In a statement last night, REN stated that "the Iberian electricity system is already interconnected to the European system, and the situation is on the way to full normalisation".

According to the statement, an incident in the "transmission network" in France yesterday afternoon resulted in "a problem in the interconnection of the electricity system between France and Spain".

According to France's Electricity Transmission Network (RTE), fires that burned 500 hectares of vegetation in the southwest of the country were the source of power cuts in Portugal and Spain.

Due to the fires at the Aude, the very high voltage line (between Perpignan and west of Narbonne) "suffered a technical problem and was shut down" in the middle of the afternoon, said RTE in a statement, referring to the mountain fires from Alaric in southwestern France.

The company that manages the high voltage grids in France clarified that electricity flows were transferred to lines in the western Pyrenees, creating an overload that caused power cuts in France, which ended up affecting the Spanish and Portuguese grids, shutting down the Peninsula Iberian power grid in Europe.

According to RTE, "2,350 MW of electricity were cut in Spain and around 1,000 MW in Portugal", with "most" of Spanish and Portuguese homes being "gradually replenished" from the end of the afternoon.

In the statement, REN said that, due to the incident on the French network, "the defense plans for the Spanish and Portuguese electrical systems were automatically activated", which, in the national case, caused "a reduction in consumption in hydroelectric pumping", including " various consumers" of the "pre-selected" distribution network.

REN in Portugal clarified that everything was done to avoid “more serious consequences, which could ultimately have led to the total blackout of the electricity system".

The breakdown in the European electricity grid today caused partial "blackouts" in several countries and, in Portugal, there were power cuts of more than 30 minutes in electricity from the north to the south of the country.

The problem in the supply of energy affected several Portuguese municipalities, with the power cuts generally taking place at around 4pm on 24 July.