Spain has restored more than 99% of its power supply after an unprecedented outage that paralysed much of the country and Portugal, officials say.
Spanish electricity operator Red Electrica said the level had been reached by 6am on Tuesday. The outage left thousands of train passengers stranded, while millions were left without phone and internet service and without access to cash from ATMs across the Iberian Peninsula.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had earlier assured that power would be restored across the country of 48 million by the end of the day.
Red Electrica's head of operations, Eduardo Prieto, described the incident as “an exceptional and unusual event.”
It is the second major power outage in Europe in less than six weeks, following a fire on March 20 that paralysed Heathrow Airport in Britain. It comes as European authorities brace for possible Russian-backed sabotage.
Portugal's National Cybersecurity Centre said in a statement that there was no reason to believe the outage was caused by a cyberattack.
Teresa Ribera, the European Commission's executive vice-president in charge of clean energy, told reporters in Brussels that the outage was “one of the most serious incidents recorded in Europe in recent times.”
The Spanish Prime Minister noted that problems in the European energy system caused a large-scale blackout that affected Spain, Portugal and parts of France.
Mr Sanchez described the issue as a “strong wobble” and added that the cause of the incident was still being investigated.
The Spanish leader urged the public to avoid speculation and said no theories about the cause of the shutdown were being ruled out.
“We are studying all possible causes without rejecting any hypothesis,” the prime minister said.
He said that at 12:22 on Monday, Spain's power grid lost 15 gigawatts, representing 60% of total demand, in just five seconds.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
