Spain’s national cybersecurity office stated that it had gathered evidence suggesting the power outage could be the result of a cyberattack, but this claim has been denied by Portuguese and EU officials.
Power is gradually beginning to be restored across Spain after a widespread power outage earlier on Monday, the national grid operator has said.
Red Eléctrica said power is available again in northern Spain following the national outage, which also affected Portugal, Andorra and parts of France.
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The grid operator didn’t say how long it would take to resume full service across the network, but warned customers it would take time, with around half of the national grid currently re-energised.
The operator of the French national grid, RTE, said it is helping to provide power to Spain’s network and Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushenko also offered Kyiv’s “knowledge and experience” to help restore power.
Meanwhile, power has been restored in some areas in Portugal, and national electricity company REN says electricity production has been restored at two plants.
The company is expected to hold a press conference with further updates at 8 pm local time (9 pm CEST).
The cause of the peninsula-wide outage has not yet been determined. Spain’s national cybersecurity office, the National Cryptologic Centre (CCN), stated that it had gathered evidence indicating the power outage could be the result of a cyberattack.
Juanma Moreno, president of the Andalusian regional government, also confirmed the possibility of a cyberattack and advised citizens to exercise caution.
However, the cyberattack hypothesis has been refuted by some Portuguese and EU officials.
“We still don’t have conclusive information about the cause,” Spanish Premier Pedro Sánchez said at a press conference on Monday evening. “We don’t rule out any scenarios.”
“We must focus on the most important thing now: bringing back electricity to all households,” Sánchez added.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro told reporters there was “no indication” a cyberattack was to blame, and while the exact cause remains unknown, it was clear the problem “did not originate in Portugal.”
Montenegro said he expected full service to be restored across Portugal “in the coming hours”.
And European Council President António Costa — who is Portuguese — also said he had seen no evidence that a cyberattack was responsible for the blackout.
Costa said he is in contact with Montenegro and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and that national grid operators in both countries are “working on finding the cause and on restoring the electricity supply.”
The European Commission also says it is “in contact” with authorities in Spain and Portugal “to understand the underlying cause” of the widespread outage.
“As per EU legislation in place … there are protocols in place to restore the functioning of the system,” the statement read.
“Following the massive blackout, we stand ready to support Spain and Portugal in putting their systems back on track,” European Commissioner for Energy and Housing Dan Jørgensen said in a post on X. / euronews
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