Power was restored in southwestern France after a blackout on Monday that also hit Spain and Portugal, French high-voltage grid operator RTE said, adding it remained unclear what caused the outage.

“An electrical incident is currently affecting Spain and Portugal, the cause of which remains to be determined,” RTE said, describing the blackout as a “major outage” in the Iberian peninsula.

“In France, homes were without power for several minutes in the Basque Country. All power has since been restored,” it said, referring to the region in France’s extreme southwestern corner on the border with Spain.

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RTE said that the outage was not caused by a fire in the south of France, contrary to some reports.

The operator said there was “no impact on the supply-demand balance” in France.

According to RTE, the Iberian grid was automatically disconnected from the European grid from 12:38 pm to 1:30 pm (1038 GMT to 1130 GMT).

The French operator added that its teams have been mobilised to assist the Spanish grid operator.

“700 megawatts of Spanish consumption has already been restored via France by RTE.”

AFP