On 4/28 there were massive blackouts involving all over Spain, Portugal, southwestern France, plus parts of Belgium and the Netherlands.
The unprecedented blackout brought much of Spain and Portugal to a standstill, stranding thousands of train passengers and leaving millions of people without phone and internet coverage and access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.
The outage began at midday. Offices closed and traffic was snarled in Madrid and Lisbon, while some civilians in Barcelona directed traffic. Train services in both countries stopped.
Emergency services and rail workers in Spain had to help evacuate some 35,000 people from over 100 trains that stopped on the tracks when the electricity was cut. By 11 p.m. passengers from 11 trains still needed evacuating, and the cause of the blackout had not been ascertained.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, “We have no answers, and we aren’t ruling out any hypothesis regarding the blackout.”
Cybersecurity reporter Ryan Gallagher was quoted on Bluesky saying that a cyberattack has been ruled out, and the problem is likely technical.
PJMedia raised an interesting point.
From PJ Media:
Is there a lesson here about so-called clean energy?
Spain reportedly went 100% renewables – mostly solar and wind – as of April 16th.
That isn’t quite accurate; Spain does still have traditional power sources, but they typically provide less than half the country’s electricity. April 16 just happened to be the first day that none of them were needed.
So now less than two weeks after April 16th there is a massive power outage! … Hmmm!
4/29/25