The blackout hit critical infrastructure like airports and caused transportation disruptions across the two countries. The cause of the outage was unclear.
Spain and Portugal were hit by a major power outage on Monday, bringing to a halt daily activity throughout the two countries, with businesses shutting down along with trains, subways and airline flights.
Officials did not say what caused the outage, which affected tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula, but several denied any foul play.
“At this point, there are no indications of any cyberattack,” António Costa, the president of the European Council, wrote in a post on X.
Portuguese energy authorities said the outage occurred following a disruption in the European grid, but did not provide details. After a report that an unspecified “atmospheric phenomenon” had caused the outage, REN, a Portuguese electricity and gas supplier, vigorously denied that was the reason.
“That news is fake news,” Bruno Silva, a spokesman for REN, said in a phone interview. “It is giving us a really, really big headache.”
By late Monday afternoon, power was flickering back on in many areas.
Spain’s national power company, Red Eléctrica said that power had returned to many parts of the country, including in Catalonia, Aragon, the Basque Country, Galicia, Asturias, Navarre, Castile and León, Extremadura, and Andalusia.
