Power restored after massive blackout hits Spain, Portugal, France

Madrid: Electricity has returned to parts of northern, southern and western Spain, the grid operator said on Monday, as a blackout sparked chaos for millions across the Iberian peninsula.

"Tension has now been restored in substations in several areas of the north, south and west of the peninsula, beginning to give supply to consumers in these areas," Red Electrica said in a statement.

Earlier, electricity was cut off across Spain and Portugal and part of southern France on Monday in a massive blackout that impacted millions of people, grid operators said.

The cause for the outage was not immediately identified. It will take "six to 10 hours" to restore power in Spain, the state grid operator said.

"We are looking at between six and 10 hours, if all goes well," Eduardo Prieto, head of Red Electrica, told Cadena Sur radio, adding that several parts of the network "are already repaired" and saying it was impossible "to speculate on the cause for the moment".

Spain's state electricity network operator Red Electrica said on X said it had managed to restore power in the north and south of the country. Portugal's REN operator said all the Iberian peninsula was affected, as well as part of France.

Power was restored in southwestern France after a blackout on Monday that also hit Spain and Portugal, French high-voltage grid operator RTE said, adding it remained unclear what caused the outage.

"An electrical incident is currently affecting Spain and Portugal, the cause of which remains to be determined," RTE said, describing the blackout as a "major outage" in the Iberian peninsula.

"In France, homes were without power for several minutes in the Basque Country. All power has since been restored," it said, referring to the region in France's extreme southwestern corner on the border with Spain.

RTE said that the outage was not caused by a fire in the south of France, contrary to some reports.

The operator said there was "no impact on the supply-demand balance" in France.

According to RTE, the Iberian grid was automatically disconnected from the European grid from 12:38 pm to 1:30 pm (1038 GMT to 1130 GMT).

The French operator added that its teams have been mobilised to assist the Spanish grid operator.

"700 megawatts of Spanish consumption has already been restored via France by RTE."