Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on March 23, 2026
2 min readLast updated: March 23, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleSpain’s Energy Minister Sara Aagesen urges power firms to publicly release data on the April 28 blackout affecting Spain and Portugal to ensure transparency, despite investigations attributing it to a voltage surge and cascading technical failures rather than cyberattacks or renewables.
MADRID, March 23 (Reuters) - Spain's Energy Minister Sara Aagesen on Monday called on power companies to make public all the information they have related to the massive blackout that hit Spain and Portugal last April to ensure a fully transparent investigation of its root causes.
The outage left large parts of the Iberian Peninsula without power for up to 16 hours on April 28 and sparked multiple investigations, including by the government and the grid operator.
While they all point to a surge in voltage as the immediate cause, no report has assigned blame and the information provided by companies was cited as anonymous.
"I take this opportunity to ask companies, since this information (about the outage) is available to them, to please make it public," Aagesen told a Senate committee hearing.
"I believe it would be best for all citizens," she added.
Aagesen said that there had been no warnings hinting at a potential blackout like the one that happened last year and there were sufficient regulatory and technical mechanisms in place to prevent it, she argued.
"With the existing regulatory elements and mechanisms, the blackout should not have happened," Aagesen said.
The Spanish power system is now better prepared to tackle a similar event, she said, adding that the country can keep adding renewable power sources with no risk of another massive blackout.
(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi; Editing by Andrei Khalip)
Investigations identified a surge in voltage as the immediate cause of the blackout but no definitive blame has been assigned.
Spain’s energy minister has called on power firms to make all available information about the blackout public to ensure a transparent investigation.
The blackout left large parts of the Iberian Peninsula without power for up to 16 hours on April 28.
The minister stated that regulatory and technical mechanisms are now in place to prevent similar events and support adding more renewable sources.
No warnings hinted at a potential blackout like the one that happened, according to the energy minister.
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