Today's episode of "Malfunction or Moscow?"
this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2025
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15:31 : Ribera says that nothing points to the blackout in Spain and Portugal being intentional
The vice president of the European Commission (EC) for the Clean Transition, Teresa Ribera, says that the blackout recorded in Spain and Portugal is one of the "most important" in recent years and points out that nothing allows us to think that it has been intentional. "There is nothing that allows us to make us think that there is anything intentional," Ribera also said in statements to the press. (EFE)
Speculation is fun, but ... :)
Thanks! Yeah it's important to stick to the evidence. Otherwise it'll seem like cyber attacks are much more prevalent than they actually are which helps Putin. But it's hard not to have that initial reaction when hearing about fires and blackouts in Europe lately.
And introducing guest star ".... Washington!?"
I wouldn't rule out Beijing either. They always got a folding chair somewhere.
i thought spain and china are on good terms, or at least compared to most other eu countries
I don't know about their relationship, I just know that chinese tech took root too deep in too much critical infrastructure in Europe.
Spain wouldn't be a primary target and if they would be in their national grid they would most likely hide there until they have a reason for using it (like put pressure or take revenge). Russia on the other hand has already been proven to sabotage stuff in the EU, their main goal being creating chaos and unrest. If it would be either of them, I think Russia is by far a more likely culprit. But let's not jump to conclusions too fast either. You are right China is capable of causing something like this.
Both Spanish and Portugese officals have been talking about the possibility of a cyber attack. The fact that hours later we do not know what happened makes that unforunatly a possibility.
The entire peninsula has no power at all? How on earth does that happen?
I hope everyone's safe.
We are. But thank you for the concern.
Electricity network requires that production and consumption are always equal. If there is too little production, the frequency (Hz) goes down and if too little consumption, the frequency goes up. If frequency goes too far every electric device pretty much breaks.
This is why there is automation in the network that tries to balance the network (reserve production and consumption). BUT if shit hits the fan, and frequency goes too bad, it automatically takes load off or production off the network. This often causes domino effect, you take load off, which causes over production, and again you take production off and loop is ready. In minutes the whole network falls like domino blocks, one by one.
There was lots of luck (and probably skill and preparation) that they were able to stop it. Main land Europe from Portugal to Turkey is one big network.
Cold starting whole Europe would have taken week. You need to start small islands, and connect them together slowly. Balancing load and production.
Source: I work in electricity production and distribution.
Europe has a highly interconnected grid. Usually that works in everyone's favor by providing much better stability than smaller grids. It appears there are ways to take down the entire grid too though.
Extreme weather phenomenon. Something about a wave reveberation.
Whatever the cause, this doesnβt look good. About 60 million people without power.
At least in Valencia thereβs cell service, as I was able to WhatsApp some family there to check on them.
Some cell towers have battery backups.
Damn squirrels
I laughed...
Some data carriers with difficultues and broadcasting stations worked but on the street level trains, metros and traffic lights are still off in many places after 10 hours.
The Spanish and Portuguese presidents are saying that they donβt dismiss any hypothesis, but the only info beoadcasted through the news were that there was an overload in some point of the grid that created a domino effect and left all the system without voltage
A cyberattack? We will know, in time. For now, this is an ongoing issue and a Carrington event is equally possible. Or, just a human error. Look for past outages, it could happen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages