Lisbon, May 10, 2025 – Portugal’s Minister for Environment and Energy, Maria da Graça Carvalho, admitted in an interview with EFE that the government “cannot guarantee” there won’t be another blackout like the one that struck Spain and Portugal on April 28. She emphasized that the issue stemmed from grid management failures, not from the use of renewable energy.
During the incident, Portugal was importing cheaper electricity from Spain, when the blackout originating in Spanish territory spread across the border. While the root cause is still under investigation, Carvalho stated she is “convinced” the failure was not technological, but rather a matter of grid resilience, power control, and storage limitations.
The minister said she holds regular meetings with Spain’s Third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen Muñoz, and both nations are collaborating closely to analyze the event. Millions of data points are being processed by Spain’s Red Eléctrica and Portugal’s Redes Eléctricas Nacionais (REN). An independent audit by the European Commission has also been requested, with preliminary results expected in up to six months.
Carvalho added that both countries will press the EU to accelerate interconnection capacity with France, noting that this is not just a bilateral or trilateral issue, but a European one. A stronger French connection could help Spain and, by extension, Portugal recover faster from grid failures.
Portugal is also considering establishing energy exchanges with Morocco, which supported Spain during the blackout. While distance makes this more challenging for Lisbon, Carvalho said the government is open to evaluating the economic feasibility of such a connection.
Meanwhile, Portugal resumed electricity imports from Spain this Thursday, following a 10-day suspension, and expects to return to full normalcy in the coming days. Carvalho stressed that Portugal now has four operational “blackstart” facilities—plants that can generate electricity from zero in case of total shutdown.
Initially, Portugal had only two blackstart units: Tapada do Outeiro (a natural gas combined-cycle plant) and Castelo do Bode (a hydro plant). After the blackout, the government decided to maintain two more advanced hydro units—Alqueva and Baixo Sabor—bringing the total to four for greater resilience.
“No one can give guarantees that it won’t happen again,” Carvalho concluded, underlining the urgent need to bolster European energy infrastructure and power system resilience.