There is a widespread power interruption in Spain and neighboring countries
The Portuguese government said Monday night night was the beginning of a nationwide blackout of this scale: “The impact of power outages in Portugal’s public broadcaster, national energy supplier E-Redes”
A Portuguese police report says that traffic lights are down across the country, as well as the metro in Lisbon and Porto not running and trains not running. A statement from Portuguese national energy supplier E-Redes, seen by The New York Times, says that the interruption “was due to a problem in the European electricity grid,” with Spain and France also impacted “due to faults in very high voltage lines.” The Basque Coast and the Burgundy region were also affected by the outages, according to the energy supplier.
Spain’s public broadcaster said a major power outage hit several areas of the country and left its newsroom, parliament in Madrid, and subway stations 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.
Meanwhile, Portuguese grid operator REN said that power was back for 750,000 customers in Portugal as of Monday night. Electricity had not yet been restored in Lisbon, the nation’s capital, but REN said service was expected to resume soon.
According to Portuguese newspaper Expresso, the outage was caused by a problem with the European electricity system. The company said it was compelled to cut power in specific areas to stabilize the network, according to Expresso.
Millions of people were without phone service, traffic lights were out, and ATM machines were not functioning because of the power outage. Hospitals, nuclear plants and prisons all had power back-up systems.
At a press conference on Monday evening, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said a nationwide blackout of this scale had never happened before in Spain.
Earlier on Monday, António Costa, the president of the European Council and former prime minister of Portugal, said on X that there were no signs so far suggesting that a cyber attack was behind the blackout.
Spanish Public Transportation was Suspended after the First Open Tennis Tournament on Monday (Aug 17-27), but there have been no Air Traffic Outages yet
Spanish public transportation, including train and subway services, was suspended. The minister of transport wrote that authorities worked to rescue passengers from trains that were stuck on Monday.
Sky News reported that play was stopped at the Madrid Open tennis tournament. Traffic lights in the city are notoperating, and the underground rail system has been evacuated. Air traffic in Spain and Portugal is also reportedly affected by outages at area airports, with Spanish airport operator Aena saying on X that backup generators are currently active at impacted airports. Emergency services in Madrid are still running on backup generators.
Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Snchez said on Monday that there were no signs so far that a cyber attack was behind the nationwide blackout. Portugal’s former Prime Minister Antnio Costa said that there were no signs that a cyberattack was behind the blackout. Meanwhile, Spanish PM Pedro Snchez said a nationwide blackout of this scale had never happened before in Spain.