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00:00Our coverage begins in Madrid with correspondent Sarah Morris.
00:04Sarah, what's a 20-hour blackout like?
00:09It feels pretty unsettling, that's for sure.
00:12It certainly shows you how reliant we are on our phones and the internet.
00:18And really, this in part of Madrid, the north of Madrid, was like many in the rest of the capital.
00:25People were scurrying around to try to find radios, old-fashioned radios with batteries,
00:32trying to find out exactly what was going on.
00:36And they didn't know what was the cause of that power outage and how long it would last.
00:41We saw people walking miles, Francois, to pick up their children, to get home from work.
00:49The trains and metros weren't operating.
00:51And tens of thousands of people across the country had to be rescued from those trains.
00:57And some people actually had to stay the night in stations like a torture in Madrid.
01:03But many others opened specifically to let people who couldn't get home sleep out in them.
01:11And that was really quite unsettling for many people.
01:15The worst affected were the vulnerable.
01:17And we understand that as many as five people may have died as a result of some of the consequences of power outages,
01:28including a family that were using a faulty generator.
01:33And somebody else whose oxygen machine needed that vital electricity.
01:39And given the scale of the outage, Francois, it probably is a miracle that no more lives were lost.
01:49The hospitals continued to use generators and to triage and to handle emergency cases only.
01:58And many people talking today at just how much common sense ordinary Spaniards showed as they went about their business.
02:07And many of them driving around big main roads with no traffic lights, managing to let people across the roads in an orderly way.
02:17And many people managing to help and show generosity to their neighbours, even as they complained that they didn't have very much information.
02:28The Prime Minister coming onto people's radios at six o'clock in the evening, well into that outage that started just after noon.
02:38All right. So a lot of questions to answer.
02:41And of course, the first question is, what exactly happened?
02:45Exactly. And there's been a lot of speculation.
02:51Some kind of cyber attack was the worry that was in many people's minds.
02:57And you heard the electricity grid operator has seemed to discard that.
03:03He said that one of the spokesmen for the operator said that there was no sign that there had been some kind of intrusion into the network,
03:13seeming to rule that out.
03:15However, the high court, the top court of Spain is already investigating any possibility that there could have been foul play to do with that outage.
03:28And the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has promised that he will get to the bottom of this.
03:33He has said that he wants any private operator that may have had a part in this to take its share of the responsibility.
03:42So we will certainly see quite a sweeping investigation.
03:45But all sorts of theories to do with whether renewable energy could be more volatile, Spain being a big user of those solar panels,
03:55whether that could have made the grid more volatile,
03:59because the grid operator has said that there were two disconnections on the generation side in the southwest of the country,
04:09and that it will take them a while to find out exactly where that came from.
04:14All right. Yeah, and the irony is it's happening six months to the day after those floods that devastated particularly the south and the Valencia region.
04:25For more, we're joined by Ana Navarro-Pedro, correspondent for Portuguese Media.
04:29Of course, this was the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula that was hit.
04:35What are the reactions that you've been hearing from associates and loved ones?
04:40Well, from friends and family, everybody's okay, but they had some scares.
04:49One was caught up in a lift going down or going up, I don't know, in a big building, a high building.
04:55And they waited a while before they got some help to get out.
05:00But mainly people, like in Spain, people kept calm and didn't know how long this would last.
05:07It was the main worry about the food in the refrigerators, about jobs, going places.
05:16So people were a bit upset, but things went back to normal during the night and this morning.
05:24But we are still trying to find out how many people may have been affected in hospitals,
05:30how many people may have their health, their life in danger because of this very abrupt power cut.
05:38Many information will come out in the next few days.
05:42A crisis of this magnitude is, of course, a crisis of leadership.
05:47And we heard the Prime Minister of Portugal reacting a short while ago.
05:54This after criticism from the far right.
05:57Let's take a listen.
05:58It is thus also important to note, in the face of yesterday's criticism regarding our dependence
06:10on Spain, that the problem that was caused was in no way about an inability to produce
06:18or supply power, but rather with a connection.
06:23It's not us, it's Spain.
06:29That's what he's saying.
06:30Apparently, it might be that, although I don't understand, and some people don't understand
06:35how there are firewalls.
06:37You know, there are firewalls in France.
06:39For instance, that's why the sudden collapse of the grid in Spain did affect the French regions
06:47next to Spain, but not the rest of France, because the firewalls prevented the rest of the
06:52grid going down.
06:53And in Portugal, there are firewalls as well.
06:56And we still have to find out why they didn't work in Portugal.
07:01Okay.
07:01But apparently, yes, it started in Spain.
07:05There was this abrupt drop in production around 1230 yesterday.
07:15The system, the power grid reacted as it's supposed to.
07:22It went down and it reconnected.
07:25And there was a second drop after that.
07:28And that second drop was fatal.
07:30It's just in the time of three minutes.
07:32But, you know, in Portugal, the thing is Portugal is on campaign for elections in May.
07:39So all the explanations, all the interventions now are all targeting the elections and the
07:46election outcome.
07:48So we don't have the information, technical, more technical, more accurate information that
07:55the Spanish are having right now.
07:57All right.
07:57And the argument over who's to blame, it's spilling over beyond the Iberian Peninsula.
08:03We had the front cover of the Daily Telegraph this Tuesday saying it's the fault of more
08:12renewables being put into the grid.
08:15Your thoughts on that?
08:16They are not the only ones saying it.
08:18Portugal is not saying it.
08:19But Portugal say, look at Spain because the problem came from there.
08:23But I believe, as I said, that we also have to look at ourselves.
08:27OK, but yes, they are saying that Portugal, Spain may have lacked, I say may have lacked the
08:37technical and technological upgrades of their power grid necessary to go from renewables
08:46to fossil energy.
08:48They did it last week.
08:49And it's true in Portugal, for instance, that has over 60, 70 percent of our energy produced
08:56at home is with renewables.
08:58We know, for instance, that if you have two gigawatt produced by a fossil central, if you
09:08want to have the same energy produced by renewables, you have to produce seven gigawatt with renewables
09:15because you don't have the same quantity of production every minute, every hour.
09:23And you need a stable grid.
09:24You need a stable grid.
09:25Sarah Morris, your thoughts on even the British weighing in on this?
09:30Yes, because potentially the British may feel, at least in the Telegraph, they may feel that
09:39there's some angle on this being a kind of European Union push towards renewables and that
09:48if that produces a more vulnerable grid, then that's something that could be a benefit of
09:55the Brexit, as some of the Telegraph analysts might see it.
09:59But I think that we've certainly seen here people talking about whether that is being misused,
10:11the argument that having more nuclear might have protected the French grid in a way it didn't
10:18protect the Spanish one, that that is a fallacy, that it is too early to draw those sorts of
10:26conclusions.
10:26But it is certainly true that there's a big discussion about the energy mix, the push towards
10:34renewable energy in many countries and in Spain.
10:38It's a big part of the energy mix.
10:41Does that mean that there has to be some tinkering or management of the grid and the operations?
10:50And we've certainly seen that the far-right party, Vox, is taking some of that line in
10:59that it is woke to be turning off nuclear and relying on renewables.
11:08What is certain, and this is older than, it's an argument that goes back decades, is how
11:16much Europe's grid is integrated and the Iberian Peninsula often feels left out.
11:21Yes, but it was good as well when prices of electricity went up due to a tariff grid as
11:28well, absolutely nonsensical, Portugal and Spain managed to get out and to have electricity
11:36much cheaper a few years ago.
11:40So that was good for us as well.
11:42No, but the thing about the renewables, I mean, in Portugal there is not a debate, you
11:48study at one point how far we can go with renewables, how much is more expensive, how
11:55much does it cost more, because ultimately the consumer has to pay for it.
12:00So there is this discussion, do we need to go further?
12:03We are at 70% now of production.
12:05We have to import from Spain because we've closed up all of our coal centrals, energy
12:13centrals.
12:14So we have to import more from Spain.
12:17And we see, is it good to keep, you know, to keep going up?
12:22Two years ago, one and a half years ago, we went on for a whole week only with renewable
12:27energy used in the country, consumed in the country.
12:30Wow.
12:31But it's expensive.
12:32We can do it, but it's expensive.
12:33What is the right financial mix?
12:35And because, as I said-
12:37And what's the right security mix is, of course, the other question.
12:39The right security mix, and you have to be sovereign as well, so there are many, many issues.
12:44A lot of arbitration to come.
12:45And of course, we're waiting on those investigations, sir, just at their starting point.
12:48Ana Navarro-Pedro, Sara Morris in Madrid, many thanks for joining us.