Power supply extensively reinstated in mainland Spain (over 99%) and close to complete in Portugal.
Lights Back On: Spain and Portugal Receive Power After Unprecedented Outage on April 28, 2025
After a day of darkness, electricity was finally restored in Spain and Portugal on Wednesday, April 28. Spanish grid operator, REE, announced that 99.16% of the national power supply on the mainland was restored by 6 a.m. The Portuguese power grid operator, REN, reported that 6.2 million households had electricity back in the middle of the night, out of a total of 6.5 million affected. REN confirmed that the Portuguese power grid was "perfectly stable" in the morning.
In various neighborhoods of Madrid, the return of power in the evening was celebrated with applause and cheers from residents, who had endured a day without electricity, along with limited internet and mobile phone connections.
A "Baffling and Unprecedented Incident"
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declined to provide an explanation for the power outage's causes. "No hypotheses" have been "invalidated," he said at a press conference. Sánchez stressed that never before had such a "catastrophic" failure occurred on the Spanish grid, specifying that "15 gigawatts" of electricity had been "abruptly lost" on the Spanish grid in just five seconds.
His Portuguese counterpart, Luis Montenegro, who had expressed hope to resolve the situation in his country "in the next few hours" on Monday evening, spoke of a "serious and unprecedented incident" whose origins are believed to be in Spain.
Sources:[1]
- The hypothesis about the cause of the blackout in Spain and Portugal on April 28, 2025, remains unresolved, as both Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his Portuguese counterpart, Luis Montenegro, have not provided any explanations.
- Despite the scientific community's efforts to understand the unusual incident, the unprecendented power outage in Spain and Portugal continues to baffle environmental-science experts and general-news outlets.
- The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, acknowledged the unprecedented nature of the blackout, stating that 15 gigawatts of electricity were abruptly lost on the Spanish grid in just five seconds, a scale never seen before.
- As the political landscape grapples with addressing the resolution of the blackout, both PM Sánchez and Montenegro emphasized the unexpected and drastic effects on their nation's power grids.
- Following the power restoration on April 28, Spanish and Portuguese authorities, as well as the global environmental-science and general-news community, remain vigilant, monitoring the situation for any subsequent unusual events or potential unknown factors that may have been involved in the blackout.
