Sorry this is a bit later than usual. You can probably guess why…

Questions over what caused massive blackout

Power returns and what was affected

Welcome back to the world. Power has returned to 100 per cent of the country’s electricity network following an unprecedented blackout that knocked out power on the Iberian Peninsula, Lusa reports this morning. It returned gradually throughout yesterday evening, with some parts of the country coming online hours earlier than others. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said last night it wasn’t worth ramping up consumption or stocking up because no more energy restraints were expected in the coming days, Diário de Notícias reports. An energy crisis was declared yesterday and the Council of Ministers, which met all afternoon, will reconvene today.

Porto’s Metro reopened early this morning and Lisbon Metro’s blue and red lines reopened in the past hour with the yellow and green lines to follow soon, Lusa reports. Schools were told they could reopen as normal. MEO, NOS and Vodafone said they were bringing cell service back online along with power in local areas, Expresso reports. In the face of uncertainty about when the power would come back on, they reconfigured their networks to limit usage but try to guarantee at least voice calls and messages sent through mobile data. A telecom sector source said cell tower batteries lasted at most six hours and not all had generators as backup.

Thousands of passengers were left waiting on the street outside Lisbon airport, after it was closed to anyone except landing passengers and emergencies, Público reports. The aviation regulator authorised overnight flights after the airport reopened and airport operator ANA urged passengers to check with their airline for updates, Lusa reports. Lisbon, Faro and Porto airports were all operating this morning but with some delays and cancellations, particularly in Lisbon. Some hospitals reduced planned surgeries to save energy and some vaccines were removed from local health centres without generators, Público reports. But Health Minister Ana Paula Martins said there was no information to suggest the blackout caused major problems in the health sector, given all hospitals have generators and redundant systems. Main opposition Socialist Party leader Pedro Nuno Santos criticised a lack of communication from civil protection services and the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) called for an urgent debate in parliament Lusa reports.

What caused the blackout?

The blackout brought most of Portugal and Spain, which declared a national emergency, to a standstill, affecting planes, public transport and hospitals, Reuters reports, in English. The cause remained unclear late last night, with Portugal pointing to a problem in Spain and Spain suggesting an issue with its connection to France. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said technicians were working to figure out why the country lost 15GW of electricity generation in five seconds, equivalent to 60% of national demand. Montenegro said there was “no indication” of a cyberattack.

The Portuguese prime minister said the outage did not stem from the Portuguese network, Lusa reports. He said it was believed to be related to an abrupt increase in voltage in Spain but the origin of that surge wasn’t clear. Montenegro said the effect on Portugal was not a problem with self-sufficiency and that, even if the country hadn’t been importing energy from Spain at that moment because it was cheaper, the effect would have been the same, Diário de Notícias reports. He said the country showed it had capacity when it isolated the grid from Spain as part of the reconnection process. However, he said it was necessary to improve backup systems to prevent a repeat of the situation, highlighting that Portugal’s only electricity interconnection is with Spain. Spain itself, which looked to Morocco and France for backup power, had its own limitations, further affecting its ability to supply Portugal, Montenegro said.

Four distinct bits of fake news circulated throughout the day on social media and messaging apps, Público reports. Text supposedly from CNN blaming a Russian attack was completely made-up. Early in the afternoon, Reuters cited a source at REN blaming a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” and “extreme temperature variations" but the grid operator refuted the claim and the article was deleted. Some of the fake news circulating on Whatsapp included that a firefighting plane crash was to blame and that it would take at least 72 hours for electricity to be restored.

Last night, REN administrator João Faria Conceição said it was too early to pinpoint a cause, Diário de Notícias reports. He issued a warning about the series of false claims circulating and said there was no evidence of a cyberattack. It could simply have been a “very large” oscillation in voltage, which propagated from the Spanish network to Portugal, he said.