering the grid’s ability to cope with a surge in voltage that led to the outage.

According to Redeia’s Sanchez, the system was in “absolutely normal conditions” at noon just before the blackout.

Redeia will release its own full report on the causes of the outage, its chair, Beatriz Corredor, told the same news briefing.

(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi, writing by Inti Landauro, editing by Andrei Khalip)

At 12.33pm on Monday 28 April, most of Spain and Portugal were plunged into chaos by a blackout.

While the initial trigger remains uncertain, the nationwide blackouts took place after around 15 gigawatts (GW) of electricity generating capacity – equivalent to 60% of Spain’s power demand at the time – dropped off the system within the space of five seconds.

The blackouts left millions of people without power, with trains, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and internet access failing across the Iberian peninsula.

By Tuesday morning, almost all electricity supplies across Spain and Portugal had been restored, but questions about the root cause remained.

Many media outlets were quick to – despite very little available data or information – blame renewables, net-zero or the energy transition for the blackout, even if only by association, by highlighting the key role solar power plays in the region’s electricity mix.

Below, Carbon Brief examines what is known about the Spanish and Portuguese power cuts, the role of renewables and how the media has responded.

UPDATE 18 June: An official probe into the blackout blamed errors at conventional power plants and “bad planning” by the grid operator, see below for more details.

What happened and what was the impact?

The near-total power outage in the Iberian Peninsula on Monday affected millions of people.

Spain and Portugal experienced the most extensive blackouts, but Andorra also reported outages, as did the Basque region of France. According to Reuters, the blackout was the biggest in Europe’s history.

In a conference call with reporters, Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica set out the order of events.

Shortly after 12.30pm, the grid suffered an “event” akin to loss of power generation, according to a summary of the call posted by Bloomberg’s energy and commodities columnist Javier Blas on LinkedIn. While the grid almost immediately self-stabilised and recovered, about 1.5 seconds later a second “event” hit, he wrote.

Around 3.5 seconds later, the interconnector between the Spanish region of Catalonia and south-west France was disconnected due to grid instability. Immediately after this, there was a “massive” loss of power on the system, Blas said.

This caused the power grid to “cascade down into collapse”, causing the “unexplained disappearance” of 60% of Spain’s generation, according to Politico.

It quoted Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez, who told a press conference late on Monday that the causes were not yet known:

“This has never happened before. And what caused it is something that the experts have not yet established – but they will.”

The figure below shows the sudden loss of 15GW of generating capacity from the Spanish grid at 12.33pm on Monday. In addition, a further 5GW disconnected from the Portuguese grid.

Electricity generation capacity in Spain, megawatts (MW), from 27-29 April, showing the drop in generation. Credit: Red Eléctrica.

The Guardian noted in its coverage that “while the system weathered the first event, it could not cope with the second”.

A separate piece from the publication added that “barely a corner of the peninsula, which has a joint population of almost 60 million people, escaped the blackout”.

El País reported that “the power cut…paralysed the normal functioning of infrastructures, telecommunications, roads, train stations, airports, stores and buildings. Hospitals have not been impacted as they are using generators.”

According to Spanish newswire EFE, “hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets, forced to walk long distances home due to paralysed metro and commuter train services, without mobile apps as telecommunications networks also faltered”.

It added that between 30,000 and 35,000 passengers had to be evacuated from stranded trains.

The New York Times reported that Portuguese banks and schools closed, while ATMs stopped working across the country and Spain. People “crammed into stores to buy food and other essentials as clerks used pen and paper to record cash-only transactions”, it added.

Spain’s interior ministry declared a national emergency, according to Reuters, deploying 30,000 police to keep order.

Both Spain and Portugal convened emergency cabinet meetings, with Spain’s King Felipe VI chairing a national security council meeting on Tuesday to discuss an investigation into the power outage, Sky News reported.

By 10pm on Monday, 421 out of Spain’s 680 substations were back online, meaning that 43% of expected power demand was being met, reported the Guardian.

By Tuesday morning, more than 99% of the total electricity supply had been recovered, according to Politico, quoting Red Eléctrica.

In Portugal, power had been restored to every substation on the country’s grid by 11.30pm on Monday. In a statement released on Tuesday, Portuguese grid operator REN said the grid had been “fully stabilised”.

Red Eléctrica and REN have been congratulated for the “rapid recovery” of the grid, including by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E).

On 9 May, ENTSO-E released a timeline of the blackout as part of a joint effort to investigate what went wrong. The effort is part of a joint expert panel with ENTSO-E’s transmission system operators members, the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, national regulatory authorities and regional coordination centres.

The new timeline clarified that “presumably a series of different generation trips” caused 2.2GW to drop off the system in the south of Spain over the course of 20 seconds from 12:32:57 on 28 April, causing the frequency on the grid to drop and the voltage to increase.

Frequency continued to drop to 48 hertz (cycles per second, Hz), meaning the “automatic load shedding defence plans” were activated and consumers started to be disconnected.

The overhead lines between France and Spain were then disconnected by protection devices.

Following this, the Iberian electricity system collapsed completely, alongside the high-voltage transmission lines between France and Spain stopping the transmission of power.

While this timeline continues to shine light on the order of events, the original cause or causes of the generation tripping off the system remain unclear.

The expert panel will investigate the blackout in two phases. First, compiling all available data on the incident and determining the causes of the blackout. Then, establishing recommendations to help prevent similar incidents. Both phases will be published as reports.

What caused the power cuts?

In the wake of the power cuts, politicians, industry professionals, media outlets, armchair experts and the wider public scrambled to make sense of what had just happened.

Spanish prime minister Sánchez said on the afternoon of the blackout that the government did not have “conclusive information” on its cause, adding that it “[did] not rule out any hypothesis”, Spanish newspaper Diario Sur reported.

Nevertheless, some early theories were quickly rejected by officials.

Red Eléctrica, “preliminarily ruled out that the blackout was due to a cyberattack, human error or a meteorological or atmospheric phenomenon”, El País reported the day after the event.

Politico noted that “people in the street in Spain and some local politicians” had speculated about a cyberattack.

However, it quoted Eduardo Prieto, Red Eléctrica’s head of system operation services, saying that while the conclusions were preliminary, the operator had “been able to conclude that there has not been any type of intrusion in the electrical network control systems that could have caused the incident”.

The Majorca Daily Bulletin reported that Spain’s High Court said it would open an investigation into whether the event was the result of a cyberattack.

As part of an inquiry launched by prime minister Sanchez, “investigators from Spain’s cybersecurity agency, INCIBE, and the CNI intelligence service will seek information from the grid operator and private energy companies” sources told Reuters.

Initial reporting by news agencies blamed the power cuts on a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”, citing the Portuguese grid operator REN, according to the Guardian. The newspaper added that REN later said this statement had been incorrectly attributed to it.

The phenomenon in question was described as an “induced atmospheric vibration”.

Prof Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, an electrical engineer at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, explained in the Conversation that this was “not a commonly used term”.

Nevertheless, he said the phenomenon being described was familiar, referring to “wavelike movements” in the atmosphere caused by sudden changes in temperature or pressure.

In general terms, Reuters explained that power cuts are often linked to extreme weather, but that the “weather at the time of Monday’s collapse was fair”. It added that faults at power stations, power distribution lines or substations can also trigger outages.

Another theory was that a divergence of electrical frequency from 50 cycles per second (Hz), the European standard, could have caused parts of the system to shut down in order to protect equipment, France 24 explained.

Some analysts noted that “oscillations” in grid frequency shortly before the events in Spain and Portugal could be related to the power cuts. Tobias Burke, policy manager at Energy UK, explained this theory in his Substack:

“The fact these frequency oscillations mirrored those in Latvia…at the other extreme of the Europe-spanning ENTSO-E network, might suggest complex inter-area oscillations across markets could be the culprit.”

This phenomenon can be seen in a chart originally made by Prof Philippe Jacquod, an electrical engineer at the universities of Geneva and of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (Hes-SO Valais-Wallis). The chart was shared – without credit – in a LinkedIn post by Prof Lion Hirth, an energy researcher at Hertie School.

With many details still unknown, much of the media speculation has focused on the role that renewable energy could have played in the blackouts. (See: Did renewable energy play a role in the blackouts?)

Many of the experts cited in the media emphasised the complexity of determining the cause of the outages. Eamonn Lannoye, managing director at the Electric Power Research Institute Europe, was quoted by the Associated Press stating:

“There’s a variety of things that usually happen at the same time and it’s very difficult for any event to say ‘this was the root cause’.”

Nevertheless, there are several efforts now underway to determine what the causes were.

Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro, announced on Tuesday that the government would set up an independent technical commission to investigate the blackouts, while stressing that the problem had originated in Spain, according to Euractiv.

Finally, EU energy commissioner Dan Jørgensen has indicated that the EU will open a “thorough investigation” into the reasons behind the power cuts, BBC News noted.

Did renewable energy play a role in the blackouts?

As commentators began to look into the cause of the blackout, many pointed to the high share of renewables in Spain’s electricity mix.

On 16 April, Spain’s grid had run entirely on renewable sources for a full day for the first time ever, with wind accounting for 46% of total output, solar 27%, hydroelectric 23% and solar thermal and others meeting the rest, according to PV Magazine.

Spain is targeting 81% renewable power by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

At the time of the blackout on Monday, solar accounted for 59% of the country’s electricity supplies, wind nearly 12%, nuclear 11% and gas around 5%, reported the Independent.

The initial “event” is thought to have originated in the south-western region of Extremadura, noted Politico, “which is home to the country’s most powerful nuclear power plant, some of its largest hydroelectric dams and numerous solar farms.”

On Tuesday, Red Eléctrica’s head of system operation services Eduardo Prieta said that it was “very possible that the affected generation [in the initial ‘events’] could be solar”.

This sparked further speculation about how grids that are highly reliant on variable renewables can be managed so as to ensure security of supply.

Political groups such as the far-right VOX – which has historically pushed back against climate action such as the expansion of renewables – also pointed to the blackout as evidence of “the importance of a balanced energy mix”.

However, others rejected this suggestion, with EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen telling Bloomberg that the blackout could not be pinned on a “specific source of energy”:

“As far as we know, there was nothing unusual about the sources of energy supplying electricity to the system yesterday. So the causes of the blackout cannot be reduced to a specific source of energy, for instance renewables.”

Others have sought to highlight that, while it was possible solar power was involved in the initial frequency event, this does not mean that it was ultimately the cause of the blackout.

Writing on LinkedIn, chief technology officer of Arenko, a renewable energy software company, Roger Hollies, noted:

“The initial trip may well have been a solar plant, but trips happen all the time across all asset types. Networks should be designed to withstand multiple loss of generators. 15GW is not one power station, this is the equivalent of 10 large gas or nuclear power stations or 75 solar parks.”

Spain’s environment minister Sara Aagesen has pushed back against claims that solar power was to blame for the blackouts, according to the Guardian. It quotes her saying:

“The system has worked to perfection with a similar demand situation and with a similar energetic mix [in the past], so pointing the finger at renewables when the system has functioned perfectly in the same context doesn’t seem very appropriate.”

Aagesen has promised a “complete audit” to determine the cause of the blackouts, according to the newspaper.

Similarly, president of Redeia Corporacion – Red Eléctrica’s parent company – Beatriz Corredor has said it would be wrong to blame the blackouts on renewables, reported Reuters. Additionally, she is quoted by El País saying that the “fault that caused the blackout was not Red Eléctrica’s fault”.

Others pointed to what they said was insufficient nuclear power on the grid – a notion that prime minister Sánchez rejected, according to El País.

Speaking on Tuesday, he said that those arguing the blackouts showed a need for more nuclear power were “either lying or showing ignorance”, according to the newspaper. It said he highlighted that nuclear plants were yet to fully recover from the event.

One key aspect of the transition away from electricity systems built around thermal power stations burning coal, gas or uranium is a loss of “inertia”, the Financial Times highlighted.

Thermal power plants generate electricity using large spinning turbines, which rotate at the same 50 cycles per second (Hz) speed as the electrical grid oscillates. The weight of these “large lump[s] of spinning metal” gives them “inertia”, which counteracts changes in frequency on the rest of the grid.

When faults cause a rise or fall in grid frequency, this inertia helps lower the rate of change of frequency, giving system operators more time to respond, noted Adam Bell, director of policy at Stonehaven, in a post on LinkedIn.

Solar does not include a spinning generator, and therefore, critics pointed to the lack of inertia on the grid due to the high levels of the technology as a cause of the blackout.

As Bell pointed out, this ignores the inertia provided by nuclear, hydro and solar thermal on the grid at the time of the blackout, alongside the Spanish grid operator having built “synchronous condensers” to help boost inertia and grid stability.

Bell added:

“A lack of inertia was therefore not the main driver for the blackout. Indeed, post the frequency event, no fossil generation remained online – but wind, solar and hydro did.”

On LinkedIn, Hirth wrote that it “is not clear that the lack of inertia caused the blackout” and that having more inertia might not have been enough to avoid the situation. He wrote:

“[It]seems highly plausible that oscillations like those evident through frequency measurements would have been dampened with more inertia…[Yet] that does not necessarily imply that more inertia would have avoided the blackout. That is a possibility, but not a certainty.”

He highlighted that power system operators worldwide – including Red Eléctrica in Spain – have discussed inertia for decades, noting that “this is not an issue anyone had ignored or ‘overlooked’”.

Moreover, Hirth noted that there are ways to provide inertia without fossil fuel, nuclear or hydro plants, such as flywheels, but said that these new solutions needed to be built.

While the ultimate cause of the blackouts remains to be seen, they have highlighted the need for an increased focus on grid stability, particularly as the economy is electrified.

A selection of comments from experts published in Review Energy emphasises the need for further resilience to be built into the grid as it transitions away from fossil fuels.

Elsewhere, an editorial in the Financial Times called the blackouts a “wake-up call”, arguing that “governments must invest in electricity resilience alongside the green transition”.

How has the media responded to the power cut?

As the crisis was still unfolding and its cause remained unknown, several climate-sceptic right-leaning UK publications clamoured to draw a link between the blackouts and the nations’ reliance on renewable energy.

It comes as right-leaning titles have stepped up their campaigning against climate policy over the past year.

On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph carried a frontpage story headlined: “Net-zero blamed for blackout chaos.”

But the article contradicted its own headline by concluding: “What exactly happened remains unclear for now. And the real answer is likely to involve several factors, not just one.”

None of the experts quoted in the piece blamed “net-zero” for the incident.

The Daily Telegraph also carried an editorial seeking to argue renewable energy was the cause of the blackouts, which claimed that “over-reliance on renewables means a less resilient grid”.

The Daily Express had an editorial (not online) claiming that the blackout shows “relying on renewables is dim”.

The Financial Times ran an article titled “Spain and Portugal blackout blamed on solar power dependency”, which quotes a number of experts pointing to the lack of “firm power” – traditionally from fossil fuel generators and nuclear – on the system at the time of the blackout.

Such firm power sources would have historically kicked in following a frequency event (see: Did renewable energy play a role in the blackouts?). The piece also quotes Corredor and others who have argued that renewable energy was not to blame for the blackouts.

Additionally, the Standard carried a comment by notorious climate-sceptic commentator Ross Clark breathlessly blaming the blackout on “unreliable” renewables, with a fear-mongering warning that the “same could happen in the UK”.

The Daily Mail published a comment by Rupert Darwall, a climate-sceptic author who is part of the CO2 Coalition – an organisation seeking to promote “the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives” – which claimed that the blackout showed “energy security is being sacrificed at the altar of green dogma”.

Climate-sceptic libertarian publication Spiked had a piece by its deputy editor Fraser Myers titled: “Spain’s blackouts are a disaster made by net-zero.” The article claimed that “our elites’ embrace of green ideology has divorced them from reality”.

In Spanish media, Jordi Sevilla, the former president of Red Eléctrica, wrote in the financial publication Cinco Días that, while it is not known what caused the blackout, it is clear that the country’s grid “requires investments to adapt to the technical reality of the new generation mix”. He continued:

“In Spain, in the last decade, there has been a revolution in electricity generation to the point that renewable technologies ([solar] photovoltaic and wind, above all) now occupy the majority of the energy mix. This has had very positive impacts on CO2 emissions, lower electricity prices and increased national autonomy.

“But there is a technical problem: photovoltaic and wind power are not synchronous energies, whereas our transmission and distribution networks are designed to operate only with a minimum voltage in the energy they transport. Therefore, to operate with current technology, the electrical system must maintain synchronous backup power, which can be hydroelectric, gas or nuclear, to be used when photovoltaic and wind power are insufficient, either due to their intermittent nature (there may be no sun or wind) or due to the lack of synchronisation required by the generators to operate.”

For Bloomberg, opinion columnist Javier Blas said that “Spain’s blackout shouldn’t trigger a retreat from renewables”, but shows that “an upgraded grid is urgently needed for the energy transition”. He added:

“​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in 1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and Portugal lost power for a few hours.

“But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable sources.”

What did the official investigation conclude?

Following the blackout, a 49-day probe by the Spanish government found that there were a number of failings that led to the outage.

The reports confirmed the timeline shared previously by ENTSO-E (see: What happened and what was the impact?), with oscillations occurring between 12:00 and 12:30 on 28 April, followed by an uncontrolled increase in the voltage of the system, leading to generation losses between 12:32:00 and 12:33 and then system collapse.

Additionally, it confirmed that it was a failure to manage voltage levels that caused the system outage. This is contrary to much of the early speculation, which had pointed to low inertia or a high share of renewables on the system.

The report (unofficial translation available here) identified a combination of errors that meant the system was unable to control what should have been a manageable surge in voltage, according to comments from Spanish energy and environment minister Sara Aagesen.

Instead, this voltage surge triggered multiple generation plants to automatically disconnect to protect their systems, causing a cascade that led to the blackout.

Notably, the report said it is unlikely that this cascade could have been stopped by a higher volume of conventional power plants offering greater “inertia” to the system.

In its coverage of the report, the Financial Times quoted Aagesen saying unusual oscillations were behind the voltage anomaly:

“The minister said the voltage surge itself was caused by oscillations in the frequency at which the electrical current changes direction. Some oscillations were natural, she said, but one was ‘atypical’. The unusual change originated from a solar power plant in south-west Spain near the city of Badajoz, the government report said.”

In a comment on LinkedIn, Simon Gallagher, managing director of grid management firm UK Network Services summarised the report as showing that the Spanish network operator had failed to secure enough power plants to manage voltage, while some of the units that were available did not provide the voltage control services they had been contracted to offer.

The report noted that a day prior to the blackout, one power plant had told Red Eléctrica that it would no longer be available to provide voltage support to the grid. However, the operator did not replace it, believing that it was not necessary to maintain system stability, according to the report.

Additionally, some of the automatic disconnections by power plants have been called into question, with Aagesen stating that some of these “occurred improperly”.

The Financial Times also quoted Aagesen pointing to failures from some power plants, which did not respond to voltage fluctuations as required. It quoted her saying:

“They were either not properly programmed, or the ones that were programmed did not provide what the standards require. But what we can say today is that there wasn’t a shortage of generation. There was enough to respond.”

Aagesen added that the next phases of the investigation into the blackout will be the administrative and judicial proceedings to determine “how this process ends”, noted the newspaper.

Despite initial accusations that solar power triggered the blackouts (see: Did renewable energy play a role in the blackouts?), the report specifically highlighted failings at conventional power plants, meaning coal, gas or nuclear power plants.

In its coverage of the report, Bloomberg noted that Spain’s grid “didn’t have enough backup thermal plants operating during peak hours, when voltage on the network surged”.

Reuters, meanwhile, focused on conventional power plants “fail[ing] to help maintain an appropriate voltage level in the power system that day”.

The report also ruled out a number of other suggested triggers for the blackout, with El País highlighting in its coverage that the report ruled out a cyberattack.

The Spanish newspaper also quoted a joint European solar industry statement as saying: “Let’s be clear: solar photovoltaic energy was not the cause of the blackout.”

By SUMAN NAISHADHAM and JOSEPH WILSON

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s government said Tuesday that the massive April power outage across Spain and Portugal that left tens of millions of people disconnected in seconds was caused by technical and planning errors that left the grid unable to handle a surge in voltage.

Ecological Transition Minister Sara Aagesen, who manages the nation’s energy policy, told reporters that a voltage surge led to small grid failures, mainly in the south of Spain, which then cascaded to larger ones and brought the system down in the two Iberian Peninsula nations.

She ruled out that the failure was due to a cyberattack.

The outage began shortly after noon on April 28 in Spain and lasted through nightfall, disrupting businesses, transit systems, cellular networks, internet connectivity and other critical infrastructure. Spain lost 15 gigawatts of electricity — or about 60% of its supply. Portugal, whose grid is connected to Spain’s, also went down. Only the countries’ island territories were spared.

“All of this happened in 12 seconds, with most of the power loss happening in just five seconds,” Aagesen said.

Several technical causes contributed to the event, including “poor planning” by Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica, which didn’t find a replacement for one power plant that was supposed to help balance power fluctuations, the minister said. She also said that some power plants that utilities shut off preventively when the disruptions started could have stayed online to help manage the system.

Power was fully restored by the early hours of the following day.

The government’s report will be released later on Tuesday — 49 days after the event — and included analysis from Spain’s national security agencies, which concluded, according to the minister, there were no indications of cyber-sabotage by foreign actors.

The government had previously narrowed down the source of the outage to three power plants that tripped in southern Spain.

In the weeks following the blackout, citizens and experts were left wondering what triggered the event in a region not known for power cuts. The outage ignited a fierce debate about whether Spain’s high levels of renewable power and not enough energy generated from nuclear or gas-fired power plants had something to do with the grid failing, which the government has repeatedly denied.

Spain is at the forefront of Europe’s transition to renewable energy, having generated nearly 57% of its electricity in 2024 from renewable energy sources like wind, hydropower and solar. The country is also phasing out its nuclear plants.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed back against such speculation and defended the country’s rapid ramping up of renewables. He asked for patience and said that his government would not “deviate a single millimeter” from its energy transition plans, which include a goal of generating 81% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain.

Have you been affected? Contact james.reynolds@mailonline.co.uk

Spain’s leaders have been accused of a blackout cover up after large parts of Spain and Portugal were knocked offline on Monday.

An opinion piece in Spanish outlet El Español lamented that ‘no one dares to reveal the causes of the total blackout in Spain’, with the government yet to come forward with a full explanation for the outage, which grounded flights and caused disruption in major cities.

The article cited a report that warned that integration of renewables and falling demand were causing significant fluctuations in voltage levels, that could lead to blackouts in the country.

Energy experts have warned that the grids may have been made less stable by wide adoption of renewable energy – after Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewables for the first time earlier this month.

Spain continued its State of Emergency into Tuesday and brought in thousands of extra police officers to uphold order and prevent looting as chaos resumed. The interior ministry said the emergency status would be applied in the regions that request it, amid fears the chaos could last for days.

Amid the frenzy, it emerged that a British mother had given birth to a premature baby in the garden of a Costa del Sol hotel, still in critical condition.

‘Welcome to Pedro Sánchez’s third world,’ one Spanish user wrote of the chaos this morning. Opposition officials joined in criticising the government for a perceived lack of transparency.

David Alandete, a correspondent for Spain’s Diario ABC, weighed in that ‘the government’s lack of transparency regarding the blackout appears to be driven, most likely, by political expediency’.

He warned that ‘for years, the deployment of renewable energy has been prioritised without addressing infrastructure maintenance or resolving interconnection issues.’

Criticism also fell on socialist leader Pedro Sanchez who, ‘in an attempt to distance himself, has insisted that Red Eléctrica is a private company’, Alandete judged.

The partly state-owned grid operator’s chief of operations told reporters on Monday that grid instability caused the Spanish and French electricity interconnection through the Pyrenees mountains to split, resulting in a general collapse of the Spanish system.

Sanchez said that the country had lost 15GW of electricity generation in five seconds – equivalent to 60 per cent of national demand – and later thanked France and Morocco for providing Spain with power.

While the exact cause remains unclear, REN, Portugal’s grid operator, said they believed a ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’ was behind the outages.

Red Eléctrica reported that by 6am local time more than 99 per cent of the country’s electricity supply had been restored – but travel disruption continued after residents and tourists were stuck in stations and airports across the country.

Passengers crowd the train accesses at Sants train station in Barcelona,Tuesday, April 29

Sants train station evacuated as a widespread power outage hit Spain and Portugal, on Monday

Chaos in Madrid amid the outages, on Monday

People wait at Sants station for the resumption of the train services on Tuesday

Monday’s blackout hit most of the Iberian peninsula, leaving roads gridlocked and prompting people to clear supermarket shelves.

The outage caused a frenzy across the Spain, with the interior ministry deploying 30,000 police officers countrywide to maintain security in an evening of darkness.

Huge queues formed outside shops and banks as residents, with tourists desperately seeking to stockpile essentials and take out cash.

Rows of cars were pictured lining up at petrol stations as people hoped to fill up their vehicles and fuel cans, with expats detailing how they have tried to power generators to keep their homes going.

Isabel Ayuso, regional president of Madrid, with the conservative Partido Popular, called for Sanchez and his government to ‘rise to the occasion’.

‘It’s incredible that a country like ours can be left in the dark, with no clue as to where it came from, its causes, or how it happened,’ she said.

‘It’s regrettable, and we’re unaware of the damage this could cause to the economy and our image in the world. I ask the government to rise to the occasion.’

Power supply was gradually restored in both countries from late Monday afternoon and early evening though some operations were still not able to resume on Tuesday morning.

The Madrid underground metro network said it had resumed operating at 8am local time with 80 per cent of trains circulating, but railway infrastructure operator Adif said most trains nationwide were not operating.

Military personnel were on hand to give out blankets and refreshments at the city’s Atocha station.

Renfe told commuters in Galicia that all train services were suspended until further notice.

Alicia Hindhaugh, from Northumberland, told BBC News that she had been stuck on a train to Madrid for nearly 24 hours after boarding on Monday.

‘There was a three-week-old baby on board but some local villagers took the family to stay with them overnight,’ she said.

‘It just felt disgusting overnight as it was so hot. I don’t speak the language and it was pitch black overnight so it did feel a bit scary,’ she added.

A British holidaymaker gave birth to a premature baby in the garden of a Costa del Sol hotel during the outage.

The tourist sought help from a receptionist after her waters broke in the early hours of this morning.

The hotel worker tried to call a taxi – but ended up helping her give birth and even practiced CPR on the new-born baby who didn’t have a pulse.

The drama happened at the Puente Real Hotel in Torremolinos, around 3am this morning.

The unnamed British tourist was rushed to hospital after emergency medical responders reached the hotel and took her away in an ambulance with a police escort.

She was 30 weeks pregnant when she went into labour. The baby was said to be in a ‘critical’ condition this morning.

People wait outside the Atocha train station in Madrid after its closure as a massive power outage hits Spain on April 28, 2025

A view of urban chaos as a widespread power outage strikes Spain and Portugal around midday Monday while the causes are still unknown in Madrid, Spain on April 28, 2025

People buy goods at a supermarket due to the blackout affecting Spain and Portugal, in Lisbon, Portugal, 28 April

People buy groceries in a store during a shutdown of electricity on April 28, 2025 in Lisbon

Portugal’s operator said shortly before 8am local time that power supplies were back to normal.

But visitors said the country still felt ‘like being back in full lockdown’ after swathes of the country were knocked offline, and supermarkets raided for supplies.

‘Supermarket shelves [are] empty already,’ one told MailOnline. ‘No one seems to be aware of exactly how long this will last, which seems to [have] created panic.’

Airports have also been hit by the outages, with flights delayed and cancelled.

At Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport in Porto, many travellers pitched up for the night after waiting hours for news on their flights.

Airlines had warned travellers of disruption, with one major carrier, TAP, advising flyers not to come to the airport at all.

‘We apologise that this flight has been cancelled,’ became a familiar phrase from the tinny loudspeaker as those crowding around airline check-in staff became more and more destitute.

While some chose to sleep on old clothes or rucksacks, others sought the increasingly diminishing supply of sustenance as they prepared for a long night – delighted to pay up to 10 Euros for a simple ham and cheese sandwich.

Apocalyptic scenes saw suitcase-wielding tourists mill aimlessly around the departure lounge, as if seeking some portal to an aircraft, a MailOnline reporter at the scene observed.

As dawn broke, the queues started to form once again – with travellers leaving as disappointed as they arrived.

Spain’s King Felipe VI (R), next to Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez (2-R), chairing a meeting of Spanish National Security Council at La Zarzuela Palace in Madrid, Spain, 28 April

People wait outside the Atocha train station in Madrid after its closure as a massive power outage hits Spain on April 28, 2025

People board metros as the metro operations resume partially, after power begins to return following a huge outage that hit Spain and Portugal, in Madrid, Spain April 29, 2025

Several people get money out of several ATMs at the access of a subway station during a blackout hit Spain and Portugal in Madrid, Spain, 28 April 2025

Fans walk through the dark gangways during a general power blackout during Day Seven of the Mutua Madrid Open at La Caja Magica on April 28, 2025 in Madrid

Trains and metro services were shut down in both Spain and Portugal, with people stuck in tunnels and on railway tracks, forcing evacuations.

Paul Collins, a teacher and marketing professional based in Madrid, told MailOnline today that hotel occupation reached 95 per cent last night as people sought last minute places to stay, unable to travel or get home.

The former news agency reporter said it would ‘probably take a day or two for supplies in stores to be stocked again’ after people panic bought, stocking up on essentials amid uncertainty over how long the outages would last.

‘Essentials like bread and milk were sold out,’ he said. ‘Shops are open again today and payment systems working.’

‘There will also likely be long queues at petrol stations because no-one could fill up yesterday.’

Companies have told employees to work from home today, resulting in ‘very light’ traffic into the capital today.

‘Schools are open too. The one I work at, a private school has classes scheduled as normal. Public schools are open but classes are suspended. Hospitals, doctors all operating as usual.’

Court proceedings across Spain have been suspended, however, other than for urgent matters.

A British expat working in Barcelona told MailOnline yesterday evening: ‘It’s absolute chaos. I would say 30 per cent of the lights are working. Most of them are not.

‘Traffic is crazy. The mopeds and motorbikes are heading down the cycle lanes. There are massive queues to catch the bus because without the metro there’s no way that anybody can get home from work.

‘There is power in some downstairs premises, so it’s not a total blackout. But internet up here doesn’t work at all. There’s also an eerie silence, apart from the cars. But everything is quiet.’

The English teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, added: ‘Nobody knows what is going on. I came up to do classes today and I’ve had to tell every single parent what’s going on because they have literally no idea.

‘Only the very few people who have access to internet, either because of their service or where they are, have been able to find out what’s going on. But so many people’s phones have no connection.’

As of last night, Madrid, Andalusia and Extremadura had asked for the central government to take over public order and other functions.

People queue for a taxi at Barajas Airport on April 28, 2025 in Madrid, Spain

Aerial view of Avenida das Forcas Armadas, with difficult traffic, after widespread blackout in Lisbon

People with their luggage wait outside Humberto Delgado airport following a general electricity shutdown in Lisbon on April 28, 2025

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters on Monday that the cause of the unprecedented power outages remains unknown, as power was restored to about 60 per cent of the country.

Mr Sanchez said in a national address: ‘We do not yet have conclusive information on the reasons for this (power) cut, so I ask the people, as we have done in past crises, to inform themselves through official channels.

‘For the time being, there’s no evidence of any civil protection problems. I repeat, there are no problems of insecurity.’

He reassured Spain’s national security council would meet again to take stock – and called on citizens to avoid travel and use their mobile phones sparingly, describing telecommunications as being at a ‘critical moment’.

The loss triggered a disconnection of the Spanish and French grids, prompting a general collapse of the Spanish system, Red Electrica’s chief of operations Eduardo Prieto told reporters on Monday evening.

Some areas in France suffered brief outages on Monday.

Power networks warned yesterday that disruption could last for several days. They blamed ‘extreme temperature variations’ in Spain, causing a ‘strong oscillation’ in the electrical network – although this has raised eyebrows as it was a relatively mild 22C (68F), cooler than parts of the UK.

Spain has one of the highest proportions of renewable energy – 56 per cent on average – in Europe.

And just days ago on April 16, Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydro power for the first time.

Kathryn Porter, an independent energy consultant, said: ‘The more you have wind and solar on the grid, the less stable the grid becomes and so the harder it is to manage faults.

‘I would say there’s a strong chance that the large amount of solar on the system created the conditions for this to be a widespread blackout and made it much worse.’

Traditional generators, like coal and hydroelectric plants or gas turbines, are connected directly to the grid via heavy spinning machines that store inertia, which acts as a shock absorber, protecting against any supply disruption due to changes in electrical frequency.

Ms Porter added: ‘When you are in a low-stability situation, it’s much harder to control what happens. Electrical things don’t like big changes in frequency and shut themselves down. They all start tripping off.

‘So, your grid operator will have been sitting there, trying to react to the changes in frequency, but they can’t do it fast enough. So that causes a cascading grid failure.’

People stand next to a police car, as a power outage hits large parts of Spain, in Valencia, Spain, April 28, 2025

People get out of subway cars at Baixo-Chiado station after the blackout that occurs in the morning on April 28, 2025

EasyJet confirmed the power blackout was impacting access to some airports and affecting its flight operations in Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona.

‘Like all airlines, we are experiencing some disruption to our flying programme meaning that some return flights from Lisbon and Madrid have been unable to operate,’ EasyJet said in a statement.

It added that despite the chaos, its services at Porto and Faro airports were operating as scheduled.

EasyJet advised passengers to monitor local travel updates and flight trackers for the latest information before they travel.

A British holidaymaker in Madrid described the situation in the city centre as ‘carnage’, telling MailOnline: ‘People are starting to panic. It’s going to get really bad if they don’t restore power quickly.’

Madrid’s Mayor urged people in the city to stay where they were as the disaster unfolded, while the president of the city’s regional government called for Spain’s prime minister to activate an emergency plan to allow for soldiers to be deployed.

Power outages gripped Spain at around 12.30 local time, plunging millions into darkness. Spain’s nuclear power plants automatically stopped, but diesel generators were activated to keep them in ‘safe condition’, officials said.

Its nuclear safety council confirmed all seven of the country’s nuclear reactors are safe.

Four of them stopped operating automatically once the power cut hit, but emergency generators immediately kicked in.

The other three reactors were not operating at the time, but emergency generators switched on to keep them in a safe condition, the council added.

Members of the Red Cross pushes trolleys with water bottles and blankets near Joaquim Sorolla station, as a power outage hits large parts of Spain, in Valencia, Spain, April 28, 2025

People queue to try to withdraw cash money at an ATM as credit card payment is unavailable due to a massive power outage in Spain, in Madrid on April 28, 2025

Shoppers at a Spanish supermarket fill their baskets by torch light amid the blackout

A family eats a snack by candlelight during a blackout in Barcelona, Spain, Monday, April 28, 2025

A woman has a drink in the dark inside a bar with outside light coming in through the door during a nationwide power outage in Madrid, Spain, April 28, 2025

People queue for the ATM at downtown Lisbon on April 28 during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula

Shelves were emptied in a supermarket in Portugal as electricity firms warned of days of disruption

Bottled water was bought up by concerned shoppers in Portugal

Passengers stand next to a stopped RENFE high-speed AVE train near Cordoba on April 28, 2025, during a massive power cut

A view shows a dark metro station in Madrid during a widespread power outage that struck Spain and Portugal

The subway station lies in darkness during a power outage on April 28, 2025 in Lisbon, Portugal

Customers buy gas bottles in a petrol station during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville

People walk between cars with their luggage during a power outage in Madrid

A view of empty hospital emergency beds at a hospital during a power outage which hit large parts of Spain

People queue for the ATM at downtown Lisbon during a massive power cut

British holidaymaker Adrian Coles, who was heading back to the UK after a weekend in Madrid when the blackout hit, told MailOnline that he had struggled to get to the airport.

‘People are fighting over taxis and the streets are mostly at a standstill. Police are at junctions but at some they are just standing and not directing while at others they have whistles and are directing traffic,’ he said.

‘Our taxi driver said he won’t try to go back to the city as he doesn’t think it would be wise. He’s dropped us and he’s going home.’

He said they managed to reach the airport, which was still running on a back-up power supply, but that ‘lots of things are shut down to conserve power’.

‘Landlines appear to be down with hotels struggling with the number of guests asking for help,’ he added. ‘The mobile network failed in the city. Routers are off in the city and with so many people data isn’t working.’

He said that with access to the internet down, ‘rumours were spreading’ among locals and visitors.

Portugal’s grid operator said that the disruptions to the country’s power supply were the result of a ‘fault in the Spanish electricity grid,’ which was related to a ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’.

It said that extreme temperature variations along the grid had led to ‘anomalous oscillations’ in very high-voltage power lines – an effect known as ‘induced atmospheric variation’ – which leads to power oscillations throughout the grid.

Commuters queue at a bus station in Madrid after a subway closed as a blackout hits Spain and Portugal

Police in Madrid parked under switched-off traffic lights during a massive power cut

Drivers wait in line to fill up their vehicles with fuel at a service station in Portugal

People stand outside the Atocha train station in Madrid after its closure as a massive power outage hits Spain

Pictures show people being evacuated from trains in Spain down tunnels amid the outage

This causes the voltage and frequency of some parts of the grid to get out of sync with the rest of the grid, leading to irregular or excessive power flow to some areas, damaging equipment and triggering widespread power failures.

According to REN, these oscillations lead to ‘successive disturbances across the interconnected European network’ which caused the blackouts.

A director at Spain’s electricity grid operator said just before 3pm local time yesterday that the outage is ‘exceptional and totally extraordinary’ and will take between six and 10 hours to repair.

Power initially returned to parts of north, south, west of the country, according to grid operators.

The power cuts come just days after Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydro power, for a whole day for the first time on April 16.

Spanish officials are urgently investigating the cause of the outages and have said they are looking into the possibility of the blackouts being triggered by a devastating cyber attack.

Videos online show railway networks in Spanish cities plunged into chaos, with people being evacuated through tunnels as blackouts hit underground stations and halted trains.

Maddie Sephton, from London, was on the Madrid Metro when the power outage occurred, told Sky News that she was stuck on a train for 20 minutes before a staff member pried the doors open manually.

Passengers wait outside Atocha train station during a nationwide power outage

People buy goods at a supermarket in Lisbon amid fears over the effects of the blackout affecting Spain and Portugal

Employees stand in a shop in Burgos, Spain, amid a massive power outage in the country

Pictures on social media show power outages

Blackouts hit metro systems in Barcelona and Valencia

Blackouts hit metro systems in Barcelona and Valencia

Huge crowds were seen gathering outside Lisbon airport as the power outages hit

Video showed travellers queuing at a station in Spain amid the power outage

The outage is reported to have forced the closure of tram systems in Spain

A view shows a closed metro station following a power outage in Lisbon

Pictures from Lisbon’s metro system show travellers attempting to use their phones and staff with torches

‘We got on the train and everything was fine. But then everything went dark,’ she said. Passengers had to climb 15 flights of stairs to get out of the metro.

An ex-pat called Lesley, has lived in Spain for 11 years with her husband, told the BBC that they are concerned about the effects of the outages.

‘We are worried about food, water, cash and petrol in case this goes on for a couple of days,’ she said.

‘My husband is driving around now trying to find a petrol station that’s open to get petrol for the generator so that we can plug in the fridge.’

Parts of France also lost power after the outages in Spain and Portugal, the country’s grid operator confirmed. Further outages have been reported as far as Belgium, according to the latest information.

A fire on the Alaric mountain in the south-west of France which damaged a high-voltage power line has also been identified as a possible cause, Portugal’s national electric company REN said.

Airports were also affected, with emergency generators turned on at Porto and Faro airport, but operations ‘limited’ at Lisbon, according to officials.

People rest on the floor at Atocha train station in Madrid during the outage

Others at the station seemed to take the opportunity for a nap

People sit in candlelight and use mobile phone flashlights in the dark in Plaza Mayor square in Madrid

Parts of Madrid’s sprawling metro system have been evacuated and traffic lights in the capital have stopped working, posing risk on major carriageways.

The outage is also said to have forced the closure of Barcelona’s tram system and stopped some traffic lights in the city from working.

Internet and telephone lines across the country are also down.

Meanwhile play has been suspended at the Madrid Open tennis tournament.

Spanish oil refiner Petronor said all units at its Bilbao oil refinery were shut down, ‘fully ensuring safety conditions, and all emergency systems are operating correctly,’ the company said.

All of Valencia and Barcelona were left without power, Spain’s entire rail network shut down, internet services stopped working and there was chaos on the streets as traffic built up in Madrid and Lisbon.

‘A crisis committee has been set up to manage the situation [in Spain]. At this stage there’s no evidence yet regarding the cause of the massive blackout,’ an official briefed on the situation in Spain told Politico.

‘A cyberattack has not been ruled out and investigations are ongoing,’ they added.

People hitchhike as public transport is disrupted during the widespread power outage

Spain’s INCIBE cybersecurity agency is investigating the possibility of the blackout being triggered by a cyber attack.

A spokesman for the European Union Agency for Cyber Security, said in a statement: ‘We are monitoring the whole thing very closely, right now the investigation is still ongoing and whether it is a cyber attack has not been confirmed yet.’

The Spanish government said it is working to ‘identify the origin’ of the blackouts, with officials saying they are still gathering evidence.

Backup generators have meant Spain’s hospitals have been spared the worst of the power outages.

Some have suspended non-emergency surgeries, however emergency power supplies have kept essential equipment such as ventilators and cardiac monitors running.

A British expat living in Barcelona told MailOnline that ‘nobody seems to know what’s going on’ in Spain ‘because nobody has signal’.

The English teacher said he only found out about the European blackout from British reports: ‘I can get signal on my rooftop, but I can’t get signal down below. One floor down I have nothing.

‘The traffic lights are still working… The underground is not working apparently. Lots of parts of the public transport are not working.’

People leave the Atocha train station in Madrid after its closure as a massive power outage hit

Tennis fans are seen after matches were suspended at the Madrid Open due to a power outage

A worker tries unsuccessfully to use her mobile outside a shop after a blackout hit Madrid

A cook at a takeaway restaurant works in a dark kitchen with the aid of phone’s flashlight during a power outage in Madrid

Traffic chaos gripped Lisbon as power outages hit the city

People queue at a bus stop at Rossio square, after the Lisbon subway has been stopped, in Lisbon on April 28

Video shows power briefly turning off at a Spanish hospital before a backup generator kicked in

Video shows power briefly turning off at a Spanish hospital before a backup generator kicked in

Closed doors at a Metro station in Madrid after the power outage hit

Spanish railway company Renfe said that all trains have halted and no departures are currently taking place, with a power outage at a ‘national level’.

Spain’s electricity grid operator Red Eléctrica wrote on X: ‘Plans to restore the electricity supply have been activated in collaboration with companies in the sector following the zero that occurred in the peninsular system.

‘The causes are being analyzed and all resources are being dedicated to solving it. We will continue to report.’

Lottie Feist, 23, who lives in Lisbon, told of panic across the Portuguese capital as traffic lights cut out.

The translation student at Nova University said: ‘There is no electricity, nothing is working.

‘We don’t know what’s happening or why we are having a blackout.

‘The roads are absolute carnage as no traffic lights are working. All the power is down, and businesses are being impacted.

‘It’s terrifying, people will be stuck in elevators, and everything has completely shut down.’

Commuters leave a subway station after a blackout hit Spain and Portugal, in Madrid

A woman uses her cell phone’s flashlight in the dark after Madrid Open matches are suspended due to a power outage

People try to board a crowded bus after the subway stopped running following a power outage in Lisbon

A metro worker passes underneath barricade tape, to enter Legazpi Metro station, after the metro was closed during a power outage

In the Spanish city of Valencia, Metrovalencia which runs the city’s urban rail system said on X traffic was ‘disrupted’ due to a ‘general power outage in the city’, adding: ‘The extent and duration of the outage are unknown.’

The Spanish government has gathered for an emergency session and is monitoring the situation as it develops, according to Spanish media.

It is rare to have such a widespread outage there. Spanish generator Red Eléctrica said it affected the Iberian peninsula and the incident is being assessed.

The countries have a combined population of over 50 million people. It was not immediately clear how many were affected.

France’s power grid operator said the extent of the outage there was limited and that power had been restored.

‘In France, homes were without power for several minutes in the Basque Country. All power has since been restored,’ it said, referring to the region in France’s extreme southwestern corner on the border with Spain.

Operator RTE said the outage was not caused by a fire in the south of France, contrary to some reports – and that there was ‘no impact on the supply-demand balance’ in France.

According to RTE, the Iberian grid was automatically disconnected from the European grid from 12:38 pm to 1:30 pm (1038 GMT to 1130 GMT).

Metro stations in Madrid were plunged into darkness by the outages

Barriers at a metro station in Madrid after the blackout hit the city

View of a bar after a blackout hit Spain in the city of Toledo, central Spain

People queuing for candles in a shop Residents in Portugal and Spain have been hit with huge power cuts

A person is seen in a dark corridor after matches are suspended at Madrid Open due to a power outage

Several attendants leave Caja Magica tennis complex amid Mutua Madrid Open tennis tournament after a blackout

Metro workers explain to a woman that the metro is closed due to a power outage, in Madrid

Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE said a major power outage hit several regions of the country just after midday local time, leaving its newsroom, Spain’s parliament in Madrid and subway stations across the country in the dark.

A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop around 12:15 p.m. from 27,500MW to near 15,000MW.

A couple of hours later, Spain’s electricity network operator said it was recovering power in the north and south of the peninsula, which would help to progressively restore the electricity supply nationwide.

In Portugal, a country of some 10.6 million people, the outage hit the capital, Lisbon, and surrounding areas, as well as northern and southern parts of the country.

Portugal’s government said the incident appeared to stem from problems outside the country, an official told national news agency Lusa.

‘It looks like it was a problem with the distribution network, apparently in Spain. It’s still being ascertained,’ Cabinet Minister Leitão Amaro was quoted as saying.

Portuguese distributor E-Redes said the outage was due to ‘a problem with the European electricity system,’ according to Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

The company said it was compelled to cut power in specific areas to stabilize the network, according to Expresso.

Several Lisbon subway cars were evacuated, reports said. Also in Portugal, courts stopped work and ATMs and electronic payment systems were affected. Traffic lights in Lisbon stopped working.

It was not possible to make calls on mobile phone networks, though some apps were working.