Iberian peninsula power cut: King Felipe to chair national security council meeting in Madrid – as it happened | World news

Spain’s Sánchez hopeful about restoring energy; urges residents to minimise travel, not speculate as to causes, use phones responsibly

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has just given a press conference offering an update on the situation in the country.

The prime minister acknowledged the “tremendous” impact on the lives of residents but sought to reassure them that the government was working on resolving the problem as soon as possible. In three regions of Andalusia, Extremadura, and Madrid the government will use extra emergency powers under civil protection laws.

Sanchez said that the process of restoring energy was under way across the country, thanks to interconnectors with France and Morocco and domestic energy sources, which should allow the energy supply to be restored “soon.”

He said that “a strong technical fluctuation in the European electricity system” led to the blackout but that there was no “conclusive information” on what specifically caused it.

He pointedly warned against speculating about the cause of the outage. “We are not ruling out any hypothesis, but we must focus on what is most important, which is restoring electricity to our homes,” he said.

Sanchez said that the hospital system was functioning despite the difficulties thanks to power generators, and while ATMs are affected, the underlying banking systems are operating normally. He also talked about train and air travel, in line with previous updates we brought you in this blog.

Sanchez also asked residents to minimise travel, not spread unverified information, and use mobile phones “responsibly” by keeping calls short and using the emergency 112 line only when necessary.

Another meeting of the national security council has been called for 7pm local time, he said.

Key events

We’re closing this blog now as power begins to return to Spain and Portugal following an unprecedented regional blackout that remains unexplained. Here’s a summary of the key developments:

Nearly half of Spain’s national electricity supply had been restored before the end of the day, including to the Basque country and Barcelona areas in the early afternoon, and to parts of capital Madrid on Monday night. About 61% of electricity had been restored by late Monday, according to the national grid operator.
In Portugal power was also gradually returning including to the capital Lisbon. Grid operator REN said 85 out of 89 power substations were back online.
The cause of the blackout remains unclear. Portuguese prime minister Luis Montenegro suggested the issue originated in Spain and the Portuguese operator blamed it on extreme temperature variations. Spain’s grid operator REE blamed a connection failure with France for triggering a knock-on effect.
Montenegro said there was “no indication” a cyberattack had caused the blackout, which began around 1033 GMT. Nonetheless, rumours circulated of possible sabotage. Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said nothing had been ruled out and that he had spoken to Nato secretary general Mark Rutte.
Sánchez said that the country had suffered a loss of 15GW of electricity generation in five seconds, equivalent to 60% of national demand. “This is something that has never happened before,” he said.
Spain’s interior ministry declared a national emergency and deployed 30,000 police across the country to keep order. Officials urged people to stay at home and many Spaniards took a half day off.
The two countries were left without trains, metros, traffic lights, ATMs, phone connections and internet access. Hospitals postponed routine operations but used generators to attend to critical cases, and while electronic banking was able to function on backup systems, most ATM screens were blank.
France and Morocco sent additional electricity to Spain. Sánchez said the shortfall would also be eased using gas and hydroelectric power.

If you’re just joining us, here’s our latest wrap of the main developments:

Spain’s king, Felipe VI, and prime minister Pedro Sánchez have decided that Felipe will preside over a meeting of the national security council tomorrow “given the special circumstances”, the newspaper El País has reported, citing palace sources.

The king and queen have cancelled a planned visit to the city of Jaén in Andalusia on Tuesday.

Portugal’s grid operator REN said 85 of 89 power substations are working again, Reuters reports.

A man waits for the power to be restored inside a tram in Lisbon during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France. Photograph: Patrícia de Melo Moreira/AFP/Getty Images

People use their phones and head torches to buy groceries inside the supermarket during the blackout in Barcelona. Photograph: Bruna Casas/Reuters

People use the wifi and electricity in an Ikea where power has come back to get in touch with family and friends during the blackout in Barcelona, Spain. Photograph: Bruna Casas/Reuters

Sam Jones

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has said “everything possible is being done” overnight to restore power to all parts of the country following Monday’s unprecedented nationwide power cut.

Speaking late on Monday night, Sánchez said the idea was to get the power back on across Spain on Tuesday, adding that 50% of the national electricity supply had been restored in the past few hours.

He said it was still too early to know what had caused the cut, but that nothing was being ruled out.

“Just how long it will take to get back to normal is something that the [national grid operator] Red Eléctrica still can’t say for sure,” he said. “There has never been a drop to zero in the system before and the idea now is to keep on with the progressive and prudent restoration of the supply to avoid any setbacks over the coming hours.”

Sánchez said that the power cut originated at 12.33pm on Monday, when, for five seconds, 15 gigawatts of the energy that was being produced – equivalent to 60% of all the energy that was being used – suddenly disappeared.

“That’s something that has never happened before,” he added. “What prompted this sudden disappearance of the supply is something that the experts still haven’t been able to determine. But they will … All potential causes are being analysed and no hypothesis or possibility is being ruled out.”

He thanked France and Morocco for sending additional electricity to Spain, and said the current shortfall would be ease using gas and hydroelectric power.

Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro acknowledged that his country would need to have “more developed security mechanisms to be able to prevent one of these events from occurring with this impact, together with our partners”.

He added: “Spain has received help from its other connections, with France and Morocco, but we are dependent, in a situation of constraint, on the connection only with Spain.

“It is true that the circumstance of Spain having, particularly with Europe, connection limitations, then affects the supply capacity to Portugal.

“We have been fighting for a long time in the EU to have stronger interconnections with Europe, so that we can then have more autonomy, both to receive and to sell energy.”

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said: “Almost 50% of the power supply has now been restored. Virtually all autonomous communities are reporting improvements. Citizens can and should rest assured.”

Authorities were yet to establish what had caused the blackout and were not ruling out any hypothesis, he added in a televised address.

Lisbon’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, urged residents to stay home on Tuesday, and to keep children away from school due to the power outage affecting the country.

According to CNN Portugal, Moedas said there would still be “some abnormality” in the situation tomorrow, at least until noon.

“Those who can stay home, do so. If you can prevent your children from going to school, do so,” he added.

A failure of the interconnection between the grids of Spain and France caused the massive power outage that hit most of the Iberian peninsula on Monday, La Vanguardia reported.

It quoted Spanish grid operator REE’s system operations chief, Eduardo Prieto.

Sam Jones

By 10pm local time on Monday, 62% of Spain’s substations were back online (421 of 680) and 43.3% of the power demand had been met.

Portugal’s prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said power in the country would be fully restored in the coming hours after a massive outage hit Iberia.

He said all state services remained operating in the country despite the difficulties.

France has sent up to 2,000 MW of electricity to Spain via interconnections through Catalonia and the Basque Country, the French grid operator RTE said.

Sam Jones

Spanish government sources said the power cut originated at 12.33pm, when, for five seconds, 15 gigawatts of the energy that was being produced – equivalent to 60% of all the energy that was being used – suddenly disappeared.

There are currently 11 trains awaiting rescue in Spain, according to transport minister Oscar Puente, who added that power has been restored at the Madrid Atocha command center.

Sam Jones

By around 9.30pm local time, power returned to some parts of Madrid, but the reconnection was patchy and many streetlamps were not working, leaving dog-owners to exercise their pets by torchlight.

Meanwhile, the authorities in Gibraltar – where the power network was not affected by the power cut – advised people to take care while travelling across the border.

In a statement on Monday night, it said: “The government is aware of the power outages which are being reported in Spain and Portugal.
”It urges citizens of Gibraltar who have travelled across the border for the bank holiday today to exercise extreme caution, particularly at road junctions controlled by traffic lights, and to look to official sources for information and updates.
While the cause of the widespread power outage remains unknown, the public will be aware that Gibraltar is not connected to the European grid. Therefore, the electricity generation and distribution network in Gibraltar is currently operating normally.
”The border continues to flow normally for incoming and outgoing traffic. Pedestrians entering Gibraltar are being checked manually in the interim whilst the eGates on the Spanish side are out of service due to the power outage.”

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