Power outages in Europe

Blackout in Europe - 26th May 2025

An extensive power blackout has struck Spain and Portugal, with the unknown cause of the outage sparking a blame game. The disastrous network failure, which began between 12.30 and 12.35 on April 28th, even saw inhabitants of southern France affected.

Beginning in south-west Spain, people found their lights suddenly cut out, and both their internet and phone connections dropped out. Retailers reliant on digital commercial systems were left with no option but to close, and ATMs were unable to dispense cash.

As train and metro systems came to a standstill, commuters were left high and dry between stations. Meanwhile, airports forced onto emergency generators oversaw lengthy delays and flight cancellations as aircraft were completely grounded.

Across Madrid and other urban centres, city residents emptied out onto the streets, killing time playing games and making conversation. Others took the chance to have a nap.

Initially reported as a suspected cyber attack, this was quickly refuted. The position was backed up by European Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera's announcement that there was no evidence of anything untoward. Other information, purportedly from Portugal's electricity network, REN, pointed to a rare atmospheric phenomenon. However, a denial of any such statement has since been issued by REN.

A more plausible explanation which has gained increasing credence since the outage, points to issues around sustainable energy generation. Paving the way in clean energy, Spain generated 56 percent of its energy from renewable sources last year. Despite the outage occurring as solar energy production peaked, the grid may well have had issues with balancing supply and demand.

'Grid balancing' processes maintain an equilibrium between electricity supply and consumer demand, based on a traditional approach of increasing or decreasing electricity generation at power stations. However, since sustainable energy production's less open to direct human control, grid balancing now requires alternative, more considered mechanisms to maintain the network's equilibrium. Upgrading Europe's energy networks to meet these demands is expected to cost in excess of three trillion euros.

Regardless of whoever is found at fault for this outage, it's evident that interruptions to electricity supplies pose increasing difficulties in a society evermore dependent on digital devices.