Since 11:33 a.m. yesterday (April 28, 2025), Portugal and Spain (and some areas of France) have suffered one of the biggest blackouts ever, and they weren’t completely blacked out just because this anomalous event happened during part of the day until early evening, as electricity was restored in stages.
Some of the reasons for the unprecedented blackout are already known, the biggest being that the problem started in Spain, which reported that 15 gigawatts “suddenly disappeared” from the grid for five seconds, the equivalent of 60% of the energy consumed at the time.
However, there is still no conclusive information on the reasons for this massive outage on the Iberian Peninsula, and no hypothesis has yet been ruled out.
State of play
According to the government’s post on social media, there are still some constraints and only during the day will everything be back to normal. For now, this is the state of play (information is constantly being updated):
- Electricity: REN guarantees that the country is “back on”, 100%, with 6.4 million customers already restored (except for 800 due to an unrelated fault);
- Water: supply working at practically 100% throughout the country;
- Metro: in Lisbon it took the longest to start operating, with disruptions on the Yellow and Green lines. Blue and Red lines now operating.
- Trains: up and running, but there are still some constraints due to the effects of the 24-hour strike;
- Schools: guidance has been given for normal operation (some may have opted to close);
- Airports: still with some delays in departures and arrivals, but now operating;
- Fuel: normal supplies have been restored;
- Traffic: some traffic lights still intermittent (Avenida das Forças Armadas)
- Health services: situation stable;
- Security and civil protection: everything is back to normal
For now, this is the most pertinent information you need to know so that your day-to-day life can return to normal, although there may be other types of constraints, which we will keep an eye on and report on here.