Electricity supply slowly returning after massive Spain and Portugal power outage

Spain will not resume long- and medium-distance train services today, the country’s Minister of Transport Oscar Puente said.

Authorities have been trying to rescue passengers from 116 trains that were stranded due to the power outage, Puente added. As of 12:30 p.m. ET, 26 trains were still to be evacuated.

Puente urged the public to avoid traveling by car but said road freight and public transportation were still operational.

Officials have restricted the number of incoming air arrivals by 20%, but air traffic is otherwise operating “normally,” the minister said. The ports and airports of the Balearic and Canary Islands — which are both hotspots for international tourism — have not been affected.

The supply of electricity has been restored to parts of Spain and Portugal, the countries’ grid operators said in an update Monday evening, hours after a massive and unexplained power outage sent the entire Iberian Peninsula into darkness.

Portugal’s grid operator, Rene Electrica Nacional (REN), said production has been restored at the Castelo de Bode hydroelectric power station and the Tapada de Outeiro thermoelectric plant.

With those stations now active, energy consumption is gradually resuming in Portugal — first in the areas surrounding those power plants and progressively farther away, REN said.

Meanwhile, Red Electrica (REE), Spain’s grid operator, said electricity has been restored in several regions, including Catalonia, Aragon, the Basque country and Andalucia.

Travelers wait outside Atocha train station after it was closed due to a power outage in Madrid, on Monday.

There is no conclusive information on what caused the power outage that has affected Spain, Portugal and parts of France, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Monday.

He said officials were trying to determine the cause and had not yet ruled out any theories, but he urged the public to avoid speculation.

Power has already been restored in parts of the north and south, he said, adding that the blackout has not resulted in any security problems.

Sánchez urged people to use phones “responsibly,” meaning making calls only when necessary and to keeping them brief to ease strain on the system.

“The government is working, and will continue to work, to learn the cause of this power outage. Right now, the priority is to work to restore normality as soon as possible,” he said.

Large swaths of Spain and Portugal are still in the dark after a blackout on Monday.

Flights at major airports and trains in the region were suddenly delayed or canceled, and even some sporting events were impacted. Tennis fans at the Madrid Open filed out of courts after the outage caused play to be suspended.

Here’s what it looked like across the region:

Spectators roam inside the Madrid Open tennis tournament venue during a general blackout today in Madrid, Spain.

Drivers wait outside their cars in a massive traffic jam in downtown Madrid as subway and trains are totally out of service due to a massive power outage in Spain, today.

People climb stairs in Lisbon old centre after the escalator stopped working following a power outage on Monday.

People line up at a bus stop in downtown Madrid Monday following the outage.

Employees stand inside a supermarket without lights in Burgos, Spain, today.

Spanish Police escort passengers out of the Atocha train station in Madrid as a massive power outage hit Spain.

Customers eat in a restaurant with candles on tables in Burgos, Spain, during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and parts of the south of France.

People play cards at Joaquin Sorolla train station in Valencia, today, after passengers were stranded during a power outage which hit large parts of Spain.

People buy groceries in a store during a shutdown of electricity today in Lisbon, Portugal.

Although the cause of the massive power outage in Spain and Portugal is not yet clear, there are “no indications” of a cyberattack, said Antonio Costa, president of the European Council.

Costa, who was prime minister of Portugal between 2015 and 2024, said he spoke today with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro.

“Grid operators in both countries are working on finding the cause, and on restoring the electricity supply,” Costa wrote on X.

“At this point, there are no indications of any cyberattack,” he added.

People walk the Gran Via street in downtown Madrid, Spain, where traffic had been cut off by the police, as subway and trains went out of service due to a massive power outage in Spain today.

Spanish electricity provider Red Electrica said power is returning to some parts of the country.

Metro system: Separately, Spain’s transportation minister Oscar Puente said medium- and long-distance trains will likely not resume service until tomorrow.

He said trains will need to be serviced to ensure they are safe to operate after the blackout in a post on social media.

Some Madrid residents are flocking to grocery stores to stock up on essential supplies, as a power outage has left millions without electricity across the Iberian Peninsula.

In a video from Reuters, people can be seen stocking up on vital items, such as milk and toilet paper. A number of shelves appear to have been completely cleared.

One shopper, butcher Oliver Ortiz, told Reuters that he was buying non-perishable items.

“Things that won’t expire, canned goods, a little bit, just in case,” he added.

It is not yet clear when power will be restored. Spanish electricity provider, Red Electrica told broadcaster La Sexta on Monday that it could take anywhere between six and 10 hours.

“I don’t know, we’ve been without electricity for a while now,” student Luis Miguel Arroyo told Reuters.

Madrid’s firefighters have carried out 174 “elevator interventions” across the city on Monday, its Emergency Information Office said in a post on X, as swathes of Spain and Portugal lost power amid a major electricity outage.

Municipal workers are taking on double shifts to help those affected by the blackout, the office said, bringing fuel to “critical centers” and working in day care centers and senior care homes.

Separately, Madrid’s bus system remains operational, the Spanish capital’s Emergency Information Office said in a post on X Monday afternoon.

The city’s tunnels will be closed to the public throughout the day, the emergency office said, but will remain open for emergency services.

Spain’s nuclear sites are safe amid a major power outage across large parts of the Iberian Peninsula on Monday, according to the country’s nuclear energy agency, the Nuclear Safety Council (CSN).

Nuclear power plants shut down as they are designed to do when they lose power, CSN said, adding that “backup diesel generators fired up and are maintaining safe conditions for the reactors.”

Spain has seven operational nuclear reactors across five different sites, according to CSN.

Passengers stand next to a stopped RENFE high-speed AVE train near Cordoba, Spain, on Monday.

All Spanish train services are suspended until further notice, the country’s Railway Infrastructure and Traffic Department (Adif) said Monday, hours into the power outage that has hit much of the country.

The power outage that left millions without electricity across the Iberian Peninsula likely originated in Spain, the Portuguese prime minister said.

Luis Montenegro said the government did not yet know what caused the power outage, but that it “did not originate in Portugal” and “everything indicates” the problem originated in Spain.

“We have our intelligence services also trying to get to the bottom of what may have been at the root of the incident.”

When asked if it could have been a cyberattack, the prime minister said “nothing is off the table,” but said there was “no indication pointing in that direction.”

Spanish authorities have not yet said what caused the blackout or where it originated.

A police officer gestures to organise traffic while traffic lights are off in Lisbon following a massive power cut on Monday.

Traffic in Lisbon is “overall chaotic” after a major power outage on Monday, a local resident in Portugal’s capital told CNN.

Speaking to CNN’s Becky Anderson, Madalena Malveiro described how the city has been affected by the lack of power, with many supermarkets closing and traffic lining the streets.

Traffic lights in Lisbon have ceased to operate, Malveiro said, and commuters are consequently getting stuck in traffic as a result. “People are kind of confused, (wondering) how long this is going to last,” she said, adding that people are also more “agitated” than normal.

Vehicles queue on the M30 ring road in Madrid as a massive power outage hits Spain on Monday.

Power has been partially restored across Spain but experts are still responding to Monday’s massive power outage, the national grid operator said.

“Voltage has now been restored at substations in several areas in the north, south, and west of the peninsula,” Red Electrica said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Madrid’s Mayor Isabel Díaz Ayuso urged the national government to deploy the army to help deal with the outage.

Díaz Ayuso said the local government had deployed “all resources available to address the ongoing emergency situation” and requested the Spanish government activate the army “to cooperate in this crisis.”

Barcelona’s El Prat Airport, Catalonia’s primary international airport, is “operating correctly with self-service,” according to the Government of Catalonia, the body that manages the autonomous region within Spain.

Most scheduled flights at Barcelona El Prat Airport (BCN) appear to be departing as normal or with minor delays, according to the airport’s official website.

The Catalonia government also said nearby chemical industries in Tarragona are safe, hospitals and primary care centers are open, and schools and educational centers are operating as normal.

People walk through a dark metro station amid a widespread power outage in Lisbon, on Monday.

Power is out across large parts of Spain and Portugal, and already misinformation is spreading as to what caused the outage.

Some outlets are reporting a fire in the southwest of France is to blame, but French electricity providers have denied the claim. Portugal’s National Cybersecurity Center also said there was no evidence of a cyberattack being behind the power outages, state news agency LUSA reported.

While the exact cause remains unclear, governments have convened emergency meetings and electricity providers are working to restore power as soon as possible.

Here’s what we know so far:

Police take security measures as a widespread power outage strikes Madrid on Monday.

Electricity supplies could take anywhere between six to 10 hours to restore, Spanish electricity provider Red Electrica told broadcaster La Sexta Monday.

As officials work to restore power to large parts of Spain affected by the massive outage, Spanish electricity provider Red Electrica is offering real-time data on the country’s electricity supply.

In this graph, the yellow line appears to shows a massive drop off at about 12:30 p.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET) when power went out across the country.

An online graph showing real-time information on Spain's electricity demand shows a massive drop-off the moment power was knocked out in the country.

People wait at Joaquin Sorolla train station after passengers were stranded during a power outage in Valencia, Spain, on Monday.

Spain’s “entire national electricity grid was cut off” at 12:30 p.m. local time (6:30 a.m. ET), national railway company Renfe said on X, causing its trains to stop and not depart from any stations.

Renfe runs more than 1,000 trains per day, transporting 1.3 million passengers across 5,000 journeys, according to its website.

Renfe’s trains include public rail services “that the state considers essential,” with a travel fleet that includes AVE (high-speed), Avlo, Alvia, Euromed and Intercity trains.

A man and a child walk through a local market during a massive power cut in Vigo, northwestern Spain, on Monday.

Parts of France’s Basque Country, in the southwest of the country, were briefly impacted by a “small power cut,” a spokesperson for France’s electricity transmission operator RTE told CNN Monday.

“It lasted only a couple of minutes and was restored very quickly,” said Emilie Grandidier.

“We are now focusing our efforts on helping Spain restore its power,” she added.

Spain’s hospitals have backup power systems to ensure the flow of power, according to the country’s health ministry, which said it was monitoring the situation and ready to respond to any incident.

Portugal’s grid operator Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN) said electrical supply was lost across the entire Iberian peninsula, and in parts of France, late on Monday morning.

Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica said it was working with energy companies to restore power, only some of which had been regained in the north and south by the afternoon. “The causes are being analyzed and all resources are being dedicated to solving it,” it said.

CNN’s Rob Picheta contributed reporting to this post.