Electricity was restored in almost all of Spain and Portugal Tuesday morning following a massive energy reduction affecting the entire Iberian Peninsula, but the cause of power outages has remained a mystery.
The widespread breakdown lasted around eight hours – in some regions longer – and closed metro networks, automatic traffic distributors and traffic lights, while disturbing the flights and mobile communications on Monday.
At 7 am, local time on Tuesday, more than 99% of the energy demand in Spain had been restored, said the country’s electricity operator, Red Electrica. The operator of the Portuguese network Ren has declared that all of its electrical substations were back online.
While life was starting to return to normal – with schools and riding offices, the softening of traffic and restarting public transport – the authorities in Spain have not yet provided new explanations on what caused one of the most serious breakdowns that have ever taken place in Europe.
The Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that his government’s priorities were double: restoring the country’s electrical system and finding the causes of the power outage, so a similar event “never takes place”.
“We analyze all the potential causes without rejecting any hypothesis,” said Sanchez.
Such generalized electrical failure has little precedent on the Iberian or Europe peninsula.
People were blocked outside the Madrid stations on Monday while a generalized power failure groaned public transport, delayed flights and caused general traffic jams.
Eduardo Pieto, director of services for system operations at the Spanish operator, noted two “steep and consecutive disconnection events” before the blackout breakdown on Monday. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, he said that more investigation was necessary to understand why they had taken place.
Red Electrica, in a statement on Monday evening, underlined a “strong oscillation in the flow of power”, which triggered “a very significant loss of generation”.
A source with direct knowledge of the sector declared that at the time of the breakdown, the Spanish grid worked with very little inertia, which is the energy moving in a large rotating mass such as a generator or in certain industrial engines.
The inertia helps stabilize the grid by slowing down the frequency change rate when there is a sudden drop or an increase in demand or generation.
“Under these conditions [when there is little inertia] If there is a drop in production for any reason, the grid loses [more] inertia and everything fails. And in an electricity failure, you must rebuild inertia before bringing things back online, which takes a few hours, “said the source, asking for anonymity.
No unusual weather event or cyber attack sign
The Spanish Meteorological Agency, Aemet, said that it had detected any “unusual weather or atmospheric phenomenon” on Monday, and no sudden temperature fluctuation was recorded in their meteorological stations.
The National Cybersecurity Center of Portugal rejected speculation on Monday on the unfair game, saying that there was no sign that the failure results from a cyber attack.
The president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, also said that there was “no indication of cyber attack”. Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president of the European Commission, excluded sabotage but stressed that the breakdown “is one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times”.
While Red Electrica also excluded a cyber attack, the High Court of Spain said it would open an investigation to determine if a “An act of computer sabotage” could have been committed “against critical Spanish infrastructure”.
“ Electric instability ” affecting Barcelona metro
The power was restored to the Caja Mágica tennis complex and the Madrid Open resumed on Tuesday with a crowded calendar, after a day in which 22 games had to be postponed.
In the biggest Spanish stations, passenger tickets waited Tuesday morning to board trains or in liter of tickets for the trips that have been canceled or disrupted.
At Madrid Atocha Station, hundreds of people were standing near screens while waiting for updates. Many had spent the night at the station, wrapped in blankets provided by the Red Cross. Similar scenes took place at the Sants in Barcelona station.
At 11 a.m., local time on Tuesday, the service on the Madrid metro system was fully restored. In Barcelona, the system operated normally, but the suburban trains were suspended due to “electrical instability”, the company that manages the service, said Rodalies Catalunya, on X.
Emergency workers in Spain said they had saved some 35,000 passengers on Monday blocked along the railways and clandestinely, with sports centers, sports centers and blackout airports in makeshift shelters.
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers, remote areas of Greenland were cut off from the crucial satellite access due to the power failure in the Iberian peninsula – but the Groenlandian telecommunications company TUSASSS said on Tuesday that the service had been restored during the night.
TUSASSS said on Monday that it had lost the connection against Satellite equipment based in Spain which provides telephone, internet, television and radio services.
