What Caused the Massive Blackout Across Europe?

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On Monday, April 28, several European countries — including Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium — experienced a major power outage. This incident comes just months after a massive blackout in Chile left much of the country in the dark.

What caused the massive blackout across Europe? The exact cause is still unknown. According to El País, Spain’s National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) is investigating the incident to rule out the possibility of a cyberattack. However, Teresa Ribera, Vice President of the European Commission, said that this scenario is unlikely.

In the meantime, Red Eléctrica explained that the blackouts were caused by a sharp fluctuation in the power grid, which led to Spain’s disconnection from the rest of the European electricity network. Sky News also reported on the situation, suggesting that a rare atmospheric phenomenon could be behind the outage.

According to journalists from LOS40, some parts of Spain — including the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla — were unaffected by the blackout. Due to the complexity of the phenomenon and the need to stabilize electricity flows across multiple countries. Authorities estimate that it could take up to a week for everything to return to normal.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said on Monday that while the exact cause of the power outage is still unknown, it’s clear that it did not originate in Portugal. According to Montenegro, “everything indicates” that the outage started in Spain.

“We know the origin was not in Portugal. We are connected to Spain’s power grid, and all signs point to the situation starting there — but I don’t want to speculate,” he told reporters.

According to EFE, Portugal’s electricity and natural gas transmission company REN detected ‘a major voltage fluctuation’ in Spain’s network at 11:33 a.m. local time (10:33 a.m. GMT).

The Impact

As expected, many buildings were left without electricity, and the outage disrupted the operation of key infrastructure, communications, train services, and businesses. Fortunately, hospitals in Spain were able to continue operating normally thanks to their independent backup generators.

According to Red Eléctrica, areas across all the affected regions have already started to regain power, although the restoration process will be gradual. Authorities have emphasized that full stability might take some time as the power grid needs careful rebalancing to prevent further issues.