Power has mostly been restored to cities across Spain and Portugal after a major outage caused chaos yesterday. But a debate is growing about what caused the cuts.
Tuesday 29 April 2025 14:00, UK
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That's it for our live coverage of the blackouts in Spain and Portugal for the time being.
The cause of the outage is still unknown, with conflicting reports so far on the likely trigger.
Spain's national grid appeared to rule out a cyber attack in an initial assessment, but a Spanish judge has since ordered an investigation - while stressing that "cyber terrorism" cannot yet be discounted for certain.
Portugal's prime minister has also called for an independent investigation into what happened this afternoon.
Watch our reporting about the uncertain cause in the clip below.
The good news is that Spanish and Portuguese authorities have said that most power has been restored.
We even spoke to a tourist in Madrid earlier who flew to Spain from the Netherlands without any delays this morning (see our 13.21 post).
Finding the whole story overwhelming? Watch a recap of what happened below.
Remember to keep watching and following Sky News for the latest updates from around the world, including on Donald Trump's first 100 days and the war in Ukraine.
It is possible that a cyber attack caused yesterday's power outages, the head of an independent grid connection company has told Sky News.
Simon Gallagher, managing director of UK Networks Services, said he would be "very surprised if this is a cyber attack".
But he added: "I don't think we can rule it out."
Gallagher said that losing "all generation within five seconds" was "instant in grid terms" and "catastrophic".
The blackout "should never have happened" and the "grid is built with all kinds of automatic systems to prevent this happening," he told Sky News.
So what triggered power outages?
It looks like a big power station "tripped off", Gallagher said.
That is a "normal event" and the grid "stabilised, which it's supposed to do, after that".
Then, a few minutes later, another event happened and "that looks like another power station may have tripped".
Again, the grid stabilised.
"But soon after that, a cascade happened where Spain actually disconnected from France," Gallagher said.
"The systems designed to protect the wider European grid came into play, so Spain was left by itself."
'Catastrophic failure' led to 'vicious cycle' of power cuts
Gallagher added: "There was a catastrophic failure where gigawatts and gigawatts of generation disappeared from the Spanish system.
"At that stage, it was a bit of a vicious cycle where the generation disappeared so fast, that the grid just effectively collapsed.
"And at that stage, half of Spain had no electricity."
Ashna Hurynag has just been reporting from live from the centre of Madrid.
She said: "All in all, things are getting back to normal - ish."
Hurynag described how there were still some transport delays today in Spain, particularly in rural areas.
Yesterday, though, she explained how the commuting chaos was far worse.
Passengers had to get off trains and use the torches on their phones to walk to safety along the tracks.
And at airports in Madrid, there were enormous queues.
"People were snaking around the taxi ranks in Madrid," Hurynag said.
"Taxis were having to ration their fuel, and they were limited in the number of card payments they could take."
"When reliant on cash, customers could only take out so much because the ATMs weren't working.
"We passed one ATM that simply had a blank screen."
The power cuts were a shock for people in the 21st century used to constant connectivity, she said.
Hurynag added: "We're so used to people attached to their devices, attached to some form of connectivity.
"People were using battery-powered radios, bringing them out, playing them at full volume, so everyone could be part of getting that shared information.
"We've also seen people turning their car radios to full volume."
She finished by describing the outages as a "truly unprecedented event".
The live stream of her walkabout in the city's Plaza Mayor has now finished. But you can watch it back below.
Ashna Hurynag is reporting from Plaza Mayor in Madrid. You can watch along in the live stream at the top of the page.
She's just spoken to a tourist from the Netherlands, pictured in the jacket on the left below, who arrived in the Spanish capital this morning.
"We were watching thinking, 'is it possible to go there'?," the tourist told Hurynag, of their anxious wait yesterday before their trip.
But this morning, their flight to Spain was not even delayed.
The Dutch visitor said her group only noticed one impact since arriving in Madrid.
She said: "The only thing we saw was in the supermarket - the ice cubes were stuck in the freezer."
In the stream at the top of the page, Sky's Ashna Hurynag is reporting live from Madrid with the latest on the blackouts in Spain and Portugal.
Power has mostly been restored to cities across the two countries after a major outage caused chaos yesterday.
King Felipe of Spain has chaired a national security meeting as officials scramble to establish the cause of the outages.
Watch her report above and keep checking here for the latest updates.
Spain's prime minister has said yesterday's power outage was not caused by his country generating a large amount of energy via renewable sources.
Pedro Sanchez told reporters technicians are still trying to ascertain the cause of the blackout.
The results of their enquiries will be used to reinforce the system, he added.
"What happened yesterday cannot ever happen again," he commented.
While a preliminary assessment from Spanish grid operator REE has ruled out a cyberattack (see our 10.45 post), Sanchez said the country's cyber security authorities are investigating such a possibility.
Jos茅 Luis Calama, a judge in Spain's national court, has ordered a preliminary investigation into the power blackout.
The probe will examine whether the outage was caused by an act of cyber sabotage against critical infrastructure.
If it was, it would qualify as a terrorism offence.
Reports from relevant parties are being requested within a "non-extendable" period of 10 days.
Those reports must indicate the cause of the blackout.
The judge has also asked police intelligence HQ to submit a preliminary report - again within 10 days.
Judge Calama said that while the cause is currently unknown, cyber terrorism should not be ruled out.
Spain's emergency protocols worked, the country's prime minister has said.
Regarding the cause of the power outage, he said he was not ruling out any hypothesis.
In a lunchtime update, Pedro Sanchez said that as of 6am, things were 99% back to normal.
The majority of schools and supermarkets are open.
Mobile/fibreoptic technology is working in 90% of the territory.
Were the power outages something to do with sustainable power sources?
Ed Conway, Sky News's economics and data editor, says it is a "plausible theory".
He explained: "When you are massively reliant on things like solar and wind and you don't have that much gas-powered generation going on, then it does potentially leave you more vulnerable to things like this happening.
"There's something called inertia in the system.
"Basically, when you've got lots of generators turning at a certain rpm (revolutions per minute) it means there's the ability of a big power grid to deal with sudden falls."
He added: "When you have a lot of solar - when you don't have a lot of those things turning - then you're much more vulnerable.
"And that鈥檚 the scary thing - is the system more vulnerable to it [when there is a lot of wind and solar].
"The theory would say it is."
For context: Spain is one of Europe's biggest producers of renewable energy.
Data from Red Electrica, the partly state-owned Spanish energy producer, shows solar photovoltaic (PV) energy was providing almost 59% of Spain's electricity at the time of the blackout, while wind power was providing nearly 12%, nuclear power almost 11% and combined cycle gas plants 5%.
The operator of France's national grid, RTE, has said that connections with Spain enabled power to be exported.
That helped with the gradual resumption of power on the Iberian Peninsula.
RTE said the cause of yesterday's massive outage in Spain and Portugal remained unknown.
