Power supply is nearly fully restored in Spain and Portugal after a widespread and unusual blackout that disrupted the Iberian Peninsula for almost 20 hours. The cause of the outage remains unclear, though efforts to return electricity to normal are ongoing.

In the evening hours, as electricity was restored in Spanish cities, many residents celebrated with cheers and applause, grateful for the return of power after a day without electricity, internet, and mobile service.

By 06:00 local time (07:00 Bulgarian time), 99.16% of the electricity supply in mainland Spain had been restored, according to the country’s electricity transmission network operator, REE. In Portugal, the situation improved on April 29, with operator REN confirming that the national power grid had been fully stabilized.

“All substations in the national transmission network have been restored,” a REN spokesperson said, confirming the return to normalcy. Spanish rail services, including key routes like Madrid-Seville and Madrid-Barcelona, also resumed after the restoration of power, as reported by the national rail company Renfe.

However, disruptions continued, with some major lines still out of service. Authorities prioritized restoring suburban train routes, and three trains remained stuck in Spain on the morning of April 29, with passengers on board. Madrid’s metro system remained suspended, with the city's transport company urging commuters to use buses as an alternative.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, speaking late last night, refrained from offering a definitive explanation for the blackout, which began at 12:33 p.m. on April 28 (1:33 p.m. Bulgarian time). He did, however, clarify that 15 gigawatts of power were lost from Spain’s grid in less than five seconds, a loss corresponding to around 60% of the country's electricity consumption at that time.

Sanchez emphasized that there had never been a collapse of the Spanish grid on this scale. His Portuguese counterpart, Luis Montenegro, referred to the outage as a "serious and unprecedented situation," suggesting that the root cause was likely in Spain.