Priyanka Tiwari
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Suspense crime, Digital Desk : On Monday night, entire regions in both Portugal and Spain suffered a blackout, resulting in flight cancellations, interrupted public transport, and hospitals having to limit their services. REN, Portugal's national grid operator, announced on Tuesday that power had been restored across the country.
Mid-week, approximately 61% of electrical power was restored in Spain, with the Basque Country, Barcelona, and parts of Madrid regaining access to electricity.
Spain Implements Emergency Measures
In an attempt to maintain order, Spain's Interior ministry declared a state of national emergency, commanding 30,000 police officers to take control of the situation. Both Portugal and Spain conducted emergency cabinet meetings to brainstorm solutions.
Pedro Sanchez, Spain's prime minister stated that the country lost 15GW of electricity, which translates to 60% of its national demand, in a mere five seconds. Sanchez labeled the scenario as unprecedented. On the other hand, Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro dismissed cyberattacks as the reason, although allegations of sabotage were circulating.
Undefined Reasons: Spain Accuses French Connection Break
As of now, the reason for the blackout is still unknown:
Portugal proposes that the issue identified was Spanish-born.
France’s grid operator RTE released a statement, revealing they experienced a minor outage where they provided extra electricity to northern Spain.
Joao from REN in Portugal has said Spain has the risk of oscillating voltage perturbations which can spread in Portugal.
The entire Iberian Rig can be greatly impacted.
Health Centers: Back-up generator powers emergency services and primary care is suspended in Madrid and Catalonia.
Transport: In Lisbon and Porto, Metro services were suspended, and cross-country trains were suspended. In severe cases, a major gridlock occurred when traffic lights stopped working.
Retail: Shelves went vacant with long lines of shoppers busings in supermarkets. Temporarily closed businesses like Lidl and IKEA saw shoppers rush in.
Internet: Spanish citizens recorded an 80% drop in online activities while Portugal spent only 10% of their online time.
Banking: Most ATMs were not working but The Not Bank of Spain assured backup systems for electronic banking were in place.
Stranded Passengers: 35,000 train passengers were evacuated from the ground while 11 starving for grid access stranded trains on remote islands were still in place on Monday night.
Events: The game at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was cancelled.
Contemporary parallel with other Iberian blackouts.
2003’s Italy had over 12 hours blackouts powering them with electricity from Spain during the 2003.
Germany was hit in 2006. Outages included parts of Europe and even Morroco. Their overloaded grids are the roots for the Barcelona-powered Spain.
As per energy consultancy Ember, Spain’s energy mix consists of 43% Renewable (Wind and solar), 20% Nuclear Energy, and 23% Fossil Fuels.
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