Not a cyberattack after all? Spanish government reveals reason for April blackout

The widespread power outage in Spain on April 28 was caused by multiple technical errors, not a cyberattack, said Sara Aagesen, responsible for energy, at a press conference with Spain's Minister for Ecological Transition on Tuesday.

The report on the causes of the outage was presented a month and a half after the incident, identifying a voltage spike as the cause, which caused a chain reaction leading to a power outage across mainland Spain, as well as neighbouring Portugal.

According to a government investigation , the main culprit for the power outage is the national operator Red Electrica (REE), which miscalculated the demand for energy and the leveling of power fluctuations. However, the minister stressed that many technical issues contributed to the extensive failure.

Aagesen also blamed domestic energy producers for failing to support the operator in its time of need.

The politician reiterated earlier government announcements Tuesday about ruling out a cyberattack on the network operator as a possible cause of the outage. She also stressed that the issue of ultimate responsibility for the incident would be decided by the National Commission for Markets and Competition, the sector's regulatory body, and the courts.

The Spanish press has drawn attention to the fact that the work of the commission investigating the causes of the failure has accelerated in recent days, coinciding with the publication of recordings incriminating Santos Cerdan, a close associate of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who was allegedly involved in corruption.

The April blackout left tens of millions of people in Spain and neighboring Portugal without electricity in a matter of seconds at noon. The power outage caused traffic chaos in cities, halted trains and metros, and canceled mass events.

Power supplies were only fully restored the next day.

From Madrid Marcin Furdyna (PAP)

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