The EU is ready to help with a "thorough investigation" into the power outage in Spain and Portugal. This is what EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen writes on the social media X.
- The energy situation in Spain and Portugal is back to normal. This incident is the most serious in almost two decades in Europe. We are ready to support Spain and Portugal in every way possible. Including launching a thorough investigation, writes Dan Jørgensen.
The power outage has raised concerns about whether something similar could happen in other EU countries. It also comes at a time when Dan Jørgensen is put in charge of connecting Europe's electricity grids more closely together.
It should make it easier for EU countries to share electricity across borders. The hope is that this can lower energy bills for citizens and businesses.
However, the extensive power outage may also raise questions about whether other EU countries could be affected if a more closely connected electricity grid allows, for example, Spain and Portugal to draw on power from other countries in the event of new power outages.
Cause still unclear
It is still unclear what caused the extensive outage that hit Spain and Portugal on Monday.
- Experts are still analysing the causes of the power outage in Spain and Portugal yesterday. As far as we know, there was nothing unusual about the energy sources that supplied electricity to the system yesterday. It cannot be attributed to a specific energy source, such as renewable energy, says Dan Jørgensen in a written comment.
He states that the power outage does not change that energy security is an EU priority.
- An interconnected electricity system, solidarity and green, locally produced energy are the keys to making our system more resilient, says Dan Jørgensen.
When electricity suddenly disappeared, it happened across most of the two countries. A corner of the Iberian Peninsula, home to almost 60 million people, went out, writes the AFP news agency. Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Monday evening that around 15 gigawatts of electricity - half of the country's electricity consumption at the time - "suddenly disappeared" in just five seconds on Monday. The outage occurred around 12:30 p.m.
On Tuesday morning, most of the power was back on in both Spain and Portugal.
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