It will take between "6 and 10 hours" to restore power in Spain after a power outage that hit the Iberian Peninsula today, Agence France-Presse reported, citing state grid operator "Red Electrica".
"We can talk about a delay of between 6 and 10 hours if everything goes according to plan," Eduardo Prieto, director of "Operations" of "Red Electrica", adding that some failures in the power grid have already been eliminated.
According to the Portuguese network operator REN, a rare atmospheric phenomenon in Spain, due to extreme temperature fluctuations in the interior of the country, caused the power outages in the Iberian Peninsula, and the full restoration of the country's power grid could take up to a week.
For its part, the European Commission announced that it "is in contact" with the Spanish and Portuguese authorities to determine the "reasons" for the power outage in the Iberian Peninsula, AFP added.
The EC will continue to "monitor the situation" and will ensure that "the exchange of information between all stakeholders runs smoothly", a European Commission spokesman said.
The entire Iberian peninsula was affected today by a power outage, with the outage briefly affecting southwestern France.
European Council President Antonio Costa also spoke to the heads of state of Spain and Portugal, AFP added.
The power outage also affected air traffic, "affecting departures and arrivals at certain airports, including Lisbon, Barcelona and Madrid," said the European aviation safety organization "Eurocontrol", quoted by AFP.
"It is too early to determine how many flights are or will be affected," said the European air traffic control authority, which assured that it was monitoring the situation closely and providing support to the various stakeholders of place.
For his part, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said that Kiev was ready to assist in restoring the energy networks of both countries, Reuters reported.
"We are ready to share the knowledge and experience gained during the systematic Russian attacks on the energy infrastructure (of Ukraine)", Galushchenko wrote on the social network "Ex" (X).
Citing the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), the British publication "Telegraph" indicates that the power outage in Spain and parts of France and Portugal may have been caused by a technical or cable failure, with the European body's preliminary findings being that it was not a cyberattack.
The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity announced that it was "closely monitoring" situation and that it is "in contact with the relevant authorities at national and European level".
As a result of the failure in the Spanish electricity grid, internet traffic collapsed today, the "Telegraph" adds.
Data from the American technology company "Cloudflare" (Cloudflare) reports a 30 percent drop in traffic from Portugal and a 37 percent drop in internet use in Spain around 11:30 a.m. local time (12:30 p.m. Bulgarian time), after users experienced difficulties connecting to the network.