Dan Jørgensen will help with the investigation of power outages

The EU is ready to assist with a “thorough investigation” of the power outage in Spain and Portugal. This is stated by EU Commissioner for Energy Dan Jørgensen on the social media platform X.

“The energy situation in Spain and Portugal has returned to normal. This incident is the most serious in nearly two decades in Europe.

We are ready to support Spain and Portugal in every possible way, including launching a thorough investigation,” writes Dan Jørgensen.

The power outage has raised concerns about whether something similar could happen in other EU countries.

This comes at a time when Dan Jørgensen has been tasked with binding Europe’s electricity grid more closely together.

This is intended to make it easier for EU countries to share electricity across borders. The hope is that it can lower energy bills for citizens and businesses.

However, the extensive power outage may also raise questions about whether other EU countries could be affected if a more interconnected grid allows, for example, Spain and Portugal to draw on electricity from other countries in the event of new outages.

It remains unclear what caused the extensive failure that hit Spain and Portugal on Monday.

Experts are still analyzing the causes of the power outage in Spain and Portugal yesterday. As far as we know, there was nothing unusual about the energy sources that supplied electricity to the system yesterday.

It cannot be attributed to a specific energy source, such as renewable energy,” says Dan Jørgensen in a written comment.

He asserts that the power outage does not change the fact that energy security is a priority for the EU.

“An interconnected electricity system, solidarity, and green, locally produced energy are key to making our system more resilient,” says Dan Jørgensen.

When the electricity suddenly disappeared, it happened across most of the two countries. A corner of the Iberian Peninsula, home to nearly 60 million people, was spared, reports the news agency AFP.

Passengers were stranded on trains. Flights were canceled in droves. Hundreds were trapped in elevators, while millions lost both phone and internet connections.

By Tuesday morning, most of the power was restored in both Spain and Portugal.

Spain’s Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Monday evening that about 15 gigawatts of electricity – half of the country’s power consumption at that time – “suddenly disappeared” in just five seconds on Monday.

The outage occurred around 12:30 PM.

As a result, Spain activated its crisis preparedness.

The outage caused panic in cities across Spain and Portugal. Many rushed to banks to withdraw cash, while the streets filled with people desperately trying to get a signal on their phones.

Long lines quickly formed to catch taxis and buses.

The traffic lights were also not working, making it a difficult task for the police to manage traffic. Citizens were urged to leave their cars at home.

Images from a supermarket in Madrid showed long lines and empty shelves as people began to hoard goods.