In the spring, large parts of Spain and Portugal were left without electricity for about ten hours after a power outage, which renewed the debate in Lithuania about the country’s energy security and the resilience of its infrastructure.
On the 28th of April, power went out in the Iberian Peninsula, Spain and Portugal. This caused disruptions in telecommunications systems, transport networks and other critical infrastructure. Authorities have linked at least eight deaths to the power outage.
According to initial findings, the outage began with a faulty generator, which caused voltage fluctuations. This in turn disconnected solar panels on rooftops in Spain, which suddenly switched from generating to consuming electricity, and the demand on the grid increased by about 9 gigawatt hours. To protect its own grid, France disconnected from the Spanish grid, further reducing the amount of electricity available. The very small energy reserves were not enough, and the Iberian Peninsula went dark.
Gediminas Uloza, CEO of the energy company E Energija, explained that this showed how quickly the system collapses if supply and demand in the grid are thrown out of balance. He himself experienced a power outage, having gone on a business trip to Spain. He advised conference participants in Vilnius to keep cash, an external battery and a paper map on hand for such cases.
Lithuania’s distribution grid operator Litgrid said that
Lithuania was quite well prepared, thanks to investments made before disconnecting from the Russian grid
and synchronizing with the European grid. Litgrid’s head of systems Donatas Matelionis said that new transmission lines had to be built and synchronization compensators installed in each Baltic country, and a battery system has also been set up for such cases. However, Matelionis warned that both cyber threats and the possibility of physical damage remain, adding that Europe has already experienced three large-scale power outages in 2025, which shows a trend.
Experts have reported that the April power outage in Spain and Portugal was not caused by a hacker attack, but previous cyberattacks show that the risk exists. Uloza pointed out that it is not just about electricity as such – people also lose access to information. Lithuanian emergency services have recommended keeping a battery-powered radio at home to receive information in cases where neither electricity nor the internet is available.
Read the full article in English here: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2657633/are-baltics-vulnerable-to-iberian-like-electric-blackout
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