Massive Power Outage Hits Spain, Portugal, and Parts of France Amid European Grid Failure

Watan-Most of Spain, along with parts of neighboring Portugal and France, experienced a massive power outage around midday Monday. Traffic lights and telephone services largely stopped working across central Madrid, while most train services were also suspended, according to Bloomberg.

The Spanish government said it is working to determine the cause of the blackout, according to a statement sent via text message. The Canary and Balearic Islands were not affected. Spain’s power grid operator, Red Eléctrica, said it is collaborating with other companies to restore electricity after the widespread outage.

The company confirmed that restoring full power could take between six to ten hours but refrained from speculating on the cause of the outage. Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Center issued a statement saying there is no evidence the blackout resulted from a cyberattack. Eduardo Brito, head of operations at the company, described the incident as “exceptional and unprecedented.”

Spanish grid monitoring company e-Redes stated that it is working to gradually restore electricity, calling the event “a Europe-wide issue.” Spanish radio stations reported parts of Madrid’s subway had been evacuated, with heavy traffic jams occurring due to malfunctioning traffic signals.

Spain’s RTVE broadcast network reported that several regions lost power around 12:30 p.m. local time, darkening their newsroom, the Spanish Parliament building in Madrid, and metro stations across the country. Residents in Barcelona and surrounding towns also reported outages through neighborhood WhatsApp groups.

Spain’s national railway operator suspended train services across the country due to the power outage. Adif, Spain’s railway infrastructure manager, announced on X (formerly Twitter) that “a general power outage affecting supply has led to the halting of railway services across the entire network.”

On April 28, 2025, the lights went out across Spain and Portugal. Millions were left stranded, had no electricity, no internet, no transport, no way to buy food, or call for help. The official story? A mysterious grid failure.

How do entire countries go dark in 2025? This was no… pic.twitter.com/1xZCOBmOrV

— MarXmeN (@10MarXmen) April 28, 2025

European Electricity System Problem

In Portugal, which has a population of around 10.6 million, the blackout affected Lisbon and surrounding areas, as well as parts of the north and south. Portuguese electricity distributor e-Redes said the outage was due to a “problem in the European electricity system,” according to the newspaper Expresso. The company added it had to cut electricity in specific areas to stabilize the network.

E-Redes reported that parts of France were also affected. France’s electricity provider said that several homes in the Basque region briefly lost power, which was later restored.

Portuguese energy company REN confirmed that the entire Iberian Peninsula, including Spain and Portugal, as well as parts of France, were impacted. Portuguese utility company EDP described the situation as a “major blackout,” starting around 11:33 a.m. local time (10:33 GMT).

EDP stated that “all plans have been activated to restore power in stages, in coordination with European energy producers and operators,” adding that the causes of the incident are under investigation.

Portuguese government spokesman Antonio Leitão Amaro told the Lusa news agency, “It appears there was an issue in the transmission network, the cause of which has not yet been identified, seemingly originating in Spain.”

According to testimonies collected by AFP, several neighborhoods in Lisbon lost power, with road signal systems disabled. Local media reported the evacuation of at least four metro trains in the Portuguese capital. Police confirmed that traffic signals were affected nationwide, and the Lisbon and Porto metro systems, along with national train services, were suspended.