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Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

• rcarmo 1y ago
  CNN story: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/28/europe/spain-portugal-power-outages-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/28/europe/spain-portugal-pow...
  • enopod_ 1y ago
    In contrary to the CNN headline, air traffic doesn‘t seem to be affected. (As one would expect, as airports all have backup power systems)
    • avh02 1y ago
      Except Heathrow apparently
• sgfgross 1y ago
  I’m close to Valencia and we’ve had no electricity for about an hour.
• VagabundoP 1y ago
  On a slight side note if anyone has any good references to read on grid stability and resilience please reply. Ex Electronic Engineer interest.
  • feirlane 1y ago
    Practical Engineering on youtube has some good videos on the electrical grid. This one in particular is a good explanation on what they had to go through to get power back on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w
    • VagabundoP 1y ago
      Excellent video, thank you.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• mirekrusin 1y ago
  People are not voting this up to top because they're offline. This outage is quite massive.
  • Calwestjobs 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • pezezin 1y ago
      Spain has 49 million people, which is a lot, but not 80 million. (plus 11 million of Portugal for a total of 60 million people in the Iberian Peninsula)
      • Calwestjobs 1y ago
        ok so just remove times two then XD
• io84 1y ago
  Source?
  • mirekrusin 1y ago
    I can confirm, all coworkers from Portugal seem to be affected. Big thing.
• MrPapz 1y ago
  Yes, it’s happening
• T3x 1y ago
  I can confirm (I'm from Portugal)
• xavaki 1y ago
  barcelona has been out for the past 20 minutes or so
• pablo-120971 1y ago
  Got reports from Toledo and Madrid
• rcarmo 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • derelicta 1y ago
    Who would even invade Spain and Portugal? E.T?
    • rcarmo 1y ago
      Well, we love all kinds of tourists. Why not ones that could change the world? :) #irony
    • inigoalonso 1y ago
      Morocco might (again).
      • derelicta 1y ago
        That would be a hell of a plot twist
  • sofixa 1y ago
    Spain and Portugal are quite big and with harsh terrain, I doubt anyone would bother invading in a traditional sense.
    • pezezin 1y ago
      But we have been invaded countless times during our history, although the last time was Napoleon in 1808...
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• rvz 1y ago
  A full nationwide power outage affecting not one but three [0] countries. Sounds like a major infrastructure risk given that it is possible for more than one country to experience a full loss of power. EDIT: Andorra is also affected, so that is three. [0] https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20250428/10624908/caida-general-deja-suministro-electrico-toda-espana.html https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20250428/10624908/caida-ge...
  • ifwinterco 1y ago
    The whole European grid is essentially connected at this point, it's a simple trade of resiliency for efficiency. People just forget about the resiliency part until something goes wrong
  • chippiewill 1y ago
    The European grid is a connected synchronous grid. Usually that would add stability but it also means if a single country's grid blacks out then their neighbours have to respond to that. Portugal and Spain's grids will be intimately connected which won't have helped. Not something that's easy to test for.
  • derbOac 1y ago
    Yeah I've been wondering why this seems so centralized. I'd think power would be more decentralized.
    • enether 1y ago
      ditto, definitely TIL
• celso 1y ago
  Portugal has no electricity as we speak. Funny enough telcos and 4G/5G are fine for now, I'm guessing batteries and diesel backups kicked in and are doing their job.
  • rcarmo 1y ago
    Yeah, we just told you that via Signal - that’s how we built the networks :) (No relation to the other infamous Signal chat :)) There should be 4-8 hours of battery backup on every site - at least.
    • ethbr1 1y ago
      Wow! Battery capacity has gotten cheap. It's always fascinated me during disasters how independent telecomm can be. Kudos for all the engineering that went into it! I.e. even when any other conceivable dependency is down, the networks keep running.
      • p_l 1y ago
        Depending on country there are sometimes very strict requirements - or just traditions sometimes - around building up strong survivability in face of total loss of grid power. Including diesel and turbine generators on bigger BTSes let alone exchanges. If you drop capacity per terminal (so bandwidth) you can cover a lot more range at times which helps with mobile network resiliency.
        • Scoundreller 1y ago
          > Including diesel and turbine generators on bigger BTSes let alone exchanges. Or if you’re AT&T, grid natural gas backup, so your CO goes down if electrical and natural gas both go out once the batteries die. Did I mention how they didn’t build in roll-up generator connection points and had to emergency install those? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25539586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25539586
      • myself248 1y ago
• znq 1y ago
  Confirmed by contacts on the ground in Spain and Portugal. Not the best news source, but it’s the only one I’ve found so far. HN moderators, feel free to replace it later with a better one. Supposedly also France is affected (unconfirmed)
  • znq 1y ago
    This is the first brief article from El País, a leading newspaper in Spain: https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-28/apagon-electrico-masivo-en-espana.html https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-28/apagon-electrico-masi... Translated version: https://elpais-com.translate.goog/economia/2025-04-28/apagon-electrico-masivo-en-espana.html?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://elpais-com.translate.goog/economia/2025-04-28/apagon...
• EZ-E 1y ago
  Looking forward to the postmortem
  • rvz 1y ago
    Definitely looking forward to this postmortem.
  • sph 1y ago
    Accidentally dropping the production database doesn’t seem that big of deal in comparison to killing the electricity in two countries.
    • Calwestjobs 1y ago
      unless it is database of russian oligarchys bank accounts in vietnam where they hidden their stolen money. XD
  • carlos-menezes 1y ago
    Who would be responsible for writing the postmortem? Are they required to?
    • sph 1y ago
      Not required, but engineers tend to enjoy this sort of thing. Also, since it affected some 60 million people and EU-wide grid interconnects, someone will have to explain what happened.
    • pjc50 1y ago
      I would expect the Spanish parliament to have some means of summoning an explanation, via its local regulator and grid authority. https://www.ree.es/en/about-us/regulatory-framework https://www.ree.es/en/about-us/regulatory-framework
    • leomca 1y ago
      I think it's ENTSO-E, here's their most recent report into an incident on 21 June 2024: https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/system-operations-reports/#the-final-report-on-the-grid-incident-in-south-east-europe https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/system-operations-reports... For that incident, an expert panel was set up in July, the interim report was published in November, and the final report in Feburary 2025: so it'll take a few months.
• underdeserver 1y ago
  How can we follow this story? Who's updating in real time?
  • aosaigh 1y ago
    BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t
  • sph 1y ago
    The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/spain-portugal-power-outage https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/28/spain-portugal...
• meindnoch 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • suraci 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • benterix 1y ago
      Noth Koera doesn't have any beef with Europe. Whereas the Russian propaganda says quite shocking things about Europe every now and again, not to mention their previous prime minister that is suggesting nuking European cities on Twitter.
      • croes 1y ago
        North Korea fight in Ukraine, so they could simply be hacking for hire
        • suracii 1y ago
          [flagged]
  • deeThrow94 1y ago
    What beef does russia have against spain and portugal?
    • atemerev 1y ago
      Parts of EU.
      • deeThrow94 1y ago
        Ok...? Is there like more to this narrative or are we supposed to buy that russia just hates all of europe for being europe now? Whatever happened to the "rational actor" canard?
• pera 1y ago
  Parts of France are also affected according to Sky: https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal-hit-by-power-outage-13357374 https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal...
  • FrustratedMonky 1y ago
    France and Italy. Aliens? Russia? EMP?
    • andy_ppp 1y ago
      EMP would kill electronics no?
      • Calwestjobs 1y ago
        no, most electronics is shielded by default/by law. check UL/CE requirements. but it can make circuit breakers "turn off". EMP meaning nuclear high above, there exist emp devices of size of small family van, but those have range few 100 m/ft
    • rcarmo 1y ago
      Neither. Apparently a local grid overload and a cascading failure, but radio and newspapers don’t agree on root cause.
    • chippiewill 1y ago
      There's a connected grid across most of continental europe. If Portugal's grid blacked out unexpectedly then Spain's grid could have been made unstable too, which then continue onwards to South of France and Italy. Just a typical cascade failure because it means everything's now running with lower tolerances.
      • addandsubtract 1y ago
        So, how do you stop this from cascading further? Did France have to cut them off the grid somehow?
• mrtksn 1y ago
  Here's a "real time" map of electricity production and flow between countries: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h/hourly Would be interesting to see if it will register here.
  • rcarmo 1y ago
    It should take 72 hours to update
    • mrtksn 1y ago
      I think that must be the scale so you can browse the historical data. The resolution on the slider is 1H when on 72H scale.
  • Calwestjobs 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • mrtksn 1y ago
      Currently says due to power outage data might be inaccurate for Spain and Portugal.
      • Calwestjobs 1y ago
        NO. data are either accurate all the time or it is scam / bad marketing.... what are you saying ?
        • mrtksn 1y ago
          I don't know why you are so enthusiastic about this site. Whatever, my assumption was that they are displaying the data in 1 hour intervals as the picker suggests and showing a warning currently about the affected regions is consistent with that assumption.
• suslik 1y ago
  I'm in Valencia and it is indeed happening here. A street parade under my windows continues nonetheless.
  • stavros 1y ago
    > A street parade under my windows continues nonetheless. I mean, what else are you gonna do without power?
    • ta1243 1y ago
      Usually? Sex. At least that's what everyone believes https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/from-here-to-maternity/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/from-here-to-maternity/
      • sybercecurity 1y ago
        Well, sex and looting, and maybe inventing new music genres. The legend is that hip hop and sampling started after the blackout in NYC. Some electronic and music stores were looted and the recording equipment eventually ended up in the hands of musicians looking to make a new sound: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/new-york-city-1977-blackout-history-of-hip-hop-1234610435/ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/new-york-c...
  • rambambram 1y ago
    How are you posting this?
    • suslik 1y ago
      Mobile internet still works.
      • samlinnfer 1y ago
        Cell towers have backup generators?
• djuc 1y ago
  i had an appointment in Barcelona, but can only guess it’s not safe on the roads
  • sparky_ 1y ago
    Traffic lights are out across Iberia apparently, better stay home.
    • stavros 1y ago
      Do people forget how to drive if there are no lights? I can't imagine many people would think "well, there are no lights, which means GREEEEEEEN!". Over here, a traffic light that doesn't work means it's now a stop sign.
      • drcongo 1y ago
        Having driven in Madrid when lights were working, I think the stay home advice is strong.
      • mango7283 1y ago
        That's still a recipe for massive gridlock as treating most traffic junctions as stop signs doesn't scale unless there are traffic cops to manually direct traffic
        • cess11 1y ago
          I've never seen a traffic cop but I've driven past maybe fifty or a hundred broken or shutoff traffic lights, mainly in our largest city and never got stuck. Local law states that you give cars coming from the right precedence and the crossing self organises around that.
        • stavros 1y ago
          It won't be fast, but it shouldn't really be dangerous.
      • sph 1y ago
• throw0101b 1y ago
  As of: Mon 28 Apr 2025 07:22:00 EDT Mon 28 Apr 2025 11:22:00 UTC this is breaking just minutes ago: * https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t (rolling updates) * http://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-28/most-of-spain-hit-by-electricity-outage-for-unknown-reason http://archive.is/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/20... * https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2025/0428/1509881-spain-portugal-power-outage/ https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2025/0428/1509881-spain-portug... The Spanish national operator: * https://www.ree.es/en https://www.ree.es/en * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Eléctrica_de_España https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Eléctrica_de_España
• sparky_ 1y ago
  Hello from Portugal. Local news is indeed reporting that power is out across all of Iberia.
• openplatypus 1y ago
  Apparently Italy is also affected. https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2025-04-28/directo-cortes-luz-espana-portugal_4117946/ https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2025-04-28/directo-cor...
  • amarcheschi 1y ago
    Tuscany good so far Edit However, I can't get the energy provided outage map to load, maybe too many people accessing it
  • sph 1y ago
    I’m in NW Italy and all seems fine
  • g-b-r 1y ago
    No
  • foul 1y ago
    Outage map is down but no blackouts here (NE Italy) atm...
  • openplatypus 1y ago
    I am getting downvoted for mentioning something from the linked article. Fun.
• MaxPock 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• nottorp 1y ago
  4 years ago this almost happened: https://gridradar.net/en/blog/post/underfrequency_january_2021 https://gridradar.net/en/blog/post/underfrequency_january_20... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-europes-power-grid-almost-faced-massiveblackout-gregor-novak/ https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-europes-power-grid-almost... https://www.acer.europa.eu/news/continental-europe-electricity-system-separation-incident-8-january-2021-next-steps#:~:text=Continental%20Europe%20electricity%20system%20separation,www.acer.europa.eu https://www.acer.europa.eu/news/continental-europe-electrici... I remember it because power went out in at least 1/3 of Romania back then.
  • ptsneves 1y ago
    It shows that even when the original issues are solved the reboot takes time due to power station being spooled down due to excessive production. I hope it is all back before telecoms start draining the batteries, otherwise things get uglier
  • input_sh 1y ago
    A similar thing happened last June, with Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, and most of the Croatian coastline losing power simultaneously. Definitely felt surreal to first lose power to the degree that even traffic lights were no longer working, and then to hear it's also happening across the region just before mobile networks also went offline. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/power-blackout-hits-montenegro-bosnia-albania-croatias-adriatic-coast-2024-06-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/power-blackout-hits-mon... ~90 page report: https://eepublicdownloads.blob.core.windows.net/public-cdn-container/clean-documents/Publications/2024/ENTSO-E%20Interim%20(factual)%20Report%20on%20Grid%20Incident%20in%20South-East%20Europe%20on%2021%20June%202024.pdf https://eepublicdownloads.blob.core.windows.net/public-cdn-c... (beware: PDF)
• soyyo 1y ago
  I am currently in my work office in Madrid, main building has electricity so I guess they have some backup generators, the kitchen however is out of service. According to local newspapers metro network, airport and traffic lights are all down
  • Calwestjobs 1y ago
    most office buildings have gas(methane) generator backup.
    • Scoundreller 1y ago
      Dunno about Spain/portugal, but in North America they’re usually just for elevators/alarms, partial hallway lighting & maybe water pumps (for firefighting). Maybe a tech company with servers will pay extra for full backup, but it’s not typical. Without fail, during every grid outage, some will fail to start and there will be elevator rescue calls throughout the city.
• maipen 1y ago
  Yeah we only have telecoms and unreliable at times. If power doesnt comeback soon that too will fail.
• rcarmo 1y ago
  Apparently a local grid overload near France and a cascading failure down the Spanish network, but radio and newspapers don’t agree on root cause. Of course there is a lot of noise. For instance, one reporter asked one of the government flunkies whether it could be a cyberattack and they turned his noncommittal “maybe, we don’t know” into “government says cyberattack may be ongoing”. Be careful of idiot reporters out there. Edit: I’m listening to another radio interview where they are outlining the plans to bring online Portuguese dams and thermal generators over the next few hours, progressively unplugging from the Spanish supply (fortunately we have enough of those, apparently). It should take 3-4 hours to get everything balanced with only national supplies, and they will restore power from North to South.
  • rpastuszak 1y ago
    I was going to say something similar. I live in Portugal and I've heard a lot of panic/fear mongering, mainly from the techies in the co-working space I was working on and expats. (apologies for singling out these specific groups of people - my point is that it might be worth to put down news sources like xitter, and read AP/translated local Portuguese news)
    • divan 1y ago
      "xitter" in Portugese would be pronounced as "shee-tehr", right?
      • amanaplanacanal 1y ago
        That's how some have been pronouncing it in English, too.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  • martinald 1y ago
    Yes, something similar happened in the UK a while back. Full info here: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2020/01/9_august_2019_power_outage_report.pdf https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2020/01/9_... Key points that started it were (you can see the chain of events in the doc): 2.4.1. At 16:52:33 on Friday 9 August 2019, a lightning strike caused a fault on the Eaton Socon – Wymondley 400kV line. This is not unusual and was rectified within 80 milliseconds (ms) 2.4.2. The fault affected the local distribution networks and approximately 150MW of distributed generation disconnected from the networks or ‘tripped off’ due to a safety mechanism known as vector shift protection 2.4.3. The voltage control system at the Hornsea 1 offshore wind farm did not respond to the impact of the fault on the transmission system as expected and became unstable. Hornsea 1 rapidly reduced its power generation or ‘deloaded’ from 799MW to 62MW (a reduction of 737MW).
• somelamer567 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • suraci 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • pandemic_region 1y ago
    Tangentially related, my brain just shot off in that direction, the F35 must be a dream to target then, cyber-wise, for a competent state actor.
  • aubanel 1y ago
    -> Power outage -> Wild guess that Russia has been doing it, 0 proof or even hint -> "This is a war of agression, we should respond" Are you suggesting to attack Russia, based on absolute thin air?
    • sofixa 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • sph 1y ago
        As much as I am anti-Russia and against the invasion, this is absolutely not the place to start this flame war.
        • sofixa 1y ago
          The thread I answered in had someone playing dumb as if there would be no reason whatsoever to consider Russia a hostile actor, I was responding to that.
          • mardifoufs 1y ago
            That's not what you said though. And it's still a baseless accusation. It's similar to accusing Israel or the US of every single coup d'état or sabotage action just because they have a huge history of doing that. In both cases it's completely baseless unless there's evidence.
• phplovesong 1y ago
  Local betting site had odds if this was a attack by russia
• nacnud 1y ago
  There's a map of realtime load flow here: https://gridradar.net/en/wide-area-monitoring-system https://gridradar.net/en/wide-area-monitoring-system (currently shows Spain and Portugal as 'offline')
  • steanne 1y ago
    now mannheim shows offline
  • amarcheschi 1y ago
    10 mins ago Malaga was online, now it's offline. It doesn't look promising
    • sofixa 1y ago
      Might just be lag? In any case, if I recall correctly from a Youtube video I can't find (it was either Wendover or Real Engineering), if the grid is fully down, it takes quite a lot of effort and time to bring it back online because it has to be done in small steps to avoid over/under loading/using.
      • amarcheschi 1y ago
        Idk, it might be updated with some lag
      • trollied 1y ago
        It was Practical Engineering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w Very good video. Very good channel.
  • pandemic_region 1y ago
    Romania seems offline as well now?
  • mrtksn 1y ago
    Are you sure "offline" means that? Romania looks offline and when I checked their CNN they were reporting live from Spain about the blackout without mentioning Romania. Here: https://tv.garden/ro/F83BfecjsD6BjR https://tv.garden/ro/F83BfecjsD6BjR
• anal_reactor 1y ago
  Call me crazy but I'd love to see full power outage at least once in my life
  • stavros 1y ago
    Well, maybe you can see one now, depending on how far from Spain you live!
  • mango7283 1y ago
    We had one in my country when I was a kid 30 years ago after a substation tripped and took down the rest of the grid. We broke out the candles and chilled I guess. Power was back up in my area that same night.
  • sexy_seedbox 1y ago
    Has not happened to me yet in Hong Kong, even through 2 Typhoon Signal 10s.
  • libertine 1y ago
    Hopefully there won't be any loss of life due to this event.
  • crvdgc 1y ago
    In Japan, sometimes earthquakes will cause regional power outages, though they are usually recovered quickly.
    • flobosg 1y ago
      I was living in Chile during its 2010 earthquake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Chile_earthquake). The power outage in my hometown lasted approximately two weeks.
  • verzali 1y ago
    I used to live in an area that regularly had power outages during thunderstorms. I was also once in London during a power cut that took out most of the city centre. It was a strange experience, but not as weird as walking through empty streets in the time of covid. Maybe just my perception, but power outages seem to be getting rarer with time, though when they do happen they seem to be far larger.
• anonzzzies 1y ago
  I've heard from friends in France, Portugal and I am in Spain. I saw people are also mentioning parts of Italy.
• brutuscat 1y ago
  Yup I confirm. Went to turn on the car to hear the radio. Andorra seems to have power from French side, though in Catalunya we do not. Should have paid the extra €€ to put the solar panels in backup mode…
• solarkraft 1y ago
  This is a really good stress test. I’m impressed that communications still seem to work somewhat for now.
• ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  It's surprising how vulnerable electric supply can be.
• pandemic_region 1y ago
  Reported here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43819791#43820127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43819791#43820127
  • nottorp 1y ago
    Here too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43819914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43819914
  • dang 1y ago
    We eventually merged all the threads.
• codetrotter 1y ago
  I’m in Spain. Internet here is very unstable now also.
  • Scoundreller 1y ago
    How are the routes looking?
• Ronzie 1y ago
  Same happened in Murcia. Just thought it was a normal power outage!!
• amarcheschi 1y ago
  Some parts of Spain are slowly coming back online https://x.com/RedElectricaREE/status/1916818043235164267 https://x.com/RedElectricaREE/status/1916818043235164267
  • libertine 1y ago
    The crazy thing is how is Twitter still being used to communicate these events.
    • dijit 1y ago
      Agreed. It's crazy how momentum can carry a business. To use a potentially controversial example, Microsoft products (Office, Windows) are still extremely entrenched despite the overwhelming majority of knowledgable people agreeing that they're on a steep downward trajectory and the alternatives have long since surpassed them.. leading to this[0] recent video from Pewdiepie... [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI_smLgTY0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVI_smLgTY0
      • youniverse 1y ago
        Wait til you hear that yahoo and aol still exist
• Ronzie 1y ago
  Murcia is also without power. We live in the campo so presumed it was a normal outage. Obviously not
• ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal-and-parts-of-france-hit-by-massive-power-outage https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal... > A fire in the south-west of France, on the Alaric mountain, which damaged a high-voltage power line between Perpignan and eastern Narbonne, has also been identified as a possible cause.
• ksec 1y ago
  I saw it on twitter and had to go to BBC to make sure this isn't some joke or hoax. 2025 and we have National level power cuts? I know it may be rare but I think some day we really need to move or mandate every single flat / home / apartment / living places to have a 12 - 24 hours backup battery included. Something that has 10K+ Cycles, durable and non-flammable. Not only does it make sure our modern lives without sudden interruption, it also solves the renewable energy problem.
  • anonzzzies 1y ago
    This is very rare. Not actually worth to make that much fuss unless you are a hospital.
  • elric 1y ago
    Sounds like an incredibly expensive solution to a problem that could be tackled more efficiently at a larger scale.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    • jvanderbot 1y ago
      Didn't we used to pump steam around for heating and now homes have individual furnaces? If the cost for this were about the cost of a furnace I don't see why this wouldn't be viable. I bought a generator for just this situation.
      • Loughla 1y ago
        There is a very, very appreciable difference between moving hot steam around and moving electricity around. The thing you said doesn't really make sense to me; I'm not sure it's an apt analogy.
      • tomatocracy 1y ago
        Plenty of places still do, and in those places district heating still is usually the cheapest source of heat.
• andyjohnson0 1y ago
  I have family in Andalusia and they seem to have dropped off the net. Mildly concerning. Also, there are currently four different submissions re this on the front page. I'd suggest we dont need any more.
• amval 1y ago
  Apparently this spans more countries? Very strange. Possibly a cyberattack or sabotage? Growing up in Spain I've never experienced anything like this (not there at the moment, but friends have told me over WhatsApp).
  • cr3ative 1y ago
    Grids are widely interconnected. Problems on one grid can and do cascade to another.
  • bslanej 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • amval 1y ago
      Ah, yes. The dubious and evil Perro Sánchez.
      • xp84 1y ago
        Woof!
  • voidUpdate 1y ago
    Possibly some kind of rare cascade failure where it might have been on the edge for a while, and some small event happened that tripped things, similar to the american northeast blackout in 2003. High demand, plus a power station going offline meant more demand on some interconnects, which shorted on trees and were cut off, putting more load on other lines until the entire system collapsed
  • ksec 1y ago
    Continental Europe Synchronous Area [1] The whole Europe power grid are somewhat interconnected I wont be surprise if this knock on effect start knocking out other surrounding countries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...
• londons_explore 1y ago
  Europe still has many megawatts of solar with inverters that disconnect when detecting any grid disruption. This is the absolute worst thing to do when there is a shortage of power - you immediately make the shortage worse and more grid disconnects. The real fix is a grid with second by second pricing based on system frequency, and every individual user allowed to set a daily 'spend cap' of euros/dollars, letting them choose how much they are willing to pay for reliability. Such an market has a huge stabilizing effect on demand, meaning a major incident would probably only have fairly small impacts on system frequency and embedded solar wouldn't disconnect.
  • 0xTJ 1y ago
    This sounds more like a dystopian novel, where only the wealthy can afford stable power and everyone else is left without.
    • londons_explore 1y ago
      The current system is that everyone pays equally for X amount of stability, and for some people they don't get as much stability as they desire (eg. These people in Spain), whilst others pay more money and than they'd like when they would be fine with 5 minutes outages once a year. That made sense before technology became available for everyone to make their own choice - but that is no longer the case.
    • doix 1y ago
      That is basically what happens in South Africa today. There are rolling blackouts and rich people with backup generators and batteries are unaffected. It's gotten to the point where richer cities (like Capetown) have their own power sources to mitigate the problem.
      • deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  • littlestymaar 1y ago
    This comment is Dunning-Kruger effect in action… Believe it or not, but maintaining an electricity grid is a massive undertaking, and the people in charge of it knows the topic much better than you do. The problem isn't a market problem, it's a physics problem: having a synchronized grid of AC current with many producers over a wide area is a real challenge, even when the underlying issue is resolved it takes a lot of time to add the power plants (or renewable equivalent) to the grid because they must be synchronized.
• pcardoso 1y ago
  In Portugal here. Lost power about 1 hour ago. Reading the news while batteries last.
  • netsharc 1y ago
    Amazing/curious that all the infrastructure to feed news to your phone still works. I can imagine a poorly-built systems would have some infrastructure without UPSes, and in all that chain of technology, there'll be an element or more without power. Not saying Spain/Portugal would necessarily be more prone to have poorly-built infrastructure, I assume the whole world runs on half-assery.
    • postexitus 1y ago
      Turns out not everybody in the world are jokers.
    • myself248 1y ago
      If their networks are built like the ones I've worked on, everything has at least a little battery, but only some of it has generators to keep going after that. So some or most cellular towers will have generators, and their fibers will backhaul through repeaters, some or most of which will have their own generators. When it gets back to the MTSO, that will definitely have large diesel turbines on site and at least 24 hours of fuel with priority refueling contracts. I'd expect there to be a lot of outages, for instance where all the towers in a region end up backhauled through a site where the generator fails or was never installed for some reason. But there will also be a lot of places that stay up in some capacity because, more or less by happenstance, all the fuel tank permits got approved and all the equipment actually worked.
    • eknkc 1y ago
      I believe it was 10 years ago or something, we lost power in Turkey. I mean the entire country for around 10 hours. Data, cellular etc everything kept working. But at some point I guess the generators and batteries started to fail and capacity degraded.
• carlos-menezes 1y ago
  This outage does not affect the islands, at least in Portugal. Madeira has power.
  • enopod_ 1y ago
    Spanish islands are also all ok, they have independent networks
• bslanej 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • pjc50 1y ago
    .. why would the state shoot itself in its own foot? Local power outages are probably the most common "disaster" one should prepare for.
  • HeatrayEnjoyer 1y ago
    > For the past months the mass media has been talking non-stop about this possibility Where? This is the first I have heard of it.
  • Urahandystar 1y ago
    Threat from the state or another state? The uks biggest airport was shut down recently in a similar fashion after a fire at a power plant.
• prof-dr-ir 1y ago
  The last major European blackout was in 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• 9dev 1y ago
  Anyone read Blackout[1]? So it begins. Both countries completed (or almost completed) their smart meter rollout… [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Elsberg_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Elsberg_novel)
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
• terom 1y ago
  It looks like the Iberian peninsula is relatively isolated from the rest of the CESA synchronous grid, with only 2% cross-border capacity compared to local generation. [1] There's a map at [2] > The Spanish electricity system is currently connected to the systems of France, Portugal, Andorra and Morocco. The exchange capacity of this interconnection is around 3 GW, which represents a low level of interconnection for the peninsula. The international interconnection level is calculated by comparing the electricity exchange capacity with other countries with the generation capacity or installed power. [1] https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/electricity-interconnections https://www.ree.es/en/ecological-transition/electricity-inte... [2] https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/
  • brohee 1y ago
    Edit : I was misreading the confusing Rte site... Entsoe actually a lot more readable. France went from importing to exporting around the incident. https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-aux-frontieres https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/les-echanges-commerciaux-... https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalFlow/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=TABLE&areaType=BORDER_BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAY&border.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN_BZN|10YES-REE------0_BZN_BZN|10YFR-RTE------C&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalF...
    • terom 1y ago
      That graph doesn't seem to make a very clear distinction between historical, real-time and predicted values... I think the event happened at 12:30 local time or so. There seems to be some kind of recurrent daily pattern where the French - Spanish interconnect switches from Spain -> France imports to France -> Spain exports at around that time, and then back again in the late afternoon.
      • leomca 1y ago
        Yes, France was importing 884MW from Spain at 12:45, 198MW at 13:00, no net flow at 13:15, and Spain has been importing up to 265MW since: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalFlow/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=TABLE&areaType=BORDER_BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAY&border.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN_BZN|10YES-REE------0_BZN_BZN|10YFR-RTE------C&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/physicalF...
• luckys 1y ago
  I'm in Portugal. Mobile data was slow when it started, now it's much better. The sunny weather is very inviting outside for someone with the day off :-)
• pmlnr 1y ago
  > "I currently don't have any internet service and just €15 in my wallet - I can't withdraw any money from the ATM," she added. from: https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal-hit-by-power-outage-13357374 https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal... This is literally the whistleblowers about cashless society have been warning everyone about for well over a decade now.
  • ghc 1y ago
    > whistleblowers Using the term whistleblower in this manner is inappropriate; actual whistleblowers are individuals who bring to light illicit acts by organizations or governments at great personal risk.
    • trgn 1y ago
      Prophets
      • ptsneves 1y ago
        Peters
        • trgn 1y ago
          I'm a dummy, but I don't get it :) can you explain?
  • leereeves 1y ago
    I wonder if stores would be able to sell anything without power. My supermarket, for example, only has electronic cash registers. And no price tags.
    • pmlnr 1y ago
      Many situations call for pen-and-paper backups. Giving out receipts the old way should, in theory, be a possibility, then backfill the computer system later.
• jslakro 1y ago
  A fire in the south-west of France, which damaged a high-voltage power line has also been identified as a possible cause: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal-and-parts-of-france-hit-by-massive-power-outage https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal...
  • pjc50 1y ago
    How very California.
    • InDubioProRubio 1y ago
      Warming world is so hot right now..
    • mistrial9 1y ago
      you are right, but the emphasis could use a tune-up. In California, home of world-leading tech.. there are sensors and information networks, extensive electrical power lines, heavy equipment and budgets, a lot of dry and dead tress, a history of fire. So you see that California in a way is a world-quality testing lab. and the way the information travels, and the way the information is applied, could also be world-quality .. or, world-theater for government imbecility..
  • Rygian 1y ago
    A power outage in 2021 was ultimately traced to a firefighting hydroplane that damaged a high-voltage transmission line in southern France. The similarity between that event and this early-on report is striking. [es language]: https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/espana/2021/07/24/averia-red-electrica-causa-apagon-cientos-miles-hogares-nueve-comunidades-autonomas-durante-hora/00031627143915013583364.htm https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/espana/2021/07/24/aver...
  • tejohnso 1y ago
    Surely there is more than 0 redundancy so that one power line failure would never result in this level of catastrophe.
• andy99 1y ago
  Older readers may remeber the Northeastern blackout of 2003 in the US and Canada that was caused by cascading overloading, I believe originally triggered by high loads due to hot weather and poor vegetation maintenance under lines. I was an an adjacent area at the time and iirc we were saved by our nuclear operator releasing some insane amount of steam to bring the supply down and avoid more overloading. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
  • ta1243 1y ago
    Older readers would remember the 1965 blackout. 2003 was only 22 years ago
  • lwo32k 1y ago
    That was a mad few days. We were stuck on campus. Water ran out by the next day. And students were using water from the campus fountain.
  • 7373737373 1y ago
    Good documentary on the ice storm of 1998 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccTzHBUsYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ccTzHBUsYQ > In January 1998, Montreal and the region surrounding it was hit by the most disastrous ice storm ever recorded: more than four inches of ice entombed an area larger than the State of Florida, causing trees and power lines to collapse on an unprecedented scale, leaving millions in the dark without heat (some for up to four weeks). 35 people died and damages totalled more than $5 billion making it the worst natural disaster in Canadian history. 4 out of 5 power lines to Montreal went down
  • RALaBarge 1y ago
    I have such great memories of the blackout. I was in college at the time, so obviously indestructible. The first night, we had 2 grills with 10ft high flames roaring but I would say in a controlled fashion. The cops quickly asked us to not do something dumb like that anymore and we agreed. Memories of the local party stores selling 40oz's for pennies on the dollar, as the outage would last days but the booze would not. It didn't really turn into anything bad for us in SE Michigan other than a fun story I can tell my internet pals about 20 years on. If I recall correctly, we were also somehow the first house in the neighborhood to get power restored...I remember playing a Dreamcast with a hacked NES emulator running Rampart 2 player. I never made good on it, but I always said I wanted to make a shirt that read "I blacked out in the black out of '03"...which is probably for the best.
• pmlnr 1y ago
  For those not aware how interconnected the European Grid is: https://storpower.co.uk/the-day-europes-power-grid-came-close-to-a-massive-blackout/ https://storpower.co.uk/the-day-europes-power-grid-came-clos...
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• paganel 1y ago
  > Spain's electricity grid operator Red Electrica has confirmed power outages across the country. That’s why you still need a strong diesel/diesel-electric locomotive fleet, imagine if Spain had been right in the middle military mobilization and military materiel transport, an event like this one would have stopped then dead in the tracks had they been relying only on electric locomotives.
  • fer 1y ago
    No, the armed forces have their own fuel locomotives. I imagine any sizeable military does the same thing. Plus most (all?) cargo trains still use fuel. 100% electric is just passenger traffic. https://www.outono.net/elentir/2021/10/23/the-spanish-army-railway-company-serving-spain-on-the-railways/ https://www.outono.net/elentir/2021/10/23/the-spanish-army-r...
    • paganel 1y ago
      Maybe I'm looking at the wrong article, but there's this: > For journeys outside the base, *the Army uses Renfe locomotives*. which, in my understanding, means that in order to move military materiel (to the borders with France, let's say, or to the closest sea-ports most probably) and tens to hundreds of thousands of mobilised men the Spanish Army does indeed rely on Renfe locomotives, i.e not on their own.
• davedx 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • angusturner 1y ago
    [flagged]
  • belter 1y ago
    They probably did not patch their firmware in years and have their SCADA systems live on Shodan with default passwords...allegedly...
    • api 1y ago
      I remember years ago someone scanned the Internet IPv4 space for open unpassworded VNC servers. Many of them looked disturbingly like industrial control systems.
      • cafeinux 1y ago
        Just take a look at https://infosec.exchange/@shodansafari https://infosec.exchange/@shodansafari. A lot still look like that.
      • belter 1y ago
        Even the water control system for a big French Dam: "115 batshit stupid things you can put on the internet in as fast as I can go by Dan Tentler" - https://youtu.be/hMtu7vV_HmY https://youtu.be/hMtu7vV_HmY
  • gchamonlive 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • api 1y ago
      It's not Musk fetishism. It's network effects. Most people hate X and hated Twitter but people use them because people use them. This should show people just how powerful network effects are. They are legitimately a force of nature.
• pcblues 1y ago
  A line that disturbed me with just how widespread the outage is. (And also people will die from it in all sorts of weird ways) "In an update, Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica says it's beginning to recover power in the NORTH and SOUTH of the country."
  • megous 1y ago
    On the bright side. People die from electricity and from operating electricity powered machines, too. So those will be spared. :)
    • Wobbles42 1y ago
      I've seen the assertion made that we can statistically measure how many people died due to (for example) a heat wave, but we can't say for sure which ones. I'd imagine something similar applies here. You'd have some number of deaths specifically attributable to lose of power, plus countless other deaths caused or prevented in non-obvious ways. This might be visible at a high level as a statistical outlier in the total number of deaths during the time period of an outage.
• carlos-menezes 1y ago
  Getting two network bars in Madeira. Seems to be affecting 4G/5G now.
• red_admiral 1y ago
  I'm going with: never attribute to malice what can be explained by ... an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid. I would want very strong evidence before I believe this is an attack. There is precedent for major power outages, a huge majority of which are not malicious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages I remember the day when the Swiss railway power network went down for a day (in 2005) because one power line was down for maintenance and someone pressed the wrong button and produced a short circuit somewhere else. It's a bit like the incidents in planes were one engine has a problem and the crew shut down the other one by mistake.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • reitoei 1y ago
    a.k.a. Hanlon's Razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
    • makeitdouble 1y ago
      As far as we know stupidity isn't a primary cause, and local authorities are also probably competent at scale.
      • moffkalast 1y ago
        On the other hand this is Spain we're talking about, the expectations of people giving a fuck about anything are slightly lower than average.
  • fbn79 1y ago
    Not many month ago the Italians trains was disrupted by a single nail into a cable: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-rail-services-disrupted-after-glitch-rome-2024-10-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-rail-services-d...
  • 1y ago
• tux3 1y ago
  You can see the crash on the ENTSO-E live data: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025%2000:00|CET%7CDAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=28.04.2025%2000:00|CET%7CDAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY%7C10YES-REE------0!BZN%7C10YES-REE------0&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGeneratio... Three quarter of the production disconnects from the grid between 12:30 and 13:00, with only a bit of solar and onshore wind sticking around.
  • moffkalast 1y ago
    Wow that's interesting, solar was absolutely peak at the time. Maybe related to poor frequency leading from solar powerplants coupled with some other spike that drew it out of sync?
  • leomca 1y ago
    Spain loses around 15GW of demand at the same time: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/load-domain/r2/totalLoadR2/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN|10YES-REE------0&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/load-domain/r2/totalLoadR2/sh... I don't think we're able to tell from the data if one is the cause of the other, are we? Since if production was lost, load would have to be shedded to balance the grid, and if load was lost (e.g. due to a transmission failure), production would have to be disconnected to balance the grid.
    • pjc50 1y ago
• bombcar 1y ago
  Red Electrica - red is Spanish for network, not the color (roja)
• AndrewDucker 1y ago
  Regardless of the source of this specific issue, I suspect investment in infrastructure security and resilience is about to ramp up. Calling attention to how fragile many of our critical systems are is almost certanly a net-positive in the long run.
• smartbit 1y ago
  Seems to have briefly expanded into France and even Belgium had issues. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal-and-parts-of-france-hit-by-massive-power-outage https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal... Edit: BBC reports it now also https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t
• parrit 1y ago
  Is there a La Liga game on perhaps :)
  • rurban 1y ago
    There's the Madrid Open tennis tournament affected. No Swiatek - Shnaider game until they'll get online. The restaurant is lit with candles, but the DJ has power. So there's music. He was clever.
  • switch007 1y ago
    Context https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43157259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43157259 / https://vercel.com/blog/update-on-spain-and-laliga-blocks-of-the-internet https://vercel.com/blog/update-on-spain-and-laliga-blocks-of... OP I think is joking La Liga got the power turned off to protect their revenues.
• mike_hearn 1y ago
  This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up and renewables require external sources of inertia for frequency stabilization, so this usually requires turning on a small diesel generator that creates enough power to bootstrap a bigger generator and so on up until there's enough electricity to start the plant itself. With that back online the power from it can be used to re-energize other plants that lack black start capability in a chain until you have a series of isolated islands. Those islands then have to be synchronized and reconnected, whilst simultaneously bringing load online in large blocks. The whole thing is planned for, but you can't really rehearse for it. During a black start the grid is highly unstable. If something goes wrong then it can trip out again during the restart, sending you back to the beginning. It's especially likely if the original blackout caused undetected equipment damage, or if it was caused by such damage. In the UK contingency planning assumes a black start could take up to 72 hours, although if things go well it would be faster. It's one reason it's a good idea to always have some cash at home. Edit: There's a press release about a 2016 black start drill in Spain/Portugal here: https://www.ree.es/en/press-office/press-release/2016/11/spain-portugal-and-france-conduct-a-joint-response-drill-to-a-general-blackout https://www.ree.es/en/press-office/press-release/2016/11/spa...
  • leomca 1y ago
    It seems Spain lost 15GW of load, but is still running 10GW of load: https://transparency.entsoe.eu/load-domain/r2/totalLoadR2/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAY&biddingZone.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN|10YES-REE------0&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/load-domain/r2/totalLoadR2/sh... Would this suggest the grid hasn't snapped apart, or is it just not possible to tell from the data? Coal, pumped hydro, and nuclear generation all went to 0 around the same time, but presumably that's those sources being disconnected from the grid to balance demand? https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=TABLE&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN|10YES-REE------0&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGeneratio...
• mrtz 1y ago
  The "Blackout" novel comes to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Elsberg_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackout_(Elsberg_novel)
• carlos-menezes 1y ago
  Mobile network is fully gone on the islands now — it was working until ~10 minutes ago.
  • bakugo 1y ago
    Still working in mainland Portugal but it's getting slow, probably severely overloaded.
    • carlos-menezes 1y ago
      Yeah, it's back and slow. Sidenote: RTP (National Public broadcaster) is gone.
      • guerrilla 1y ago
        RTP came back for me an hour or so ago.
• rurban 1y ago
  They just reported on TV it will be on again in 20min earliest (15:30 CEST)
• ta1243 1y ago
  Madrid Mayor said > If emergency calls go unanswered, go to the police and the fire stations in person That's not a statement I expect to see in relation to a developed city
  • the_gipsy 1y ago
    She's generally imitating Trump's playbook, no surprise.
• belter 1y ago
  As of 2 min ago..( 14:32 WEST ) in many parts of Portugal electricity still out, and also Water systems also offline. Report is for some it can take up to 10 to 12 hours before power back up. Probably many locals not reporting here as they are low on battery.
• Havoc 1y ago
  Wild that cloudflare was first to report this. At least first I saw. I guess news networks don’t have comparable access to live metrics
• rich_sasha 1y ago
  Grids are tricky, because the electric socket is kind of a leaky abstraction for heavy plant machinery in turbines of thermal plants, load balancing, synchronisation, and a gazillion other things I really don't understand. Is a grid built on renewables and batteries somehow more resilient? Solid state things tend to be less fiddly, hence my question. I remember reading at one point in the past that renewables were actually worse for the grid due to less predictable power generation or something, but that was a long time ago, certainly pre-battery storage.
  • Filligree 1y ago
    > Is a grid built on renewables and batteries somehow more resilient? So this is a complicated subject in itself, and a full answer won't fit inside this textbox. Some bullet points: - Grid stability is maintained by batteries, but not literally. The "batteries" in question are typically rotating generators, i.e. turbines, wind, literally anything where you have an electrical coupling to a lot of physical inertia. That's what keeps the grid running second-to-second; while a power plant might pretend it's outputting a constant 4MW, it actually shifts noticeably from moment to moment. The kinetic energy of the generator helps balance that out. - Going up from the sub-second range, an overload of the generator obviously would cause the shaft to slow down, dropping the frequency and causing brownouts. Brownouts are bad and can damage the grid, so typically breakers will disconnect if it falls below 49Hz; a 2% drop. - Baseload plants can't cope with this, as they take multiple minutes to spool up. Minimum; for something like a coal power plant, where you have to shove in additional coal and wait for it to catch fire, it's going quite a few minutes. This is what defines 'baseload'. - Peaker power plants can increase (or decrease) their mechanical power production in a matter of seconds. These days that typically means gas turbines, though hydroelectric power is even better, and nuclear power could be used for peaker plants -- but isn't; most nuclear reactor designs outside of the navy is a baseload design. France does have some load-following designs, and we need more of those. - Wind turbines can't increase their output, flat out, but they can decrease it (by feathering, or by using brakes). This is good enough, except this would turn them into 'peaker plants' that can't help with peaks. If we had enough wind turbines to cover 100% of the load then we'd technically be fine, but economically speaking that doesn't work; they'd be at less than 10% power most of the time. - Wind turbines have rotating shafts, but a lot of the time they produce DC power, linked through inverters, which removes that benefit and makes them act like solar panels in effect. However, this is a purely economic issue; they can trivially be upgraded to support grid stability if the pricing scheme will pay for it. - Solar panels are worse: They have no inertia! There is no rotating shaft there to cover sub-second usage spikes. That's where complaints about 'renewables causing reduction of grid stability' come from, along with issues like domestic solar needing to backfeed power through distribution lines and transformers that aren't necessarily designed for that. - But batteries can absolutely help. The kinetic energy of a rotating turbine isn't actually that big; it's not that expensive to pair a solar panel with a battery to build a grid-forming system that acts the same way a kinetic power plant would.
• dredmorbius 1y ago
  Wikipedia has an article following this: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_European_power_outage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_European_power_outage>
• WJW 1y ago
  Well obviously. Computers use electricity, so if the grid goes out so does internet traffic. Local data centers might have backup power but local homes and everything in between the homes and the data center probably won't.
• jonplackett 1y ago
  Genuine question: how is it that Ukraine’s electricity grid still works to any degree despite being bombed for years and no doubt intentionally sabotaged / cyber attacked. But a whole country’s grid can go down like this in an instant?
  • deleted 1y ago
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  • deleted 1y ago
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  • amai 1y ago
    Maybe because it has not been privatized, yet? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrenergo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrenergo
  • selivanovp 1y ago
    The answer is simple: EU and USA taxpayers billions pumped into Ukraine to buy hundreds of thousands of mobile diesel powered generators and fuel for them, and spare parts and replacement blocks for everything that’s been destroyed. On top of that, Ukraine inherited a lot of nuclear power plants, and despite losing the largest one in Zaporozhie region, still operates all the other as Russia doesn’t attack them in any serious way. No miracles, just pumping money non stop.
• luke-stanley 1y ago
  For offline messaging over Bluetooth/Wi-Fi without internet or central infrastructure, I saw these recommended by ChatGPT Deep research and they seem current: Bridgefy (Android & iOS) – direct Bluetooth mesh within ~100 m, instant one-to-one & group chat, <1 min install. Berty (Android & iOS) – E2E-encrypted over Bluetooth/Wi-Fi; Briar (Android) – E2E-encrypted over Bluetooth/Wi-Fi with Tor fallback. Manyverse (Android, iOS, Desktop) – offline-first social feed that syncs posts over Bluetooth/Wi-Fi when peers meet. Can anyone vouch for these or know better?
  • luke-stanley 1y ago
    Whoever downvoted, a comment explaining why would be nice, when the cell tower generators are out, and there is only phone battery left, offline communication options could be useful, I'm glad I'm not in that position right now.
    • luke-stanley 1y ago
      Seems like some people are not interested in honest and useful feedback because this got downvoted too! I thought it made clear points about an important topic. Well, whoever sees fit to do this, I hope you get whatever it is you want.
    • croes 1y ago
      Maybe because you don’t have to ask ChatGPT for what could have been a simple web search.
      • luke-stanley 1y ago
        When I Googled it, the apps listed include Firechat, Signal and Briar. Signal is centralised, Firechat is dead, and I don't think Briar are current either? I wish it was a simple web search. Even Deep Research needed the ML pot to be mixed around a few times until it gave an good answer.
• mbgerring 1y ago
  I hope somebody building and selling microgrids and energy storage systems is ready to take advantage of this situation. Mass deployment of batteries at the grid edge is a great idea for a lot of reasons, but none more immediately compelling than "the power won't go out if the grid goes down."
  • spacebanana7 1y ago
    It should be mandatory for critical infrastructure like ATMs to have 24hr batteries installed. And some sort of power backup to maintain internet access as well - even if it's just a matter of everyone being allocated a small amount of starlink data or public wifi. These things have relatively small costs, but make the system much more resilient.
    • olyjohn 1y ago
      What do you do when the ATMs run out of cash? It's not an unlimited supply in them. You should probably just keep some cash on hand. And keep an FM radio and a few batteries on hand.
      • spacebanana7 1y ago
        My fear is that without access to cash, people might loot stores or riot to get essentials, once they get desperate. Keeping ATMs online for longer would make that kind of event less likely.
• scotty79 1y ago
  Maybe the grid upgrade should be to DC to get something hopefully more stable?
• TriangleEdge 1y ago
  Practical Engineering YouTube channel black start video: https://youtu.be/uOSnQM1Zu4w https://youtu.be/uOSnQM1Zu4w
• nunobrito 1y ago
  To remember: in the early hours of this morning there was a huge purchase/transfer of monero that increased the price +30% (highly unusual) and a few hours later before lunch time we see Iberia disconnected from the grid. Monero is the favorite payment coin when ordering real cyber attacks.
  • stavros 1y ago
    How do we know there was a huge purchase? Monero can't be tracked.
    • nunobrito 1y ago
      Because to buy that much monero so fast is only possible with bitcoin, which is traceable by governments and interested parties. An estimated 305 million USD of monero were purchased this morning before the grid shutdown. That was a +50% increase on the monero price, something that never happened before in the last 11 years of the coin. Quite a record. Quite a coincidence.
      • refulgentis 1y ago
        How do we know there was a huge purchase? Monero can't be tracked.
        • sva_ 1y ago
          ... You can see trading volume on the markets though, if it was bought with something like BTC https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/
          • refulgentis 1y ago
            Thank you!
      • ivape 1y ago
        How do you think this has to do with Spain though?
• 1970-01-01 1y ago
  Remember folks, there's about 1% chance of a Carrington event occurrence every year. We're simply not ready.
  • dark-star 1y ago
    can't be ready for everything and anything shrug
    • guerrilla 1y ago
      We can be significantly better prepared for most things.
      • dark-star 1y ago
        no matter how well we're prepared for anything, we can still be significantly better prepared for most things...
        • guerrilla 1y ago
          No, not realistically. There are physical and economic constraints. There's no reason to over-prepare either. It's absurd to remain as catastrophically vulnerable as we are though.
      • casey2 1y ago
        We are prepared, just have the people in the suburbs breed some more and ship them over to the decimated cities. You can think of people in the cities as the rat-wheel of production. No culture is better than any other culture, therefore all culture is expendable.
  • xyst 1y ago
    Would help if fossil fuel industry would stop pumping out anti-climate change propaganda.
    • 1y ago
• 7373737373 1y ago
  It's fascinating to see simulations of power grid disturbances propagating due to the limited speed of light/causality: https://youtu.be/5vAkdXRyKWM?t=713 https://youtu.be/5vAkdXRyKWM?t=713
  • TazeTSchnitzel 1y ago
    This is really interesting. Even though I'm used to reaching websites on the other side of the continent in less than a second, it's incredible seeing how fast a frequency disturbance propagates.
• blendo 1y ago
  AC is overly complex and too reactive.
• PLenz 1y ago
  Carrington event?
  • GnarfGnarf 1y ago
    There would be a broader area affected.
• xyst 1y ago
  > The Portuguese electricity operator earlier said the outage was caused by a "rare" atmospheric phenomenon, related to variations in temperatures Global warming/climate change strikes again
• yannvon 1y ago
  I experienced it first hand in Madrid. This was much scarier than I would have imagined. News travelled extremely slow: phone coverage was just barely enough to receive a couple text messages every 15 minutes or so. News spread on the street, I even saw a group of 20 people hunched around someone owning a hand-held radio in the streets. Just before power was restored, things started to get worse, as the phone coverage went completely out (presumably batteries were depleted). People were in between enjoying the work-free day, and starting to worry about how tomorrow would look like if power didn't come back.
  • MisterTea 1y ago
    When the northeast blackout hit in 2003 in NYC I dont remember any panic. We still had house phones and they still worked in the blackout thanks to telcos being legally obligated to give a shit about reliability. I stopped by a friends house and we then went on a walk. Some stores were open and cash was accepted. We hung out later that night and had a few beers. The sky was amazing as there was next to no light pollution. Next day was totally in the dark as well and again, no panic. More beers were enjoyed. The choice to move to electronic everything without having to give a shit about reliability is a failure of modern government. Move fast and break society for a dollar.
    • toast0 1y ago
      > thanks to telcos being legally obligated to give a shit about reliability. Yeah, they don't need to do that anymore. Around me, enough towers have battery backups that I can count on 2 hours of coverage when utility power goes out (if it goes out late at night or early morning, there's usually coverage until 6-7 am when people start waking up and use up the rest of the power). I don't have a real landline, but the telco DSL would drop instantly with utility power so I don't have big hopes and I wasn't willing to pay $60/month to find out. Around when I moved, stores would pull out the credit card imprint machines, but those don't work anymore because cards are flat. Cash might work, and I've got some, but I don't think many people in my community do; people don't have cash for the snack shack we run at my kid's sports, so I doubt they have it for restaurants and stores either. And we get frequent 2-4 hour power outages, at least one, usually two or three per year; and ~ 24 hour outages every few years. The snack shack runs during summer where electricity is most reliable, but I doubt people stock up on cash in the fall and use it all up before spring/summer; they probably just don't have any.
• alienvictim 1y ago
  [flagged]
• tiborsaas 1y ago
  You can track the outage with CloudFlare's traffic radar page too: https://radar.cloudflare.com/es?dateRange=1d https://radar.cloudflare.com/es?dateRange=1d https://radar.cloudflare.com/pt?dateRange=1d https://radar.cloudflare.com/pt?dateRange=1d Portugal nearly reached zero.
• BoredPositron 1y ago
  Two days ago someone cut a whole overland power pylon in Germany…
  • guerrilla 1y ago
    Link please?
    • BoredPositron 1y ago
      In German: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/strommast-abgesaegt-albig-sabotage-ermittlungen-sicherheit-infrastruktur-blackout-100.html https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/rheinland-pfalz/strommast-abge...
• perihelions 1y ago
  - "[Portugese electric network Redes Energéticas Nacionais (REN)] said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”" - "The risks posed to electrical systems by big variations in atmospheric temperatures are well known in the industry, even if it is rare for problems to manifest on this scale." - "“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”" https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-p... ("Spain and Portugal power outage: what caused it, and was there a cyber-attack?")
• Karawebnetwork 1y ago
  What caused it? The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns. REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-p...
  • guerrilla 1y ago
    So, what you're saying is that literal bad vibes caused it... ;)
  • Eduard 1y ago
    "Conductor gallop" is one of several proposed causes. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop
  • bethekidyouwant 1y ago
    [flagged]
    • avree 1y ago
      What? Every single major power outage on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages has taken between a day to a week to diagnose. You can read about the list of detailed theories if you click through to any of them, here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Sri_Lankan_blackouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Sri_Lankan_blackouts Even your minor power outages take 30 minutes to an hour for your local power company to determine what failed.
    • jmorenoamor 1y ago
• MaoSYJ 1y ago
  Power back at 20:30 approx in some Madrid province locations at this point most of Madrid should have power.
• deleted 1y ago
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• Mortiffer 1y ago
  Power is back on some parts of Lisbon
• ksajadi 1y ago
  Apparently Europ network came close to shutdown due to frequency drop as the result: https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1916914966663434493?s=46 https://x.com/shellenberger/status/1916914966663434493?s=46
  • leumon 1y ago
    Except that's not true: an auto shutdown only occurs at 47.5 Hz, at least in Germany, some countries have the limit even lower: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfrequenz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterfrequenz
    • ksajadi 1y ago
      Thanks for the clarification. However the idea behind this hypothesis is that the inertia stored in physical generators is mostly responsible for keeping the grid stable and as less inertia exists in the grid the risk of this goes up. https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/spain-portugal-power-outage-clean-energy-4936b8d6?st=yWXRT7&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/spain-portugal-power...
  • celsoazevedo 1y ago
    Is that a reliable source? The guy started blaming this on renewables hours ago even though no one seems to know exactly what happened.
    • ksajadi 1y ago
      WSJ good enough? https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/spain-portugal-power-outage-clean-energy-4936b8d6?st=yWXRT7&reflink=article_copyURL_share https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/spain-portugal-power...
      • celsoazevedo 1y ago
        Good enough for what? I've read the article. It's speculating that solar could be the culprit as it was the main source of energy at that time, but the grid operator couldn’t say what exactly failed, only that they had "two separate losses of power generation in southwestern Spain, a second and a half a part". If you look at the generation stats[0][1], everything from nuclear to gas to solar dropped. And it was solar and wind that kept producing most of the energy for hours after the failure. If renewables were the cause of this blackout, then fine, but that's not what the WSJ article says. The guy who wrote the tweet you linked to was blaming renewables 2 or 3 hours after it had happened and the tweet contained wrong information, as pointed out by a different comment here. To me, it's not a good source. Just to be clear, if renewables were the main reason behind this blackout, then let's blame them and point out their weaknesses and see what we can do to mitigate them (batteries?). What we shouldn't do is jump to conclusions before we know what the heck happened. --- [0] https://i.imgur.com/J375gbQ.png https://i.imgur.com/J375gbQ.png [1] https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGenerationPerProductionType/show?name=&defaultValue=false&viewType=GRAPH&areaType=BZN&atch=false&datepicker-day-offset-select-dv-date-from_input=D&dateTime.dateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&dateTime.endDateTime=28.04.2025+00:00|CET|DAYTIMERANGE&area.values=CTY|10YES-REE------0!BZN|10YES-REE------0&productionType.values=B01&productionType.values=B25&productionType.values=B02&productionType.values=B03&productionType.values=B04&productionType.values=B05&productionType.values=B06&productionType.values=B07&productionType.values=B08&productionType.values=B09&productionType.values=B10&productionType.values=B11&productionType.values=B12&productionType.values=B13&productionType.values=B14&productionType.values=B20&productionType.values=B15&productionType.values=B16&productionType.values=B17&productionType.values=B18&productionType.values=B19&dateTime.timezone=CET_CEST&dateTime.timezone_input=CET+(UTC+1)+/+CEST+(UTC+2) https://transparency.entsoe.eu/generation/r2/actualGeneratio...
• geye1234 1y ago
  Relevant: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/22/spain-hits-first-weekday-of-100-renewable-power-on-national-grid/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/22/spain-hits-first-week...
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• timhigins 1y ago
  One guy simulated Australia's electrical grid for 3 years to show that the entire grid could run off of >98% renewable energy using the installed renewables with just a small amount of storage (e.g. 5 hours of average demand, ~10% of demand over the entire period). To me this indicates that in many energy markets where renewables are sufficiently built out, the only factor for why we aren't using them more is the storage capacity and grid infrastructure to handle their variability -- and instead just running stable but dirty energy systems. There are a lot of cool mechanical grid systems like gravity batteries (e.g. weights on a pulley system) [2] or compressed or liquid air storage systems [3] which provide cheaper storage at higher capacities and durations than electric batteries 1. https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewable-grid-is-readily-achievable-and-affordable/ https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewable-gr... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trA5s2iGj2A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trA5s2iGj2A 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjERw-Ol-_s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjERw-Ol-_s
  • worldsayshi 1y ago
    It makes intuitive sense to me that a small amount of storage would make a big difference. Outside of peak use there has to be a huge amount of potential effect that never gets generated because lack of demand at that time.
    • red75prime 1y ago
      Some amount of storage, significant over-provision, right balance between wind and solar; smart, well interconnected grid.
  • throwaway984393 1y ago
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  • HexPhantom 1y ago
    Yeah, this matches what I've been thinking too - we're way closer to a high-renewables grid than people realize, but the bottleneck isn't generation anymore, it's storage and infrastructure
• _kb 1y ago
  Live view of the grid status, phase, and frequency as everything comes back online: https://gridradar.net/en/wide-area-monitoring-system https://gridradar.net/en/wide-area-monitoring-system
• jia7833 1y ago
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• jia7833 1y ago
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• victor23k 1y ago
  I live in Madrid, and when the electricity came back around 22:00, people started cheering and celebrating in the street. You could hear how each neighbourhood was going back online. It’s funny to think how the moment is goes off you feel nothing, but hearing that many people produce noise and express happiness makes your body notice instantly, a sensation we often describe as electric.
• cma 1y ago
  First episode of Connections is great to watch on blackouts and technological dependence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
• qwikhost 1y ago
  Sounds like China 30 years ago
• bgwalter 1y ago
  The privatization of infrastructure in Europe has been a disaster. The only area where at least prices went down are telecommunication companies. The postal services are worse now. Railway is more expensive and a disaster. Energy prices are sky high and apparently now we also see unreliability.
  • ricardbejarano 1y ago
    Can't you just wait for a minute 'til we know what happened to point fingers? sigh
• sirnonw 1y ago
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• silexia 1y ago
  Green energy! Maybe nuclear and fossil fuels would help?
  • cowfarts 1y ago
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• cynicalpeace 1y ago
  Living in Maine makes you prepared for this type of stuff. It happens every winter. When I was a kid, we once went 2 weeks without electricity. Wood stove becomes an obvious necessity. Not just for staying warm. For cooking. Chickens in the backyard too. Those moments show you that being self-sufficient is an extremely important skill, and while we're not totally self sufficient in those moments, we get pretty darn close. Really makes you appreciate the pre-electric era. People cut down forests with axes. Pulled the stumps out with oxen. Cut the lumber with hand saws. Chiseled foundations with pickaxes. Etc, etc. With the constant threat of Nuclear War, there's a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads that we will return to this era. That makes it all the more important to learn these skills.
• littlecranky67 1y ago
  We had power on the canary islands (belong to spain, but located in the atlantic ocean ~80km west of Africa) since it is an independent grid. But couple of hours into the blackout (starting 5-6pm local time), internet issues occured - with confirmed multiple landline providers going offline (Digi, Movistar) while others seems to continue to work (Vodafone). Also some cellular 5G were affected, otheres continued. Interested to see the postmorten - I suspect after 8-10h the data center's diesel generators on the peninsula that route the traffic ran empty. Internet operation resumed during the night (for me around 1am).
• pete1302 1y ago
  Practical Engineer YT religious watcher here.
• bryanrasmussen 1y ago
  grid ops discussion on reddit about it https://www.reddit.com/r/Grid_Ops/comments/1k9uov6/major_outage_in_spain_and_portugal/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Grid_Ops/comments/1k9uov6/major_out...
• soci 1y ago
  I'm from Spain, electricity is almost fully restored in my area. But my fiber network is still down, same with the buildin elevators. People do not realise that when the backup supplies (batteries, diesel, whatever...) get drained, a cold start of non electric infrastructure could also be needed because syncornizing a mesh of unstable IT systems is tricky by itself, in some cases needing physical access. EDIT:: typos
  • diggan 1y ago
    What network are you on? I'm outside Mataro and with Vodafone, got internet connection and power restored some time early morning/late night (after 02:00, before 09:00)
    • soci 1y ago
      MasMovil / Orange. Yesterday connection went on and off while the router powered by and UPS. But since last night, the fiber does not sync with the GPON anymore.
      • diggan 1y ago
        > the fiber does not sync with the GPON anymore Ouch, that sucks. Bet their technicians are on overtime already too :/ I'm guess you've already tried the true-and-tested "Turn off, wait five minutes, turn on again"? Usually we've had lots of issues with our fiber from Vodafone (like random ~70% packet drops from time to time) but happy Vodafone seems to have recovered quickly in this case, no GPON issues here as far as I can tell.
    • schnitzelstoat 1y ago
      I'm with O2 (Movistar) in BCN and the internet came back at the same time as the power at around 18:00.
      • diggan 1y ago
        Thats right around when we got phone service again, but no electricity until early this morning. Guess our internet/cellphone coverage comes from BCN which would make sense.
• alexnewman 1y ago
  Knowing what I know about powersystems, it's a miracle electricity ever works and the people who manage it are silent heros. Please buy them a drink
• frozenwind 1y ago
  I'm wondering: are there any simulator games in which you have to take care of the stability of a nation-wide power grid? This whole situation has me interested in logistics of power distribution now.
  • notfirstpost 1y ago
    UK NESO’s website has one. It’s more educational that a real game… https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/balancing-grid-interactive-game https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/balancing-grid-interactiv...
• zmibes 1y ago
  My experience of it in Lisbon was undramatic. I was able to buy medication from the pharmacy. Life continued as usual more or less apart from some inconveniences, people playing cards in the street and a sense of everyone stepping away from the tech. Eyes were rolled as the reflexive suggestions of "putin" were inevitably voiced, more to make conversation than anything else. I met neighbours that I'd never talked to before, and reconnected with some I hadn't talked to for years. People played guitar on their balconies rather than spotify bluetooth speaker pop. The neighbourhood cheered as it came back online but part of me, selfishly, would have liked a few more hours of blackout. Would have been a very different story if it were a week rather than a day, but I was left with a sense that this complex community of locals and foreigners is stronger than I previously suspected.
• tfrutuoso 1y ago
  I've lost power at 11:30 and regained at 00:12 (Portugal). My hat's off to those brave engineers and technicians that managed to black start the ancient, under-invested grid in record time. Massive respect.
• unholyguy001 1y ago
  Grady over on Practical Engineering is going to be so excited (-;
• maximemarsal1 1y ago
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