The Iberian Peninsula experienced a massive power outage

A major power outage yesterday resulted in blackouts across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France, causing transportation chaos and leaving tens of millions of residents in the dark.

The outage, which started around late morning local time, prompted both Spain and Portugal to declare a state of emergency after it took out power sockets, knocked out traffic lights, and cut off mobile network access for many of their 60+ million combined residents.

• Travelers were especially affected by the blackouts. Several airports closed down, hundreds of flights were canceled, miles of local roads came to a standstill due to a lack of traffic signals, and subway systems suddenly failed—leaving some passengers temporarily stranded on trains stuck in tunnels between stations.
• Businesses, hospitals, and other critical infrastructure in Spain and Portugal were forced to rely on backup generators for several hours, before power started returning to many areas yesterday evening.

What caused the outage? It’s currently unclear, according to European officials. Intelligence leaders from Spain and Portugal say they haven’t ruled out the possibility of a cyberattack, but there’s currently no evidence to indicate the outage was caused by a deliberate act. Other potential explanations include a fire in southwest France that damaged a high-voltage power line, existing issues with the European electric grid, or a rare atmospheric phenomenon.

Closer to home: America’s power grids face a growing risk of similar blackouts in the near future as demand for energy continues to grow, according to a recent Reuters report. The news org identified 30+ instances since 2020 where US energy grids narrowly avoided a series of cascading major power outages after big energy users—like AI data centers or crypto miners—suddenly switched offline.