Overview

• Official report attributes the April 28 outage across Spain and Portugal to a chain reaction of minor failures in southern substations and planning oversights.
• The blackout cut 15 gigawatts—about 60% of Spain’s electricity—in five seconds, leaving much of the peninsula without power until nightfall.
• Red Eléctrica’s preliminary analysis pinpointed failures at two southern substations as the initial triggers of the cascading outages.
• Local blackouts on La Palma on May 8 and June 10 underscore ongoing stability challenges in the Canary Islands grid.
• Despite grid vulnerabilities, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez insists on maintaining the path to 81% renewable power by 2030 while pressing for infrastructure upgrades.