Power was restored during the night on Tuesday – 57 million Spaniards and Portuguese breathed a sigh of relief as the blackout nightmare came to an end. There are several theories about the cause of the massive power outage, which also affected parts of France.

Millions of people in Spain and Portugal were affected by power outages of varying duration, communication networks, airports, and high-speed transport networks were severely damaged, and it was impossible to withdraw cash or refuel.

Now the Iberian Peninsula has power again: Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica announced at around 4 a.m. on Tuesday that 87 percent of the power supply had been restored. Electricity was also back in most households in neighboring Portugal, according to broadcaster RTP, citing grid operator E-Redes: 95 percent of the 6.5 million customers were now back on the grid.

When the lights suddenly came back on long after nightfall, residents cheered loudly in the streets, from windows, and from balconies, according to n-tv. Shouts of joy such as “Siii” (Yes!) and “Vivaaa!” (Hurray!) could be heard from passing cars, while others enthusiastically sang the famous song “Y Viva España.”

The problems in Portugal were caused by a disruption in the Spanish power grid, which was attributed to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” reported RTP and the British broadcaster Sky News, citing the Portuguese grid operator REN. Service was being restored gradually, but complete normalization of the grid could take a week “due to the complexity of the phenomenon.” The Portuguese Ministry of Defense called on the population to remain calm.

“No cyber attack”

According to EU Council President António Costa, there is “no evidence of a cyber attack” at this time. Cybersecurity expert Lukasz Olejnik expressed a similar view. On X, he explained: “The reason is not a cyber attack.” An attack “could, for example, target transformers or substations and damage the hardware until it fails. However, coordinating such a large and synchronized attack would be extremely difficult,” Olejnik, a cyber expert at King’s College in London, told El País.

Grid fluctuations the cause?

In an interview with the BBC, Portuguese energy company REN suggested that the Spanish were to blame for the mega blackout: “Due to extreme temperature fluctuations in inland Spain, there were abnormal vibrations in the high-voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration,’” REN told the British broadcaster. “These fluctuations led to synchronization errors between the electrical systems and thus to successive disruptions throughout the entire European grid.”

In Germany or Austria, a grid fluctuation like the one in Spain today would normally be quickly corrected, mainly by other power plants.

However, this extremely sensitive system could have been destroyed by the “energy transition.” The Spanish energy supplier Red Eléctrica recently reported proudly: “Renewable energy production in Spain will increase by 10.3% by 2024, reaching a new record level.” In 2024, 7.3 GW of new so-called “renewable energies” were installed in the Spanish power grid, mainly from photovoltaics and wind power, reports tichyseinblick.de. What is not mentioned is that most of these PV systems cannot be shut down and push too much electricity into the grids at midday. This is power that cannot be consumed. Shortly before the Spanish power grid failed, Spanish PV systems were pushing 28.6 percent more power into the grids. These are enormous amounts of energy that are suddenly available in excess.

Image:
The façade of the Sagrada Familia basilica by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona

Credit: APA