BRUSSELS, April 29. /TASS/. The European Commission (EC) has confirmed that the extensive blackout in Spain and Portugal was not caused by a cyberattack, the body's press chief Paula Pinho said at a briefing in Brussels.
"The latest we heard <…> [were the reports from a Spanish operator] ruling out that cyber could be at the origin of the outage yesterday, <…> and we have no further comments on that statement," she said, adding that the EC awaits further details from the Spanish authorities. On Monday, the European Commissioner for Spain Teresa Ribera was among the first to suggest that a cyberattack could have caused the blackout.
Pinho also confirmed that the European Commission favors greater integration of the Iberian Peninsula's power grids into the EU's single electricity system, which would allow for faster stabilization of the grid at the expense of resources from other EU countries. She added that the European Commission would also scrutinize the conclusions drawn from this incident.
On the afternoon of April 28, Spain experienced major power outages across the country. Traffic lights stopped working, people were trapped in trains, public transportation and hospitals were disrupted. Only closer to night began the gradual resumption of power supply. The failure also affected neighboring Portugal. As of now, power has been largely restored.
Prime Minister of Spain Pedro Sanchez announced that 15 GW of power were suddenly lost in the system in just 5 seconds. The reason behind the sudden blackout has not been determined, he added. Experts are trying to establish the circumstances of the incident.