What we know about power outage in Spain, Portugal | Energy News

Spain and Portugal have recovered access to electricity after one of the worst blackouts from Europe paralyzed to transport systems, interrupted mobile communications and postponed medical procedures.

For almost a Monday day early on Tuesday, dozens of millions of people immersed themselves in the dark. In the main cities such as Barcelona, ​​Madrid and Lisbon, people were trapped in elevators, trapped in trains and unable to access the Internet.

Meanwhile, the tails are winding outside the few markets that are executed in support generators while people supplied in three products, water and battery flashlights.

The Spanish and Portuguese governments quickly convened emergency meetings after the interruption, which arrived in Spain and Portugal around 12:30 (10:30 GMT) on Monday and also affected southern France.

Almost no one in the Iberian Peninsula, which has a population of almost 60 million people, escaped to the blackout. Madrid was forced to declare an emergency.

Althegh Power has been largely restored, transport remains in a serious situation, with trains and flights that report delays. A firm cause for closing has not yet emerged.

With the power again, the attention is resorting to what is based on such a widespread failure of the networks of the region.

What caused the blackout?

Portugal’s electricity supplier, Energetica Nacerionais (REN) networks said that a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused severe imbalance in the temperatures that led to the generalized stops.

Ren said: “

Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, also said that the problem originated in Spain.

However, in a statement on Tuesday, the National Meteorological Office of Spain, Aemet, seemed to rule out the weather as a culprit.

“Duration on April 28, no unusual weather or atmospheric phenomena were detected, and there were no sudden variations in the temperature in our network of weather stations,” Aemet said.

The Spanish government said that the cause of the power court is still unknown and warns against speculation.

“My instinct is that multiple factors were behind the blackout,” said Kang Li, president of Smart Energy Systems of the University of Leeds, Al Jazeera.

“In general, several Mondhs are needed so that the data of the forensic grid is adequately analyzed,” he added, “he thought an interim report could be made in several weeks.”

Bloomberg News reported that Spain has seen a record number of hours with negative energy prices in recent months as more wind and plot energy supplies the network. Until now, however, the excess supply had caused blackouts.

In 2024, renewable energy sources represented 56 percent of all electricity used in Spain, a record. By 2030, this proportion is expected to reach 81 percent.

According to LI, “it is more difficult to manage energy production when the infrastructure is changing so fast. A greater penetration of renewable energies with existing systems creates more fluctuation in the operating system.”

For his part, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said: “We never had a complete collapse of the system,” explaining how the Electric Red of Spain lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent or 60 percent of its national demand, in just five seconds.

While there is still no evidence of a cyber attack, Sánchez said he is not ruling out. He warned against speculation, but said that “no cause can be discredited at this time.”

Could a cyber attack have fallen into the blackout?

Research on the cause of the interruption is ongoing, the National Center for Cyber ​​Security of Portugal threw water into the idea of ​​the dirty game, saying that there were no signs that the interruption resulted from a cyber attack.

Portuguese prime minister, Luis Montenegro, also said that “there were no indications” or a cyber attack.

Speaking to journalists in Brussels, Teresa Ribera, executive vice president of the European Commission, also ruled out sabotage. However, interruption “is one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times,” he said.

For now, the Spanish government said it is waiting for more information about the cause of the blackout. State officials said they expect in the next few days to know what the cause was.

Why were countries affected?

Spain and Portugal were the most affected, but the interruptions occurred in other places also:

• Spain: Urban centers such as Avila, Madrid, Murcia, Galicia, Alicante, Zaragoza, Barcelona and Seville reported generalized interruptions. The Canary Islands and Balearic Islands were not affected.
• Portugal: Lisbon and Porto experienced comparable challenges.
• South of France: parts of the French Basque Country saw power cuts. But officials of the French electricity transmission network said the interruptions lasted only a few minutes.
• Morocco: Some reports suggested that Internet providers in Morocco had difficulty maintaining their services in operation due to network connections with France and interruptions there.
• Greenland: Greenland’s remote regions lost access to key satellite services, including Internet and telephones. The authorities said they have satellite teams in Spain, Altegh, a direct cause has not yet had legs.

Has Power been restored?

In the middle of Monday’s cake, the Electricity Operator of Spain, Electric Network (REE), said it had begun to recover the voltage in the north, south and west of the country.

The recovery process was carried out gradually to avoid overloading the grid as linked generators. Power also returned to Portugal Bit A bit. For Monday night, Ren said that 85 or his 89 substations of power were back online.

For Tuesday morning, Power had almost completely returned to Spain and Portugal.

At 6:30 am (4:30 GMT) more than 99 percent of energy demand in Spain had been restored, Ree said. In other places, energy was restored during the night to 6.2 million of 6.5 million homes in Portugal.

At the city level, Madrid’s metropolitan system said the service was restored in all 8 am (06:00 GMT), which means that 80 percent of the trains last morning peak time.

Has Europe suffered off this scale before?

While interruptions are not unknown in Europe, the Iberia energy failure scale was one of the largest in recent history.

In 2019, England and Wales suffered regional blackouts in the middle of rays in a gas energy plant in Bedfordshire and a wind farm on the high seas on the east coast of England.

A 2006 German energy overload caused interruptions as far as Portugal and Morocco. In 2003, a problem with a hydroelectric energy line between Italy and Switzerland caused an interruption in Italy for approximately 12 hours.

“The interconnection between countries has positive benefits, since it can improve efficiency and reduce costs … it is always sunny or raining somewhere in Europe,” Li said.

“But” added “interconnected systems mean that local failures in a location can have domino effects in other places. Transmission lines can overload.”

Li also pointed out that climate change and increased temperatures pose “growing risks” for Spain and Portugal style blackouts.

“Heat, excessive rain and forest fires increase the risk of transmission failures. We can add this investing more to clean energy generation to increase the flexibility of the energy system.”