Spain and Portugal restored power after one of Europe's worst power outages was paralyzed, mobile communications and delayed medical procedures.
From Monday to early Tuesday, nearly a day, thousands of people fell into darkness. In major cities such as Barcelona, Madrid and Lisbon, people are trapped in elevators, stuck on trains, and have no access to the internet.
Meanwhile, as people store dry goods, water and battery-powered flashlights, they wind up in several supermarkets running on backup generators.
The Spanish and Portuguese governments quickly convened an emergency meeting after Monday's power outage, which struck Spain and Portugal, about 12:30 (10:30) on Monday, and also briefly affected southern France.
Almost no one escaped the power outage of nearly 60 million people in the Iberian Peninsula. Madrid was forced to declare a state of emergency.
Although electricity has been greatly restored, transportation is still in a serious strait, with delays in trains and flights reporting. The exact reason for the closure has not yet occurred.
With the power supply restarting, attention is turning to the reasons why networks in the region are so common.
"Rare atmospheric phenomenon" has caused severe imbalances at temperatures, leading to widespread closures, said Redes Energeticas Nacionais (Ren), a Portuguese power provider.
"Due to extreme temperature changes inside Spain, there are abnormal oscillations in very high voltage lines (400 kV), which is a phenomenon called "induced atmospheric vibrations," Ren said.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also said the issue originated in Spain.
However, in a statement Tuesday, the Spanish National Meteorological Agency AEMET appeared to rule out the weather as the culprit.
"On the day of April 28, no abnormal weather or atmospheric phenomena were detected and there was no sudden change in temperature in our network of weather stations," Aemet said.
The Spanish government said the reasons for the cuts and decompression remain unknown and warned against speculation.
"My intuition is the multiple factors behind the power outage," Kang Li, chairman of the University of Leeds' Intelligent Energy Systems, told Al Jazeera.
He added: "It usually takes several months to correctly analyze forensic grid data.
Bloomberg News reported that Spain has seen record hours in recent months with negative electricity prices due to the increasing wind and solar grid supply. However, oversupply has not caused power outages so far.
Renewable energy accounts for 56% of all Spain's electricity in 2024, a record. By 2030, this proportion is expected to reach 81%.
According to Lee, “It is difficult to manage energy output when infrastructure changes so quickly. The penetration of existing systems with higher renewable energy can create more volatility in the operating system.”
"We never completely collapsed," said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, explaining how Spain's power grid lost 15 Gigawats in just five seconds, equivalent to 60% of its country's demand.
Sanchez said that while there is no evidence of a cyber attack, he has not ruled out anything. He warned not to speculate, but said, "There is no reason to be smeared at the moment."
Although investigations into the cause of the power outage are underway, the National Cybersecurity Centre in Portugal threw cold water on the idea of fouls, saying there was no indication that the power outage was caused by a cyber attack.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro also said there was no "no sign" of cyber attacks.
Teresa Ribera, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission, also ruled out destructiveness in her speech to journalists in Brussels. Still, she said, “the power outage is one of the worst episodes recorded in Europe recently.”
Currently, the Spanish government says it is awaiting more information about the cause of the power outage. State officials said they hope to know what the reason is in the coming days.
Spain and Portugal are most affected, but also happen elsewhere:
In mid-morning Monday afternoon, Spain's electricity operator Red Electrica (REE) said it had begun to retract voltages in the north, south and west of the country.
Gradually carry out the recovery process to avoid overloading the grid when the generator is linked. The power supply is also slightly returned to Portugal. By Monday night, Ren said 85 of its 89 power substations returned online.
By Tuesday morning, electricity was almost completely back to Spain and Portugal.
Rie said 99% of energy demand had recovered at 6:30 a.m. Spain (04:30 GMT). Elsewhere, electricity has been restored overnight among 6.5 million households in Portugal.
Madrid's subway system said at the city level that services have resumed on all routes except 8:00 a.m. GMT (06:00), meaning 80% of trains operate during peak hours on Tuesday morning.
While Europe is not unheard of, Iberia has the largest power failure in recent history.
In 2019, lightning strikes occurred in a gas power plant in England and Wales in Bedfordshire and an offshore wind farm near England’s east coast, which suffered an area blackout.
Germany's electricity overload in 2006 caused disruptions as far as Portugal and Morocco. In 2003, problems with hydroelectric power lines between Italy and Switzerland resulted in a disruption of about 12 hours throughout Italy.
"The interconnection between countries has positive benefits because it can increase efficiency and reduce costs. ... Somewhere in Europe it is always sunny or raining."
"But," he added: "The interconnected system means that a local failure in one location may have a domino effect elsewhere. The transmission line can be overloaded."
Lee also noted that climate change and temperature rises constitute the “risk increase” of Spanish and Portuguese-style power outages.
“Heat, rain and wildfires all increase the risk of spreading failures. We can solve this problem by investing more in clean energy generation to increase flexibility in the energy system.”