The Blackout That Took Down Two Countries
Episode 09 · How a power grid collapsed in seconds: the Iberian blackout of 28 April 2025 · all sources
On 28 April 2025, at 12:33 in the afternoon, the grid of mainland Spain and Portugal went down. The investigations found it was not a shortage of power: voltage on the high-voltage network rose too high, and protective systems disconnected plant after plant. This film follows the half hour before, the 27 seconds of the collapse, the restart from almost nothing, and the changes made since.
This is a fully animated film. Every visual was drawn for ColdProvenance; no footage, photographs or recordings are used. Narration is a synthesized voice. The music and sound effects were created for this film. Every factual claim is sourced below. Responsibility for the blackout is still disputed; the film reports each side's position.
Sources
- ENTSO-E — Expert Panel final report on the 28 April 2025 blackout in Spain and Portugal (20 March 2026), the final report and the 28 April 2025 blackout publications: the timeline from 12:03 to 12:33:24, the oscillations, the Granada transformer trip, the loss of synchronism, the 22 recommendations
- Red Eléctrica — Report on the incident of 28 April (18 June 2025) and first renewables authorised for dynamic voltage control (October 2025): the grid operator's account, and the voltage-control rule change requested in 2020 and approved in June 2025
- POWER Magazine — Anatomy of a Blackout: findings from the Spain-Portugal grid collapse final report and Understanding the April 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout: 242 kV on the plants' side of the Granada transformer, 355 MW disconnected, voltage limits, restoration times
- pv magazine — Entso-E report finds systemic failures behind 2025 Iberian blackout (23 March 2026) and Installed BESS capacity in Spain grew by 589% since 2025 blackout (29 April 2026): the disconnections around Badajoz, Seville and Granada; battery growth
- PV Tech — Combination of voltage and oscillation caused Iberian blackout, says ENTSO-E report
- Euronews — 'Perfect storm' of multiple factors behind 2025 Iberia power blackout, experts say (20 March 2026): Damián Cortinas's quote; and Spain says April's blackout was caused by multiple technical failures and rules out cyberattack (17 June 2025): the government investigation, no cyberattack, plants absorbing less reactive power than required
- Insurance Journal (Bloomberg) — Iberian blackout was first known caused by excessive voltage, report says (6 October 2025)
- Global News — Spain blackout cause not a cyberattack: more than 300 GB of data analysed
- Carbon Brief — Q&A: What we do – and do not – know about the blackout in Spain and Portugal and MIT Technology Review — Spain's blackout and the grid (8 May 2025): the solar share at 12:30, the 50 Hz system
- Baker Institute — The Iberian Peninsula blackout: causes, consequences, and challenges ahead: black start, imports from France and Morocco, restoration by the next morning
- CNN — Spain and Portugal grapple with fallout of massive blackout and NPR — Spain and Portugal begin recovering from a massive blackout (28 April 2025): metro trains, traffic lights, the Madrid Open, people helped off stranded trains
- Nature Communications — Excess mortality attributable to the 2025 Iberian Peninsula blackout (2026), with news reports of the eight deaths reported in the immediate aftermath
- Demócrata — Endesa maintains that REE refused to evaluate pre-blackout surges: the dispute between the grid operator and the power companies
Visuals
- All animation, maps, street scenes, control rooms, power plants, people and diagrams were created by ColdProvenance for this film. No footage or photographs appear in this film.
- The people (operators, engineers, passengers, the hearing room) are illustrative characters, not portraits. Damián Cortinas is shown by name only.
- The water pipe, piston tanks and balance scale are metaphors for voltage, reactive power and the balance of supply and demand. Gauges, flows and timings on screen are schematic; their numbers are the sourced figures.
- Coastlines and borders: Natural Earth Public domain, via world-atlas.
Audio
- Narration: synthesized voice.
- Music, ambience and sound effects: created for this film. No stock music, sound libraries or field recordings are used.