Lessons Learned from the Blackout of 28th April 2025
Lluis Merino Villagrasa
Global Senior Service & Contract Manager @ Colt Technology Services | Telco Sector | Telecommunications & Telematics Engineer UPC | Executive Development Program IESE Business School
On Monday, April 28th, 2025, we experienced an unprecedented situation: a total blackout across the Iberian Peninsula. This complete interruption of the power supply left more than 50 million people without electricity, communications, and access to basic services.
In this article, I invite you to reflect on what happened and explore the lessons learned, both at the business and personal levels, to improve our resilience for the future.
Hypotheses on the causes of the Blackout
Much has been discussed about the hypotheses regarding the causes of the blackout that occurred on April 28th, 2025, at 12:33 PM, although the real root cause is still under investigation.
Some of the hypotheses considered are:
It is likely that the origin lies in a combination of technical and management factors that have exposed certain structural weaknesses in the energy model, which until now had proven to be completely reliable.
I recall when in California in the 1990s, there were rolling blackouts due to a combination of excessive energy demand, lack of generation capacity, and problems in the regulation of the electricity market. These supply cuts were planned to avoid a total system collapse that supplied energy to areas like San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Impact of the Blackout on society and the economy
In Spain and Portugal, the repercussions of the blackout were massive:
It is estimated that the blackout caused a loss of 0.1% of Spain's GDP, equivalent to about 1.6 billion euros.
Key actions to strengthen resilience
As a result of this experience, both companies and citizens must strengthen our preparation for critical situations.
Beyond the actions that electric companies and their managers must take, this article proposes a series of priority actions to strengthen resilience based on the lessons learned from the blackout on Monday, April 28th, 2025:
1. Strengthening contingency and business continuity plans
Organizations must review their business continuity plans, ensuring the availability of backup power systems such as generators and UPS, especially in critical sites and data centers.
Only datacentres, communication nodes, hospitals, and other critical offices were able to withstand up to 12 hours without power, thanks to generators.
Although it may be hard to believe, April 28th was likely the most significant contingency test our organizations have had to endure in decades. For this reason, it is essential to document the impacts on each team's productivity and response capability to further strengthen both the Contingency Plan and the Business Continuity Plan.
2. Redundancy in communication systems
It is essential to evaluate what communication alternatives exist in each office or site. Having redundant connections and autonomous systems can make the difference between continuing business operations or being completely isolated.
Many offices were affected by the power outage, and although laptop batteries allowed employees to work locally, they were cut off from their colleagues and the organization's servers. The backup plan using 4G and 5G mobile communications was also not viable, as these networks became saturated and failed during the blackout.
Therefore, it is crucial to redesign the LAN/WAN communication networks of organizations to consider various scenarios of physical or electrical outages so that they can continue operating their business, even in situations like the blackout that occurred on Monday, April 28.
3. Optimization of crisis protocols
As mentioned in the previous point, during the blackout, Internet connections, especially mobile networks (3G/4G/5G), failed. As a result, many people could only receive information through traditional analog radio, which is increasingly outdated due to the use of internet radio and podcasts.
For this reason, organizations must establish clear alternative channels to inform and coordinate with their teams during critical moments, especially if digital channels like email, mobile messaging, WhatsApp, or even phone calls fail.
In these cases of communication breakdown, it is essential that employees have received training, are aware of the situation, and have clear prior instructions on how to act.
4. Ensuring mobility
Given the transportation chaos experienced in major cities, organizations must update their protocols to determine the most effective plans to ensure the safety and mobility of their personnel.
For example, in Catalonia, schools could not close if there was even one student left to be picked up. Similarly, it is necessary to consider how to act if employees of a company cannot use any means of transportation to get home or to work, especially if they cannot work remotely due to a power outage.
5. Individual preparation and autonomy
On a personal level, initial autonomy is key. In case of an emergency or crisis, each employee must first ensure their own safety and that of their family, and then follow the protocols and instructions of their organization.
It is also important to be prepared with a survival kit as recommended by the European Union:
6. Improving our adaptation to a changing environment
We live in an environment where the pace of change is constantly accelerating. Technological evolution is exponential and rapidly transforms our society, simultaneously increasing our dependence on digital and electrical systems. This interconnection means that any interruption in the power supply has a much deeper impact on our daily lives.
We saw surprising examples during the blackout: parking garages that could only be accessed via an elevator or a mobile app, phones that became useless bricks because they always require an internet connection even to listen to the radio, or people who claimed to be lost in the city because they couldn't access Google Maps.
Given this reality, it is essential to educate and prepare ourselves, as well as the new generations, to remain calm, manage frustration, and develop tools that allow us to adapt flexibly to unforeseen situations. Resilience also begins with the attitude and ability to adapt to the unexpected.
Conclusions and call to action
I hope that the experience of last Monday 28th April 2025 in Spain and Portugal, does not repeat itself, as many people suffered from the chaos in transportation, traffic in major cities, and communication breakdowns. However, I also hope it serves as a call to action for each shared lessons learned for organizations and each of us to become more resilient in the future.
It is difficult when living through a crisis, but we have already had to adapt to the new reality brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. See the article: Reflections during the lockdown and the transformation to the new normal that I wrote in May 2020.
Similarly, we must also be able to adapt to the global economic uncertainty due to the tariff war. See the article: My analysis of the impact of tariffs on global trade that I wrote in April 2025.
Hopefully, these crisis experiences will not repeat in the future. But if there is something we must take from these experiences, it is the drive to learn, adapt, prepare, and become more resilient. We experienced it with the COVID-19 pandemic, with global economic crises,... and now with the fragility of our energy infrastructure.
As Yuval Noah Harari says:
“The key to adapting to the brutal changes coming in the next 20 years is to forget what you think you know.”
We continue learning. We continue adapting. And above all, we continue working to be more resilient.
I hope you enjoyed my reflection on the Lessons Learned from the Blackout of 28th April 2025. I look forward to your comments and contributions to enrich this reflection.