Spain-Portugal blackouts latest: Head of Spain’s power grid refuses to resign as officials hunt for cause
Power has been restored to tens of millions but the cause of the power cut remains unknown
Spanish grid operator Red Electrica’s boss has said she is not considering resigning as the energy firm faces mounting pressure while officials hunt for the cause of the major power outage that hit Spain and Portugal on Monday.
Chairwoman Beatriz Corredor said it was incorrect to link the massive blackout that hit the countries to the high share of renewable energy in the country’s total generation.
“I am not contemplating resignation”, she told radio station Cadena SER.
The firm posted on social media in praise of their response to the blackout that hit Europe at 12.30pm earlier this week, which brought transport to a standstill, wiped out mobile network and Wi-Fi coverage and water access for some.
“In less than 24 hours, they have turned around an unprecedented situation thanks to their dedication and professionalism.We continue working with the same vocation of service.”
This comes as Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez met with grid operators asking for their co-operation in finding the cause, he said: “We must undertake the necessary improvements to guarantee the supply and future competitiveness of our system.”
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Watch: Cheers as power starts to return in Lisbon
ICYMI: Portugal fully recovers from blackout, says government
Portugal has fully recovered from its blackout, with all 6.4 million electricity clients having their power supplies normalised, the government has said.
All airports are now operating although some recovery efforts are still underway in Lisbon, the government announced.
Trains are now working, schools reopening and the health service is fully stabilised.
Hundreds of flights cancelled to, from and within Spain and Portugal
The Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder writes:
After the power outage around noon on Monday 28 April hobbled airports, airlines and air-traffic control systems, the final flight cancellation count has just been announced by aviation analysts Cirium.
Passengers travelling to, from and within Spain encountered 413 cancellations, while the score for Portugal is 372. But because many of those are links between the two countries, and are therefore “double counted,” The Independent believes the true total is around 500 – affecting an estimated 80,000 passengers.
The worst affected airport was Lisbon, with 45 per cent of departures grounded. Next was Seville, where one-third of departing flights were cancelled. In absolute terms, though, Madrid and Barcelona were the Spanish cities with the highest number of cancellations – around 50 at each.
Cirium says that 25 flights from the UK to Portugal were cancelled, along with 11 outbound flights to Spain. The same number of inbound services were affected. In total, upwards of 4,000 passengers trying to get to or from Great Britain had their flights grounded. Northern Ireland’s airports suffered no cancellations.
Recap: What have we learnt on Tuesday?
Here’s all we have learnt from Tuesday about yesterday’s blackout, as the resulting chaos continues:
- The cause of the widespread blackout at 12:33pm yesterday is still unclear. But authorities have ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack and of an electricity surge caused by renewable sources.
- The electric grid suffered two ‘disconnection events’, causing instability in the system. The system recovered from the first event, but the second caused a widespread blackout, said the systems chief of Spain’s electricity grid operator REE.
- The Spanish government has vowed to hold private companies to account if they were at fault for the blackouts. Prime minister Pedro Sanchez said such an event “cannot ever happen again”.
- Around 500 planes were cancelled due to the blackout, according to an estimate by The Independent’s travel correspondent Simon Calder based on official figures.
- Oil refineries have began operating again and life is slowly returning to normal after the power cuts, but the chaos is continuing.
Electric grid suffered two 'disconnection events'
More is through from Spanish electricity grid operator REE, which we earlier reported had ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack in its early assessments.
The electricity system was hit by a dramatic power generation loss in southwestern Spain, that caused instability in the system that led to its disconnection from the French grid.
Systems recovered from the first disconnection, but the second one triggered power cuts across Spain and Portugal.
That’s according to the company’s system operations chief Eduardo Prieto, who said quite possible that the affected generation was solar, but it was to early to say for sure.
Mr Prieto said the system was now stable and working normally.
'People were going completely crazy'
The Independent’s assistant editor Vicki Harper speaks with Lisbon residents following yesterday’s blackouts:
Raquel, 48 said: "People were going completely crazy, but you know when the power came on at 11pm, I didn’t even feel like looking at my phone. I know there would be a flood of messages. I quite liked the relaxing quiet for a change.”
Lara and Miguel also live in downtown Rio de Mouro: “From now on we definitely will be getting together a basic survival kit.”
Watch: Emergency callouts after power outage In Spain
Telecom services resume in Greenland after Spain blackout
Telephone and internet services have been restored to remote communities in Greenland after the were cut off following the Spain blackout.
The remote areas suffered issues after crucial satellite access was cut out in far-away Spain, the Arctic island’s state-owned telecoms group Tusass said on Tuesday.
Tusass said it had lost connection to satellite equipment based in Spain that provides telephone, internet, TV and radio services.
"It's because of an error some 3,000 km (1,900 miles) away," a Tusass spokesperson told Reuters, adding that connection had been restored overnight.
In 2023, Tusass selected the Maspalomas ground station in Spain’s Gran Canaria island off the west coast of Africa as the hub for its new satellite network which provides a critical lifeline for some of Greenland's most isolated communities.
Madrid Open tennis tournament resumes
The Madrid Open tennis tournament resumed after the unexplained blackout caused 22 matches to be postponed on Monday.
A packed schedule on Tuesday included second-ranked Iga Swiatek advancing to the quarter-finals.
There was no power at the Caja Magica tennis complex that is hosting the Madrid Open until Tuesday.
Jacob Fearnley, a qualifier at the Madrid Open, had been mounting a last stand against Grigor Dimitrov when the lights went off mid-play. Both players were sent off court after the lights went dark.
Spectators were asked to leave the sports complex and the organisers said games were called off “to guarantee the safety of the players, fans and personnel”.
Many players said they used the time to reflect and relax as the batteries of their phones died.
World No 6 Jack Draper said he was "actually enjoying" the time to "focus on what is important."
"I'm a bit of a minimalist," he said. "Everyone was panicking, but it was so nice to actually have no phone and none of the other (stuff) going on in the world, and just try and focus on what is important. I ended up reading 10 pages of a book. Usually I don't read at all, so it was interesting."
Power returns in Spain and Portugal but questions mount over cause of outage
As life returns to normal for most in Spain and Portugal after a massive power blackout across the two nations caused chaos, the governments are still trying to find the reason behind the outage.
The cause of one of Europe's biggest ever power system collapses remains unclear with Portuguese pointing fingers at neighbouring Spain as the source of the issue.
Red Electrica pointed to a "strong oscillation in the power flow which triggered "a very significant loss of generation".
Aurora Energy analysts said the frequency of the grid dropped from the nominal 50Hz to 49.85Hz, triggering automatic emergency protocols.
"The frequency decline likely began due to severe oscillations in high-voltage lines in southern France or inland Spain. Hypotheses include a physical fault (line disconnection), a sudden loss of generation within Spain or an atmospheric phenomenon," they said.
This loss of generation went beyond what the electrical systems are designed to handle and the Spanish grid was disconnected from the European system.
The electric grid suffered two “disconnection events”, causing instability in the system. The system recovered from the first event, but the second caused a widespread blackout, said the REE.
The most common cause of an unplanned power cut which disables electricity on a large scale is extreme weather such as storms, lightning strikes or high winds. The weather at the time of Monday's collapse was fair.
Power outages can also happen when there are faults at power stations, power distribution lines, substations or other parts of the system.
Another source with direct knowledge of the sector said that leading up to the outage the Spanish grid was running with very little "inertia", which is energy stored in a large rotating mass like a generator or in some industrial motors that acts as a buffer as it can quickly be used to compensate for sudden changes in demand or supply.
"In those conditions (when there is little inertia) if there’s a drop in production for whatever reason, the grid loses (more) inertia and everything fails. And in a blackout, you need to rebuild inertia before bringing things back online, which takes a few hours," the source said, requesting anonymity.
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