A ‘devastating’ power outage across multiple nations could cost officials an insane amount of money.
Power is finally returning to Spain and Portugal as officials work hard to determine what the cause of the mass power outages was.
The countries experienced widespread disruption on Monday (April 28), with Spain remaining in a state of emergency.
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Passengers packed out the platforms of Madrid’s metro as they were unable to board trains yesterday but these are now beginning to run again.
In Portugal, its government confirmed this morning that power supplies have been restored, with water now running across the country.
The metro in Lisbon and Porto are also now back in operation, although there are delays.
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At Lisbon Airport, there is still some recovery work underway, but most flights are operating.
Schools are also set to reopen after yesterday’s chaos and the government has said that the health service is now stable.
But while the country focus on getting back to normality, it still begs the question as to how this all happened in the first place.
A cause for the power cuts has not yet been confirmed but prime minister of Portugal, Luís Montenegro, shared that there is ‘no indication’ of a cyber attack and Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has warned people against speculating.
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But how much could such a massive power outage be costing the countries?
According to AI, power outages in Europe do have a significant financial impact, costing approximately billions of Euros.
A study was conducted back in 2017 which revealed that the average value of lost electricity for households across the EU was €8.7/kWh.
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And back in 2019, a power outage that lasted one day in Italy and Switzerland cost officials over €1 billion.
It’s likely that the recent power cuts for Spain and Portugal will reach an even higher figure and could have an impact on the countries’ economies.
Speaking to Euronews, Kyle Chapman, FX markets analyst at Ballinger Group, said: “Essentially, the Spanish economy is shut down for the day and that means that businesses will take a short-term hit, but ultimately the total disruption will probably be marginal provided that the power comes back relatively soon.”
He added: “I suspect the bigger concern will be about the state of infrastructure and resilience and it might hurt GDP growth slightly at the monthly level. I think we’re probably seeing the fundamental issues in scaling up renewable power coming to the fore.”