The widespread power outages in Spain and Portugal, believed to be the largest ever recorded, were caused by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” officials have revealed.
Millions of people across Spain and Portugal were left without power on Monday after an unprecedented electricity blackout struck both countries shortly after noon.
Parts of Spain and Portugal have been brought to a standstill, grounding planes, halting public transport, and causing panic buying.
Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down, and some retail businesses closed in both countries, including grocery chain Lidl and furniture giant IKEA.
The two countries are scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.
Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe.
“I don’t understand anything,” said Angeles Alvarez, a traveller stranded outside Madrid’s Atocha railway station.
“I just don’t know who to turn to.
“My daughter in Barcelona is giving birth.
“We’re going to miss the connection to get there.”
Videos on social media show trains stopped dead on the tracks, with passengers stranded in the middle of nowhere.
BREAKING 🚨: Spain, Portugal and a few other EU countries are in total blackout.
Train passengers in Spain got stuck in the middle of nowhere. This is insane.
(This video is from a friend of mine) pic.twitter.com/i7FObGPngS
— Solana Sensei (@SolanaSensei) April 28, 2025
The race is now on to restore the power before dark.
However, officials have warned that the blackouts could last for up to a week.
According to an earlier statement from Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, officials still had no conclusive information on the cause.
However, REN, the Portuguese grid operator, is now saying that a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” is behind the blackouts.
REN claims the outage was caused by a fault in the Spanish electricity grid.
This fault was triggered by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon.”
Portugal's grid operator claims the blackout that shut down much of Portugal, Spain and France today was caused by Spain's electricity grid malfunctioning “due to a rare atmospheric phenomenon” pic.twitter.com/IzY1MFhF9n
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 28, 2025
REN says that there were “anomalous oscillations” in Spain’s very high-voltage lines.
It says this is known as “induced atmospheric variation.”
This led to oscillations, which caused synchronisation failures between systems.
That led to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network, REN adds.
It also says that given the complexity of the issue, it could take up to a week for the network to fully normalize again.
Some Spanish and Portuguese citizens have been taking to social media to raise their concerns.
“I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness,” one X user said.
“No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved.
I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved..
— Jordan B (@JayStew21721754) April 28, 2025
Bloomberg’s Javier Blas described the power outage as “Massive — really, massive.”
“Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona).
“Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds.
“Reason unknown.”
BREAKING: Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona).
Data from Spain's national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw. pic.twitter.com/KwvDxOOLQJ
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025
Additional BBC News headlines of the chaos unfolding across Europe’s Iberian Peninsula:
- Delays at Spanish and Portuguese airports
- In London, Gatwick [Airport] reports delayed flights to affected areas
- Portugal blames outage on “fault in Spain’s electricity grid”
- “Extreme temperature variations in Spain” contributed to the outage – Portuguese grid officials
- Restoring power across Portugal “could take up to a week”
- No indications of any cyber attack, says European Council president
- Power back on in some substations, says Spain’s electric operator, but railways still suspended
- French operator supplying electricity to Spain
- Grid operator says power returning in parts of the Iberian Peninsula
