Spain, Portugal, and France have been affected by widespread power outages. There are scenes of mayhem across major European cities as the blackouts hit. Some believe it is due to renewable integration problems.
It could also be a cyberattack or any number of things. They don’t know.
All of Valencia and Barcelona were without power. Spain’s entire rail network shut down. Internet services ceased to function, and chaos reigned on the streets as traffic built up.
It might be a problem of renewable integration issues:
❗️⚡️ Major blackout hits Spain, Portugal, Andorra & parts of France. Cities like Madrid, Valencia & Barcelona affected. Internet, mobile networks disrupted. ENTSO-E working on restoring the grid. Cause linked to grid failure + renewable integration issues. pic.twitter.com/B39UVbi4dG
— EDO FARINA XRP (@edward_farina) April 28, 2025
Videos online show railway networks in Spanish cities plunged into chaos, with people being evacuated through tunnels as blackouts hit underground stations and halted trains.
First, They Ran on Renewables
The cause of the outages is still unclear. The power cuts come after Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewable energy for a whole day for the first time on April 16. Only the Daily Mail reported this. Did the transition cause the problem? The problem is with the European power grid.
WOW!!! Spain has just dropped 15 GW of load – it is usually 27 MW at this time of day, so they have lost half their grid.
This is a MASSIVE outage, this is not normal, not planned for and should not happen.@BBCNews @TheEconomist @BBCr4today @JavierBlas pic.twitter.com/36ctcffSlk
— Simon Gallagher ⚡Energy & the Grid ⚡ (@simoncgallagher) April 28, 2025
There was a fire in France. Also, while initially ruling it out, officials now say it could be a cyberattack.
Parts of France also lost power after the outages in Spain and Portugal, the country’s grid operator confirmed.
E-Redes, a Portuguese electricity grid monitoring company, said it was investigating the cause of the outage, which it described as ‘a wider European problem’. The problem is the European Power Grid.
There is a blackout currently in all of Spain, and apparently Portugal. No one seems to know what the cause is but people are suspecting cyberattack. The streets are a bit chaotic but order so far is mostly prevailing. pic.twitter.com/zvY3uKr8Ka
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 28, 2025
According to Expresso, Portugal’s E-Redes operator said the blackout was due to a “problem in the European power grid.” Portuguese grid operators stated that data collected following the blackout indicated that a voltage imbalance was responsible for the collapse.
“A crisis committee has been set up to manage the situation [in Spain],” an official briefed on the situation in Spain said. “At this stage, there’s no evidence yet regarding the cause of the massive blackout. A cyberattack has not been ruled out, and investigations are ongoing.”
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