2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout

On 28 April 2025, at 12:33 CEST (11:33 WEST; 10:33 UTC), a major power blackout occurred across the Iberian Peninsula affecting mainland Portugal and peninsular Spain, where electric power was interrupted for about ten hours in most of the Peninsula and longer in some areas. The power cut caused severe difficulties in telecommunications, transportation systems, and essential sectors such as emergency services. At least seven people in Spain and one in Portugal may have died due to outage-related circumstances like candle fires or generator exhaust fumes.

Minor power cuts lasting seconds or minutes occurred in adjacent regions of Andorra and parts of southwestern France. Reports indicated problems with the European synchronous electricity grid. Traffic lights in many places stopped working, and metro lines had to be evacuated.

According to the website of the Spanish electrical operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE) that documents the power grid, Spanish Peninsula Electricity demand tracking in real time, there was sufficient power supplied to the grid leading up to the outage. According to the site, at 12:30 on 28 April, the grid was supplied with 32 gigawatts (GW) of power to meet 25 GW of demand, and was exporting 0.87 GW to France and 0.78 GW to Morocco. The remainder was exported to Portugal and used for hydropumping. More than half of the power supply was from solar.

Most of the power drop occurred within five seconds. According to automated grid statistics, at 12:35 demand and generation had dropped to at most around 14 GW, half of that from solar, with near zero exports. Nuclear and coal power dropped out completely and took many hours or even days to restore. Around 13:40 CEST there seemed to be a production minimum of 10.5 GW after which generated and consumed power grew again, running seemingly normal in the early hours of 29 April, except the still unavailable nuclear power. These data are however contradicted by an REE statement, which reports grid capacity of almost 4 GW at 18:30 local time, while the automated data were reporting over 13 GW.

As of 2 May 2025, neither the sequence of events nor the reason for this outage are publicly known.

In Portugal, the blackout made most basic services inoperational, including stores, supermarkets, pharmacies and electronic payment systems. Hospitals resorted to generators to maintain operations. Traffic lights and transit systems were brought to a halt, causing road accidents. Additional police officers were deployed to deal with traffic problems caused by the failure of traffic lights. Mobile networks also experienced severe limitations, particularly voice calls and data services.

The commuter rail and rapid transit services were stopped due to signaling problems, and trains were evacuated. Nonetheless, rail transport wasn't particularly affected since Comboios de Portugal were on strike that day. Electric buses, boats, ridesharing bicycles and trams were unable to depart their stations. Lisbon Airport operated with limitations and closed at around 13:00 WEST (14:00 CEST), although flights were allowed to take off from around 21:38 WEST. Meanwhile, airports in Porto and Faro switched to generator power.

During the blackout, there was a scramble to stock up on essential items such as food and water, as well as batteries, lighting devices, and radios. The state-owned water company Águas de Portugal asked consumers to moderate their water usage to prevent system failures during the power cut. Even after the blackout, certain services such as the Portuguese Tax Portal remained offline until service could be restored on Wednesday.

The cabinet of Prime Minister Luís Montenegro held an emergency meeting over the power cut, and declared an energy crisis on 28 April. The Prime Minister planned to ask the European Union for an audit of the affected electrical systems. He also took the decision to keep Tapada do Outeiro black start capability available until at least 2030 and expand that capability to at least two more locations, Alqueva Dam and Baixo Sabor Dam, so that the recovery from a full blackout would be quicker.

At least one person died as a result of the blackout in Portugal. The 77-year-old victim was connected to a mechanical ventilator at home 24 hours a day. According to state-owned TV channel RTP, the breathing aid ran out of battery, and the National Emergency Medical Service did not arrive in time to help her.

Spanish train operator Renfe said that all trains had stopped due to the outage. Around 35,000 passengers were rescued after being stranded across the rail and underground systems. Madrid's Barajas International Airport was left without power. Later in the day, airports were back to operation with 20% reduced capacity, and the Minister of Transport Óscar Puente stated that long and medium distance train services would not resume until the next day.

Spanish authorities reported that the country's nuclear power plants were taken off the grid automatically due to the loss of grid power – four reactors were generating power at the time, while three were conducting scheduled maintenance. Backup generators automatically supplied cooling to keep all seven reactors safe. Telecommunications and internet services were also affected, with Netblocks saying that network traffic plunged to just 17 percent of normal usage. Hospitals activated their backup generators and stayed mostly functional.

The city of Madrid activated its emergency plan PEMAM (Plan Territorial de Emergencia Municipal del Ayuntamiento de Madrid). Most businesses and shops had to close, train and metro lines stopped, and banking was non-functional. Police had to intervene to control traffic and bring security. Confusion and fear spread in episodes reminiscent of the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, and at the same time, some streets and terraces had a cheerful ambience and near-festive mood.

King Felipe VI's meeting with the president of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, was unaffected because the blackout only partially affected the Palacio de la Zarzuela, and the King was able to maintain the institutional agenda for the day. The Congress of Deputies, the Bolsa de Madrid, the Parliament of Catalonia and the Palacio de la Moncloa were left without power. The Senate suspended its parliamentary activity for 29 April.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council about the power cut.

The employers' organization CEOE estimated that the outage resulted in economic losses valued at €1.6 billion.

Certain institutions, such as the Ministry of Defence and the Navy headquarters, still suffered power outages on 29 April despite the general restoration of the electricity supply.

At least seven people died as a result of the blackout in Spain. Six deaths were recorded in Galicia, including three members of the same family who died of carbon monoxide poisoning believed to have been caused by a faulty generator in a home in Taboadela. The seventh death was recorded in a fire at a house in Madrid that left 13 others injured.

The Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla were unaffected. Travellers entering Gibraltar by land from Spain reported delays due to the unavailability of IT services at the Spanish border post. Gibraltar itself was not affected, as it is not connected to the European grid.

Andorran electricity supplier Forces Elèctriques d'Andorra said that the power outage from Spain affected the principality for a few seconds. An automatic recovery system connected Andorra's power grid to France's. Phone and internet operator Andorra Telecom reported a similar outage for internet connections.

Electricity transmission system operator Réseau de Transport d'Électricité (RTE) reported a power outage that lasted only a few minutes in the French Basque Country.

Internet providers such as Orange experienced problems in Morocco due to servers in Spain being offline.

Telecommunications in the villages of Qaanaaq, Ittoqqortoormiit, and Tasiilaq in Greenland were disrupted from 19:30 to 01:36 UTC because Tusass and other telecommunications companies lost connection with equipment in Maspalomas Station on Gran Canaria island. Although the antenna is on Gran Canaria, the cable goes through mainland Spain before transmission to the antenna and then satellite.

Electricity was gradually restored around 17:00 WEST (18:00 CEST) using the two systems that had black start capabilities, the 138 MW Castelo do Bode hydropower dam and the 990 MW natural gas power station Tapada do Outeiro. Around 22:30 WEST, power had been restored to half of the population, increasing to 80% by around 00:00 WEST. The grid was fully restored in Portugal by early 29 April. The island regions of Madeira and the Azores, unconnected from the European grid, remained unaffected.

About 16:00 CEST on 28 April, Spanish electrical operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE) estimated it would take "between six and ten hours" to restore service calling the outage "exceptional and totally extraordinary". The regions Aragón-Cataluña and Galicia-León were the first to reconnect to the main grid. Hydropower and gas turbines increased the power. The international power lines from Morocco and France also contributed. To alleviate the power cut, Morocco delivered 900 MW of electricity through the Spain-Morocco interconnection that crosses the Strait of Gibraltar from Fardioua to Tarifa, while France sent up to 2 GW of electricity through power lines supplying Catalonia and the Basque Country.

By 07:00 on 29 April, electricity had been restored to 99% of energy demand, and full restoration was achieved by 11:00 that same day. Exports to France also resumed.

The causes of the power outage are under investigation. The blackout was purportedly due to two fluctuations in the electrical grid, the second of which caused Spain's power system to disconnect from the European system and collapse the Iberian electricity network.

A fire, reported to be in Southern France between Perpignan and eastern Narbonne, which damaged an extra-high-voltage power line, was identified as a possible cause by Portugal's Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN), but this was dismissed by the Réseau de Transport d'Électricité (RTE), which declared that there were no fires in the area.

Spain's National Cybersecurity Institute was reported to be investigating the possibility that a cyberattack caused the incident, although initial analysis did not show any evidence of an attack. On the morning of 29 April, REE attributed the outage to a disconnection of the grid in the south-west of Spain. The institution ruled out a cyberattack as the cause of the blackout and announced that it was investigating the cause of the disconnection.

Audiencia Nacional judge José Luis Calama [Wikidata] initiated preliminary investigations to determine whether the national outage could have been an act of sabotage against critical Spanish infrastructure, which, according to newspaper Vozpópuli [es], would be considered an act of terrorism.

The exact cause of the blackout remains under investigation, but it has prompted discussion about the stability of electricity systems with high shares of variable renewable energy. Early analysis suggests the blackout is unlikely to have been caused by Spain's high share of renewable energy, however it has highlighted the need for continued investment in power grid stability and resilience as Spain and other countries transition toward higher shares of renewable energy.

At the time of the incident, solar energy accounted for approximately 59% of Spain's electricity supply, with wind providing around 12%, nuclear 11%, and gas 5%, according to The Independent. The initial fault is believed to have originated in Extremadura, a region that hosts a large proportion of Spain's solar farms, hydroelectric facilities, and the 2 GW Almaraz Nuclear Power Plant, Spain's most powerful nuclear power plant.

Some political groups, including the Spanish far-right VOX party, attributed the blackout to over-reliance on renewables and called for a more diversified energy mix. An energy analyst at Rystad Energy, Pratheeksha Ramdas, said that greater amounts of renewables in the power system may have made the grid susceptible to outages, but that there are multiple possible causes of the disturbance. Henning Gloystein, director for energy at the Eurasia Group research firm, claimed it might have been easier to keep the system functioning if conventional energy sources like oil and gas had a larger presence.

However, several officials and energy experts have rejected the idea that renewables are to blame. EU energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, stated that there was "nothing unusual" about the electricity mix at the time of the blackout, and that the outage was not due to a "specific source energy". Daniel Muir, a European power analyst at S&P Global, said the nature and scale of the outage makes renewable energy an unlikely cause. Spain's Environment Minister, Sara Aagesen emphasised that the system had operated reliably under similar demand and energy mixes in the past, and Beatriz Corredor, president of Red Eléctrica, said that it was inaccurate to attribute the blackout to Spain's growing use of renewable energy. At a press conference on 29 April, Sánchez dismissed allegations that renewable energy caused the power cut, calling them "lies" and criticising those who blamed the blackout on Spain's reliance on wind and solar power.

The incident has also drawn attention to the concept of mechanical inertia in power systems, which refers to the stabilising effect of spinning turbines in traditional thermal power plants. A major aspect of moving away from electricity systems based on coal, gas, or nuclear power is the reduction in inertia on the grid. Solar, which accounted for the majority of Spain's electricity at the time, provides little rotating mass to the grid. Commentators such as Adam Bell, director of policy at strategy consultancy Stonehaven, argued that a lack of inertia due to renewable energy was not the "main driver for the blackout" as inertia was still present at the time of the blackout due to nuclear, hydroelectric, and grid-supporting technologies like synchronous condensers. Bell noted that solar, wind, and hydro remained operational after the event, while fossil fuel generation did not.

In the 30 minutes before the blackout at 12:33:18, sub-synchronous oscillations were observed and damped out. The oscillations appear to have been between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of the European wide grid, as they were in opposite phase. They did not appear to have ramped up exponentially in the minute leading up to the blackout. Rather, a huge local frequency drop to 49.2 Hz appear to have started instantaneously after a small drop in the European wide grid frequency. 49.2 Hz is below the statutory lower limit of 49.5 Hz.Theoretically, getting 90° out of phase on a specific connections results in immediate instability, as the power flow drops with the phase difference. The ~0.7 Hz frequency difference from the European wide frequency built up at a rate of 252° of phase shift per second, and this phase lag should quickly correct the local frequency through power flow if the connections are strong enough. Simultaneously, the European grid temporarily dropped faster but re-stabilized quickly, after having disconnected from the Iberian grid.

Several false and misleading claims were circulated regarding the origins of the power cut. Messages were spread online claiming that it was caused by a Russian cyberattack, falsely attributed to CNN International and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. It was also falsely attributed to the Portuguese electricity company EDP Group.

Some media outlets, including CNN and Reuters, reported that REN claimed it was because of a supposed "rare atmospheric event" called "induced atmospheric vibration", causing "synchronization failures between the electrical systems". REN has denied releasing either of these statements.

• A couple and their son died of carbon monoxide inhalation in Taboadela, Ourense, due to a generator being used indoors. One of the couple required a mechanical ventilator, which prompted the use of the generator.
• In Alzira, Valencia, a 46-year-old woman who depended on an oxygen machine died.
• In Madrid, at Carabanchel neighbourhood, a woman died in a fire caused by a candle. The fire trapped several people in a building. Several people were harmed in that same event.
• In Catalonia, 25 people were harmed by malfunctioning generators or misuse of them.
• A death of a 77-year-old was reported in Portugal, after a mechanical ventilator stopped working.

Von der Leyen spoke with Sánchez and posted a statement on social media platform Twitter/X: "I reaffirmed the European Commission's support in monitoring the situation with national and European authorities and our Electricity Coordination Group. We will coordinate efforts and share information to help restore the electricity system, and agreed to stay in close contact."

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after speaking with Sánchez, offered his country's assistance based on the experience it has gained throughout the targeting of its electrical infrastructure in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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• Electric grid data for Spain on April 28, 2025 from Red Eléctrica de España
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