Spain, Portugal say power almost entirely back after outage

Portugal's operator REN said the country's entire grid was "stabilized" early on Tuesday, after a mass outage the previous day.

"All the sub-stations of the national transport network have been re-established. We can now affirm that the network has been perfectly stabilized," a spokesperson for the company told AFP news agency. 

REN also said that all power substations were back on line before midnight.

Power had almost entirely been restored to Spain after a blackout on Monday across the Iberian peninsula left millions of people in the dark and led the Spanish Interior Ministry to declare a state of emergency.

Grid operator Red Electrica said around 99.16% of the electricity supply was back online as of 6 a.m. (0400 GMT)

It was still not entirely clear what caused the outage but officials in Portugal and European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera ruled out foul play.

About 92% of the electricity has been restored in mainland Spain, the Spanish grid operator, Red Electrica de Espana (REE) wrote on X. 

According to REE, 18,563 megawatts of mainland Spain's electricity demand has been restored.

"100% of the transmission grid substations have been energized," said the Spanish electricity suppler, adding that they are "working to restore supply."

Electricity has been restored to over 61% of mainland Spain following the massive blackout that affected the Iberian Peninsula, according to the Spanish grid operator, Red Electrica de Espana (REE), on Tuesday.

The grid operator also said that they are "actively working to restore normalcy to the electricity system."

The power outage began on Monday at 12:33 p.m local time (1033 UTC).

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said nearly 50% of Spain's power supply was restored.

"The goal is to continue restoring the supply over the coming hours," Sanchez said in a televised speech.

The Spanish leader said it was unknown when power would be completely restored.

He said that the situation was "asymmetrical," with some regions already having restored most of their power and others still below 15%.

According to Sanchez, Spanish authorities are yet to determine the cause of the blackout.

The massive power outage that hit both Spain and Portugal was caused by a failure of the interconnection between the power grids of Spain and France, Spanish daily La Vanguardia reported.

The report quoted Spanish grid operator REE's system operations chief Eduardo Prieto.

Spain's transport minister said 11 trains were stranded with passengers on board, hours after a power outage brought the country to a standstill. 

"Help is still needed for 11 trains," Transport Minister Oscar Puenta posted on his X account.

This comes as efforts to get the power back in both Spain and Portugal are underway.

Spain's electricity operator said more than 35% of the country's power demands are currently being met, with acting Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro saying power in the country will be fully restored in the coming hours.
 

IAG's Spanish airline Iberia canceled 23 of the 247 flights that were set to take off on Monday due to the power outage that hit Spainand Portugal, the company said.

Iberia said it would offer its passengers with flights on Monday the option of rescheduling their trips amid difficulties reaching airports.

In Portugal, the country's airport operator ANA said it does not expect flights to have the ability to depart from Lisbon until 22:00 local time (21:00 CET) as a result of the outage. 

Operations continued at both Porto and Faro airports, ANA said, but with limitations.
 

Spain's Interior Ministry has declared a state of emergency after a nationwide power blackout hit the country and neighboring Portugal.

The ministry said the emergency status will be applied in those regions that request it.

So far, Madrid, Andalusia and Extremadura have called upon central government to take over public order and other functions.

Portugal’s grid operator said that it had "no information" the mass power outages were the result of a cyberattack.

REN board member Joao Conceicao told reporters the company was not ruling out the possibility that the blackout was due to a "very large oscillation in the electrical voltages, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to the Portuguese system."

"There could be a thousand and one causes, it's premature to assess the cause," he said, adding that REN was in permanent contact with Spain.

Organizers of the Madrid Open tennis tournament said that play for the rest of Monday was cancelled.

"For reasons beyond the control of the organisation and in order to guarantee general safety, the nationwide power-cut experienced in Spain on Monday 28 April has forced the cancellation of both the day and night sessions at the Mutua Madrid Open," the Madrid Open said in a post on X.

Red Electrica said that work to restore electricity was progressing in 10 regions in Spain.

The power provider said there was electricity again in areas of Catalonia, Aragon, the Basque Country, Galicia, Asturias, Navarre, Castile and Leon, Extremadura and Andalusia, it said.

The update follows a previous statement in which Red Electrica said that power supply had been restored in parts of the north, south and west of the Iberian Peninsula.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the aim was to have restored power nationwide "soon."

Sanchez said in a televised address that connections with France and Morocco had been partially restored and that the "combined cycles and hydroelectric plants throughout the country have also been reactivated, which should allow us to recover the supply across Spain soon."

The cause of the outage was still to be determined, the prime minister stressed.

"We still do not have conclusive information about the reasons for this outage... It's better not to speculate, we will know the causes, we do not rule out any hypothesis," Sanchez said.

He called on his country to show "responsibility and civility" to help authorities manage a sweeping power outage

Sanchez said interconnections with neighboring France and Morocco, which were also hit, have already partially restored supply to Spain and thanked the governments of both countries.

Meanwhile, "combined cycles and hydroelectric plants throughout the country have also been reactivated, which should allow us to recover the supply across Spain soon," Sanchez added in a televised address

The minister of transport in Spain has said it won't be possible to have inter-city train services up and running again on Monday.

"Today it is not expected that the circulation of medium and long-distance trains will be restored... We are working so that, once the electricity supply is restored, we can resume those services which will no longer be possible today," Oscar Puente wrote on X.

The minister said it would take time to restore control systems once power was back, and that systems guaranteeing safety would need to be rebooted.

Puente also said that air traffic at airports was operating normally except for a 20% reduction "due to telecommunications security precautions."