Click here to read all our reports related to Spain’s blackout.
At 12.30pm on Monday, a massive power outage swept across a large stretch of western Europe. Within seconds, Spain’s electricity grid experienced a dramatic loss of 10 gigawatts (GW) of demand, dropping from 26GW to just 12GW. By any measure, it was one of the largest blackouts Europe has seen in recent years.
Electricity was knocked out across mainland Spain and significant areas of Portugal – including Lisbon and Porto – also lost power, along with Andorra and parts of southern France.
In response, Spain’s interior ministry announced a state of emergency, to be implemented in regions that requested assistance. The Community of Madrid, Andalusia, and Extremadura called on the central government to assume control over public order and other critical functions.
The blackout triggered scenes reminiscent of Zero Day, the Netflix series starring Robert De Niro about a devastating cyberattack on the United States. In the chaos, passengers on the Madrid Metro were suddenly plunged into darkness, unaware of the broader collapse of the grid. Hospitals across affected areas quickly switched over to emergency generators.
In Madrid and other cities across Spain and Portugal, anxious crowds rushed to ATMs to withdraw cash, while streets filled with people desperately searching for mobile signal. Taxi and bus queues grew long as transport systems faltered.
With traffic lights out of service, police faced enormous challenges managing the resulting gridlock, and authorities urged residents to avoid driving wherever possible.
Madrid’s regional government reported that 286 rescue operations were conducted to free individuals trapped in elevators.
Telecommunications networks also buckled under the strain, disrupting major mobile phone services. Almost nine hours after the initial outage, Spain’s transport minister revealed that 11 trains were still stuck on the tracks with passengers aboard.
Cash became king again, as card payment systems and electronic till registers ceased functioning. Shopkeepers resorted to calculating totals on mobile phones – if their devices still had enough battery life.
Spain’s interior ministry said it had deployed around 30,000 police officers to manage the crisis.
Major railway stations in cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia and Seville remained open throughout the night to shelter stranded travellers.
Spain’s nuclear reactors shut down automatically as a precaution, according to the Spanish Nuclear Safety Council (CSN), with diesel generators keeping the plants in a ‘safe condition’.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the blackout as causing ‘serious disruption’ for millions of people and leading to ‘economic losses in businesses, in companies, in industries’.
The European Commission confirmed it was in communication with authorities in Spain and Portugal. European Council President Antonio Costa posted on X: ‘There are no indications of any cyberattack.’
Meanwhile, Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro suggested the root cause of the outage was ‘probably in Spain’. However, Spain’s Sánchez stressed that ‘all the potential causes’ were under investigation and cautioned against ‘speculation’ to prevent ‘misinformation’.
The blackout’s effects briefly extended into southwestern France, while Morocco experienced some disruptions to internet providers and airport check-in services.
On Monday evening, Sánchez called for the public to use mobile phones ‘responsibly’, stressing the importance of preserving communications during this critical moment. He urged people to keep calls short and limit usage to essential matters. He also reiterated that authorities were investigating the sudden failure of electricity generation.
‘It had never happened before … All the resources of the state are being mobilised from minute one,’ Sánchez said.
Large-scale power outages have impacted other regions globally in recent years. In Europe, a notable example occurred in November 2006, when 10 million people across France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain lost power for about an hour due to a fault in Germany’s grid.
Subscribe to the Weekly Newsletter from Spain in English.
Please support Spain in English with a donation.
Click here to get your business activity or services listed on our DIRECTORY.