US EditionOne year on: Spain’s 2025 blackout still haunts millions
Investigators say the outage stemmed from interacting voltage and frequency failures, and Spain has since rolled out new grid procedures to reduce the risk.
- Today marks one year since the Apag plunged the Iberian Peninsula into darkness on April 28, 2025, when the national grid collapsed in under 90 seconds, affecting millions across Spain and Portugal.
- Official reports from the CNMC describe a multifactorial failure rooted in voltage surges, oscillations, and successive generator disconnections that cascaded rapidly; investigations show no single identifiable cause.
- Eight deaths occurred as direct consequences of the outage, including three family members in Galicia from carbon monoxide poisoning; studies later identified around 147 excess deaths in Spain linked to disrupted healthcare.
- Businesses and households now face the end of the one-year legal window to claim damages from the outage. Industrial group Repsol seeks around €125 million for refinery impacts, while electro-intensive sectors estimate near €25 million in losses.
- Experts stress that the 2025 incident arose from a "rare alignment of technical and operational factors" rather than renewables alone. Updated operational procedures and monitoring plans rolled out by March 2026 now provide stronger safeguards against future repeats.
15 Articles
15 Articles
In Spain a year later, causes, sanctions and changes in the electrical system continue to mark the energy debate, with a clear technical diagnosis, but with responsibilities still in dispute between operators and electrical.The incident, considered multifactorial and linked to a voltage failure, has led to key regulatory changes, although the controversy remains about what exactly failed in the electrical system.Apagon in Spain a year later: cau…
The cost of technical restrictions has increased by 63%, from 2,058 million in 2024 to 3,351 million in 2025.
Tuesday, April 29, 2025, 24 hours after the big blackout. At the side of the room, the President of the Government and several of his ministers, including the head of...
The peak of sales and searches after the power cut of April 2025 gave rise to a new commercial niche, but the interest has been deflating even though it remains above previous levels Interview - Beatriz Corredor: “There was a legal vacuum in the control of tension at the time of the blackout” On March 26, 2025, just a month before the biggest blackout in recent Spanish history, the European Commission launched a recommendation that passed relati…
One year on: Spain’s 2025 blackout still haunts millions
Sudden darkness suddenly hit Spain and Portugal at 12.33 CEST on April 28, 2025, when the “Apagón”, a massive power outage, struck the Iberian Peninsula without warning. Millions lost electricity in an instant during what became one of the most severe power failures in modern European history. Families paused mid-task, traffic signals failed, leading to road chaos, and passenger-packed public… Source
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