The largest blackout in Spain's history caused losses of 400 million euros to the country's economy
The largest power outage in Spanish history, which occurred on April 28, caused an estimated 400 million euros ($454 million) in damage to the country's economy, Bloomberg reports.
Spain's largest bank, CaixaBank, estimates that consumer spending by Spanish households fell by 34% on the day of the crash. The analysis is based on data on bank card usage, online purchases and ATM withdrawals.
Part of the losses were compensated in the following days, so the overall drop in costs was about 15% of the usual level.
"According to our estimates, the one-time impact of the power outage on quarterly GDP will be less than one-tenth of a percentage point, i.e. less than 400 million euros," the bank noted.
The accident occurred at around 12:30 local time and left around 50 million people in Spain and Portugal without electricity for several hours.
The governments of both countries are investigating the cause of the incident. The outage paralyzed public transport, communications and shops.
Despite the incident, the Spanish economy remains one of the most resilient in the eurozone. The country's GDP is expected to grow by 2.6% this year and by 2.2% in 2026.
According to Bloomberg Economics, the immediate hit to the economy is about 0.5% of quarterly GDP, although some of the losses are likely to be recovered in the coming weeks.
- At least five people died in Spain due to a blackout.
- The Spanish National Court has launched an investigation into the massive power outage.
- The court does not rule out the possibility of a cyberattack, despite the objections of the Spanish electricity grid operator Red Eléctrica – in particular, due to the cyberattack on Ukrainian electricity grids in 2016.