Spain’s power supply almost fully restored after one of Europe’s most severe blackouts

Barcelona: Power had almost fully returned to Spain early on Tuesday morning as many questions remained about what caused one of Europe’s most severe blackouts that grounded flights, paralysed metro systems, disrupted mobile communications and shut down ATMs across Spain and Portugal.

By 6.30am, more than 99 per cent of energy demand in Spain had been restored, the country’s electricity operator Red Electrica said.

People waiting outside a closed train station during a major power outage in Barcelona, Spain.Credit: AP

Power had gradually returned to several regions across Spain and Portugal as the nations reeled from the still-unexplained widespread blackout that had turned airports and train stations into campgrounds for stranded travellers. By Monday night, Portuguese grid operator REN said 85 out of 89 power substations were back online.

On Monday night, many city residents, including in Spain’s capital of Madrid, went to sleep in total darkness. The normally illuminated cathedral spires of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Basilica became indistinguishable from the night sky. Streets remained deserted even in neighbourhoods where lights flickered back on, as people stayed home after a day of chaos.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had warned of a “long night ahead”, as the worst blackout to hit Europe in over a decade approached the 12-hour mark with no cause clearly identified and an uncertain timeline for the full restoration of power.

Spain and Portugal were hit with a massive power outage just after midday on Monday (Spanish time), crippling travel, disrupting communication networks and businesses across the region, with several oil refineries reporting production halts.

The Spanish prime minister said the government had not yet identified the reason for the blackout. The country, he added, lost about 15 gigawatts of power supply in five seconds.

“We are working with a clear goal: that tomorrow, power is back in the whole country,” Sanchez said. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us. We will continue working to restore normality as soon as possible and will keep you informed.”

Portugal expected electricity supplies to be fully restored in the next few hours, Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said on Monday night. Power has already returned to homes across large parts of Lisbon.

The blackout brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill, halting trains, grounding flights, cutting phone services and shutting down traffic lights and ATMs for millions of people.

A family eats a snack by candlelight during a blackout in Barcelona, Spain.Credit: AP

Spain’s Interior Ministry declared a national emergency, and governments from both countries held emergency cabinet meetings as officials scrambled to determine the cause of the mass blackout. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe.

Power started returning to Spain’s Basque Country and Barcelona areas in the early afternoon, and to parts of the capital, Madrid, on Monday night. Power was also gradually returning to various municipalities in Portugal late on Monday, including Lisbon city centre.

Officials said the reasons for the blackout were unclear, with Montenegro saying there was “no indication” of a cyberattack.

Eduardo Prieto, Red Electrica’s head of operations, said the event was unprecedented, calling it “exceptional and extraordinary”.

People buying groceries in a Lisbon store during the power outage.Credit: Getty Images

Madrid, Lisbon blacked out

As the outage spread across Spain and Portugal, offices closed, and traffic was snarled as traffic lights stopped working. It was not possible to make calls on some mobile phone networks, though some apps were working.

In Madrid, the Spanish parliament closed and play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended. Three matches were under way when power was lost.

In Barcelona, people searched for battery-powered radios, and civilians directed traffic at junctions along the Gran Via, a major avenue that cuts through the city.

People lie on the grass near Madrid Puerta de Atocha – Almudena Grandes train station – while the station is closed.Credit: Getty Images

In Terrassa, an industrial town 50 kilometres outside Barcelona, stores selling generators quickly sold out.

Hospitals in Madrid and Catalonia suspended all routine medical work but continued to attend to critical patients, using back-up generators.

Spain and Portugal have a combined population of about 60 million people. It was not immediately clear how many were affected.

Spain’s Canary Islands, Balearic Islands and the territories of Ceuta and Melilla, located across the Mediterranean in Africa, were not impacted by the outage.

One Portuguese official said the problem appeared to be with the electricity distribution network in Spain.

A board member for Portuguese electricity distributor REN, Joao Conceicao, said the outage was possibly caused by a “very large oscillation in electrical voltage, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to the Portuguese system”.

REN said it had restored production at a hydroelectric and thermal power plant, and was prioritising supply resumption to hospitals and transportation.

The blackout is the second serious European power disruption in less than six weeks following the fire that shut down Heathrow Airport in the UK last month and comes as European authorities gird against sabotage backed by Russia.

While the causes of the latest blackout are still being investigated, Teresa Ribera, European Commission executive vice president in charge of promoting clean energy, told Spanish journalists in Brussels there were no indications of a cyberattack in Monday’s power outage, which she described as “one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times”.

AP, Reuters

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