April 30 (UPI) -- Spain's investigation into the power outage that caused a blackout of the entire Iberian Peninsula this week continued as top security officials met Wednesday.
Spain is asking private energy companies to help find the cause. Portugal wants an independent EU audit of the electrical systems.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met with National Security officials in Madrid as Spain's Council of Ministers held a separate meeting on the power outage.
Sanchez said on X that the nation's electrical system must be changed and improved.
Related
"We must make the necessary improvements to guarantee the supply and future competitiveness of our system," Sanchez said.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Monetenegro said his government requested an independent audit from the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators.
Montenegro called for "an independent audit of the electrical systems of the affected countries to fully determine the causes of this situation."
The blackout will be addressed during a Wednesday debate between Montenegro and opposition leader Pedro Nuno Santos ahead of Spain's parliamentary election on May 18.
Spain's fast transition to renewable energy is being looked at, but the national power company doesn't believe that was the cause.
According to Spanish power company Red Electrica chair Beatriz Corredor said investigators believe they know the cause but are still going over data before publicly announcing it.
"We know the cause and we have it more or less tracked down, but the thing is there are millions of pieces of information because signals are sent every millisecond," Corredor said during a radio interview Wednesday.
She added it is "not correct" to blame the outage on Spain's fast transition to renewable energy.
Corredor reiterated there was also no evidence so far of any cyberattack on the electric grid, but investigators continue to explore that possibility.
As the investigation proceeds, Spain's government is bringing European regulators into the probe, together with Spanish officials including security, the ministry of ecological transition and the electric grid operator.
The blackout that hit Spain and Portugal began Monday afternoon and continued into the night before being restored Tuesday.
Both Spain and Portugal declared national emergencies as the outage also affected parts of France, Andorra and Belgium.
Nearly sixty million people were without electricity as power to trains, hospitals, traffic lights, homes and businesses was lost.
