The Government assumes the most critical phase of the emergency faced on Monday with the restoration of practically one hundred percent of the electricity supply throughout the territory. A work that in the Executive considers that it has been carried out in “exemplary and record time” after the unpublished blackout that paralyzed the country. But there is still a more complex task ahead: knowing why at 12.33 of April 28, 2025 in Spain, 15 Gigawatts of the energy that was occurring were disappeared. Or what is the same, 60% of the light that was being consumed at that moment. And in that search for explanations, the positions of Electricity collide, participated in 20% by the State, and private operators with the position of the government itself.
On the day after it was the president who publicly pointed out three times during his appearance in Moncloa to the possible “private operators” responsibility. And who claimed to have learned “by the media” of the conclusions of a Red Electricity investigation that did not discard, but that clarified that it is not enough. “I wish, I hope that is the diagnosis, that of Electric Red. I do not doubt anything, I just say that I start a technical and independent commission to make sure or rule out any possibility that a cyber attack has contributed to this situation. I hope it is not so and be other hypotheses,” he said.
The situation, according to several government sources, is found between the Executive, Red Eléctrica and the private operators, which on the afternoon of Tuesday the faces in La Moncloa were seen in an appointment convened by Pedro Sánchez. Sanchez himself was explicit in a message on his social networks after that meeting. He thanked them “the work in the prompt recovery” of the supply. But he put duties and demanded “collaborating with the government and independent agencies to identify the causes of the incident.”
Meanwhile, the right, including the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo loads against the executive that on Tuesday accused of urging an informative blackout after the electric and entrusted to the popular Europeans, gathered in the Valencia conclave, so that the community institutions clarify what has happened.
In the Government they explain that, after turning in the early hours to return normality to the country with the restoration of the supply, the demand for concrete and exact information both to the electricity and private operators to delve into the origin of the crisis has not been satisfied. According to the Executive, the behavior in that regard of both Red Electrica – whose president, the former socialist ministry Beatriz Corredor, came to affirm in an interview on Antena 3 television in 2021 that a situation like this could not occur in Spain – as of private companies is identical: denying that the cause has any relationship with their networks, stations or substations and avoid any responsibility without providing more data.
According to several members of the Government, there is a deep discomfort in the Moncloa for that attitude of the electricity grid, which qualify as “collusion” with the operators and that those same sources blame an attempt to defend themselves against future responsibilities. And even point in that line that several managers of the participated company have already claimed expert legal advice on the investigations and claims that will happen to the blackout.
In the background, what begins to fly over the government’s judgment is A possible legal battle in the medium term for the possible payment of compensation that are foreseen millionaires, with a second country such as Portugal and some regions of France, as injured. They remember in the Executive, for example, the case of compensation of 10 million euros that Endesa had to pay with the Generalitat de Catalunya for a blackout in Barcelona and that ended up being resolved in court. This same Tuesday, Salvador Illa announced that the Catalan administration will open two informative files to Red Electrica and Endesa and the rest of private operators operating in the community to “find out” the causes of the electric blackout on Monday and prevent it from being repeated.
The government of the government directly alludes to Beatriz Corredor, the president of Red Electrica. The former socialist minister is affected by “not having put himself in front” of the crisis during the most critical hours and also not having appeared publicly to offer explanations. Several sources of the Executive say that it is not the only clash in recent months.
During his appearance after the Council of Ministers, the President himself pointed out more explicitly his differences with the management of Electricity in recent hours. Sánchez ruled out discarding the hypothesis of a cyber attack, said he had learned “by the media” of his investigations and directly pointed to the “private operators”, to which he even claimed “responsibilities for the case.”
“The responsibility of the Government of Spain is to make an independent analysis of what has happened and, therefore, also use all the mechanisms, the springs that the General State Administration has, the Incibe, the National Cryptological Center. And once these registers of the Electricity and all the private operators are examined, since not ruling out any hypotheses until we have the results of these analysis that, of course, they will already advance, they will Your appearance.
In the government they emphasize that they do not doubt “the rigor” of the company’s conclusions, but consider that, as a part involved, it is responsibility to develop a “public research” to determine if everyone did what it should to act accordingly.
Crash with Electric Red
The clash with the company participated by the State began on the same Monday of the blackout. In the morning, the appearance of the director of Services for the operation of Red Electrica, Eduardo Prieto, seemed to clear the confusion that would later take over the day. Prieto exposed “preliminary” conclusions, but one of them was very clear: “With the analyzes we have been able to perform so far we can rule out a security incident at the Electric Red Control Center.”
Experts from the National Cryptological Center (CCN), dependent on the CNI, had worked until dawn on the Electricity Servants. The conclusion that transferred those responsible for the operator was that there was no indication of computer attack, according to Eldiario.es knowledgeable sources of that work on the ground. As confirmed by Prieto, to the conclusion that there had been no cyber attack, the collaboration of the Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE), under the Ministry of Economy, and the National Center for the Protection of Critical Infrastructure (Cenepic), assigned to the interior.
But these certainties would later dispel them with the public appearance of the president of the Government, who from Moncloa responded to the journalists who had known the conclusion of a grid by the media, which respected their conclusions – adapted with information from the CNI – and insisted that the cyber attack could not be ruled out. Some government sources argue that one thing is that Red Eléctrica discards an attack on their systems and another, that this could not occur in another phase of the process.
While Sánchez appeared, the National Court reported that the judge on duty, José Luis Calama, had opened investigation proceedings based on the suspicion transferred by Pedro Sánchez himself the previous day on the five seconds in which 15,000 megawatts had been lost in an unpublished way.
Calama, without having consulted the Prosecutor’s Office, ordered reports to the CNI and the Police and warned that it is competent to investigate because cyber attacks are classified as crimes of terrorism. How was it possible for the CNI to have ruled out a computer attack and that the president of the Government did not know? Pedro Sánchez had been very forceful when referring to the “private operators”, the electric ones, to demand cooperation in the investigation of the causes of the blackout.
On the possibility that the cyber attack had been addressed to one of the electric companies and not to Red Electrica, state security sources consulted by Eldiario.es rule out that the total blackout could have had its origin in the attack on one of the companies that serve citizens. In the same sense, they advance that the CNI report to the judge, which has imposed a period of ten days for presentation, will preliminary discarding the cyber attack thesis.
During the day there appeared a possible explanation to the president’s forcefulness with the electric companies and had nothing to do with the possibility that they had received a cyber attack and did not want to confess it. The expert of the Higher Center for Scientific Research (CSIC) Antonio Turiel offered several interviews on which he was holding the electricity of the failure that caused the blackout. Turiel was especially overwhelming in statements to Gara: “There was no exterior attack, the blackout is the product of the greed of large electricity.” “It is necessary to force companies to put the stabilization systems. What Sanchez said on Tuesday goes from this, puts the accent where you have to put it. There is a topic that is not invested, but also if the combined gas cycle center had been prepared to take the relay, the problems had been smaller. They had stops and that is a criminal responsibility,” said Turiel, who then indicated those responsible: Endesa, Naturgy … The great energy are those that control the combined cycle gas plants. ”
Source: www.eldiario.es
