© Supplied by Red El?ctrica Spain has recovered more than 92% of its power following an unprecedented blackout that brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill, officials said.
Spanish power distributor Red Electrica said the figure was reached by 5am on Tuesday. The blackout saw thousands of train passengers stranded and left millions of people without phone and internet coverage and access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez earlier vowed to have the entire country of 48 million with their lights back on by the end of the day.
Red Electrica head of operations Eduardo Prieto said the event was “exceptional and extraordinary”.
It was the second serious European power outage in less than six weeks after a March 20 fire shut down Heathrow Airport in the UK, and it came as authorities across Europe gird against sabotage backed by Russia.
The Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre in a statement said there was no sign the outage was due to a cyber attack.
European Commission executive vice president in charge of promoting clean energy Teresa Ribera indicated the same to journalists in Brussels and called the power outage “one of the most serious episodes recorded in Europe in recent times”.
The Spanish prime minister said that a problem in the European grid caused the huge power outage that struck Spain, Portugal and parts of France.
Mr Sanchez described the problem in the European grid as a “strong oscillation” and added that the cause is still being determined.
The Spanish leader asked the public to refrain from speculation and said no theory about the cause of the outage had been discarded.
“We are analysing all the potential causes without discarding any hypothesis,” the prime minister said.
He went on to detail that, at 12.22pm on Monday, Spain’s power grid lost 15 gigawatts, the equivalent of 60% of its national demand, in a matter of five seconds.
“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” he added.
Mr Sanchez thanked the governments of France and Morocco where energy was being pulled from to restore power to north and southern Spain.
Subway and railway trains have been halted, phone service has been unavailable and traffic lights and cash machines have not been working for many of the 50 million people who live across the peninsula.
By mid-afternoon, voltage was progressively being restored in the north, south and west of the peninsula, Red Electrica said.
The company declined to speculate on the causes of the huge blackout.
The outage hit across Spain and Portugal, including their capitals, Madrid and Lisbon.
Offices closed and traffic was gridlocked as traffic lights stopped working. It was not possible to make calls on some mobile phone networks, though some apps were working.
