A MASSIVE power outage in Spain and Portugal could last for another 10 hours, reports have said.
Eduardo Prieto, director of Spanish transmission system operator Red Eléctrica, said that a “very strong oscillation in the electrical network” led Spain’s power system to “disconnect from the European system and the collapse of the Iberian electricity network at 12.38pm."
He refused to speculate on the cause of the outage, Politico reports, declining to say if a cyber attack contributed to the power cut.
Prieto then revealed that while power had been reconnected in some parts of Spain, it could take between six and 10 hours to re-establish power across the whole country.
E-Redes, Portugal's energy operator, said the problem was because of a "problem in the European power grid” and that data suggested a voltage imbalance was the cause of the outage.
Spain and Portugal's energy grid operates as an energy island, it is linked to Europe through a small number of connections across the border with France.
Teresa Ribera, European Commission executive vice president and a former top minister in the Spanish government, said there is "nothing that allows us to say that there is any kind of sabotage or cyberattack".
She added: "And obviously we are working with the utmost caution and we will have to continue investigating to determine what are the specific causes that have generated this incident, which is one of the most serious that have been recorded in Europe for a long time."
We told how the major power cut hit Spain and Portugal on Monday, including their capitals, knocking out subway networks, phone lines, traffic lights and ATM machines.
The countries have a combined population of more than 50 million people, but it was not immediately clear how many were affected.
Spain’s public broadcaster, RTVE, said a major power outage hit several regions of the country just after midday local time, leaving its newsroom, Spain’s parliament in Madrid and subway stations across the country in the dark.
A graph on Spain’s electricity network website showing demand across the country indicated a steep drop at around 12.15pm from 27,500MW to near 15,000MW.
