Power outages in Spain and Portugal are causing travel chaos: here’s everything we know
Much of Spain and Portugal ground to a standstill yesterday lunchtime (Monday 28 April 2025), as a massive power outage has spread across the countries. Later on Monday, Spain declared a state of national emergency.
At the time of writing (10am on Tuesday 29 April), power has been restored to much of Spain and Portugal after hours of blackouts, with normal services resuming across some parts of the countries. The Madrid metro has resumed, schools are reopening in Portugal and most homes have had electricity restored. Spain has 99.5% of its power back, while 6.2 million out of 6.5 million homes in Portugal have power again.
On Monday, trains were evacuated, with more than 11 passenger-free trains still stranded in Spain late into the night, there were significant traffic jams reported in Madrid and other big cities, and airports were thrown into chaos as the outage impacted security, ticketing and more. Here’s everything we know so far about how this is impacting travellers into and out of Spain and Portugal.
What is happening with power outages in Spain and Portugal?
Around lunchtime on Monday 28 April, reports of powercuts in large swathes of Spain and Portugal were reported. Red Electrica, the Spanish grid operator, said it was working with companies to restore supplies. As of 10am on Monday, power has been restored to about 99% of those impacted in Spain. The exact cause of the outage is still unclear, but extreme temperature variations in Spain could have played a part. Portugal’s power company, REN, has said that power has been restored to 6.2 million of 6.5 million homes.
Which parts of Spain and Portugal were impacted?
Large parts of both Spain and Portugal were impacted.
- Madrid: massive jams on the roads of the Spanish capital were reported due to the power outages impacting traffic lights. The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, asked residents to stay home to keep roads clear. The metro network was interrupted, but is running again as of the morning of Tuesday 29 April.
- Valencia: Many train passengers were stranded as rail lines went down, with trains being evacuated and unable to run.
- Portugal: Airline TAP Air asked those due to travel from Portuguese airports today not to go to the airport on Monday, as the outages caused disruption at major air transport hubs.
- Lisbon: card payments weren’t working across the Portuguese capital, with queues forming at cashpoints across the city.
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