On 28th April 2025, Spain experienced a power outage that led to blackouts across the country while also affecting Portugal and parts of France. The outage had a widespread impact on critical infrastructure, affecting transport, hospital operations and communication, and caused massive economic losses estimated at €1.6bn. In this article, we take a closer look at the disruption and explore how your business can prepare for the worst with business continuity planning.
Impacts of the power outage
Power was interrupted in Spain and Portugal for approximately 10 hours, long enough to cause panicked members of the public to stock up on water, food, batteries, radios, and lighting devices such as candles. The outage has also been linked to seven fatalities in Spain and another in Portugal, which may have been caused by generator exhaust fumes, failing ventilators, and candle-related fires.
Most businesses had to close, with banking being non-functional, meaning that shops that remained open had to resort to cash only. Hospitals employed the use of backup generators to stay functional - backup generators were also crucial to keep the reactors of the country’s nuclear power plants safe and cooled.
Satellite communications increased during the power outage, though mobile network traffic dropped to just 17% of normal usage. All train journeys were cancelled, and over 30,000 passengers had to be rescued from the rail and underground systems after becoming stranded.
The cause of the power outage is still unknown at the time of writing, though the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-e) have established an expert panel that plans to publish a report about the origin of the outage.
Business continuity planning
The power outage’s effect on infrastructure and businesses should remind us of the importance of having a business continuity plan in place should a situation arise that is out of your control.
A good business continuity plan should:
- Improve your organisation’s resilience against disruption
- Provide a planned method to restore products or services
- Help you to manage an incident to protect the reputation and brand of the business.
Planning should recover all aspects of the business and involve:
- Pre-planning with a view to preventing any incidents in the first place
- Emergency response in the immediate aftermath of an incident
- Crisis management
- Business recovery which involves the management or provision of an acceptable level of service to customers, allowing a return to normal trading.
A well-structured business continuity plan may allow businesses to maintain operations and continue trading during disruptions. But in the case of a nationwide power outage like that in Spain, it may be that operations must cease - a business continuity plan is still important so you can get back to regular trading once the disruption has been dealt with.
Many businesses may rely on other businesses and services within their supply chain, so it’s important to consider how you would cope if one of them was suddenly unable to trade - would it have a knock-on effect on your business? Make sure to regularly review and update your business continuity plan if the size or nature of your business changes, as well as if you change any suppliers.
Business interruption insurance from Towergate
Having business interruption (BI) insurance in place can provide you with financial support during disruptions. If you are unable to trade, we can cover your business from financial losses over this period. Get in touch with your usual Towergate advisor to find out more.
Consistent with our policy when giving comment and advice on a non-specific basis, we cannot assume legal responsibility for the accuracy of any particular statement. In the case of specific problems we recommend that professional advice be sought.
