Spain & Portugal were struck by a major power outage around noon on Monday, April 28th, disrupting public transportation, health & emergency services and economic activity across the region for several hours.
Spanish power grid operator and the Spanish Government have indicated the outage was provoked by a “strong oscillation in the European power system” and had led to the loss of 15GW of power, representing 60% of Spain’s national demand. The Portuguese government has launched an investigation on the cause of the disruption, but indicated that there was “no indication” of a cyber attack at this stage.
Power system restoration is well advanced with the support of hydro-power plants and existing interconnections with France and Morocco. As of 8am on Tuesday morning, 99% of power had returned across Spain according to Spanish operator Red Electrica.