14 hours as a real Sinluz: The strange experience of the major power outage in Spain -.

Note to readers: Elden Ring’s Tarnished are called “Sinluz” (without light) in Spain.

Yesterday, April 28, 2025, at 12:33 a.m., the Spanish power grid suddenly lost 15 gigawatts of power, equivalent to about 60% of the Spanish territory’s total demand, in just five seconds. This resulted in what is already known as “The Great Blackout. “, a period of “absolute zero” without any electricity supply that lasted most of the day and, depending on the region, even into the night.

The power outage left the entire Iberian Peninsula, some 60 million people, without electricity and therefore without access to the Internet or telephone networks, completely cut off from communication. Because of the peculiarities of island systems and continental connections, this included all of Portugal (and southern France, according to some sources), but excluding the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands. It is said that the Iberian blackout acted as a firewall that contained the contagion of the energy disaster to other countries in the rest of Europe.

At the time of publication of this piece (grid stability permitting), we still don’t know the causes. We do know the intermediate ones, such as “a large power oscillation,” but not what caused it in the first place. In the absence of the whole truth, however filled with various political and social reflections and other thoughts, I can only summarize what happened and how we felt about it.

I think there were two very natural reactions that were replicated in many parts of the map. The first, at least in our case, was fear . To put it bluntly. I can disguise it as “annoyance,” “uneasiness,” or “concern,” but the first thing that came to mind when I realized the magnitude of the attack beyond the regional to the multinational was, even in all its literacy, that it was an attack. And we all have to be careful not to pass this possibility on to others, but you don’t have to have seen Live Free or Die Hard to know what a total blackout can entail, what it can be used for or what can come next. Especially in the current geopolitical situation.

Within minutes it was impossible to contact anyone. No war had broken out (another one), no volcano had erupted (yet another), no pandemic had broken out (yet another), but land transportation was beginning to experience serious disruptions: trains stopped in the middle of nowhere and traffic lights went out in the heart of major cities. One colleague couldn’t hear from his son, who was camping in Granada. Another of his wives, afraid she was going into labor. Nor could I hear about my mother with limited mobility, who would soon return from Valencia. In the end, these cases were small when you think of the people who had surgery or a hospital emergency at the time. Or those who spent hours isolated in an elevator, in the subway under the subway or on scaffolding. Or, as seems the most common consequence, the more than 35,000 passengers that emergency services had to rescue from stalled trains.

It seemed that nothing serious was going on, but the disconnect made it feel like it could happen, and that was enough. The second reaction, once the situation was assumed, was one of ridiculous amazement at how dependent we are on connectedness. To both the electrical grid and the Internet. That we turn on the switches of lights that don’t come on when we enter bathrooms and bedrooms is almost endearing, funny, but not so much that we look at our cell phones to a greater or lesser extent. Not just to check “if it’s back yet,” but as a kind of OCS, already in the grip of abstinence syndrome.

Perhaps this forced disconnection will teach us something. This is what I wanted to get to today, and what I want to conclude with below. Perhaps, and this is more likely, we long to return to what we had a few hours earlier, to our consensual dependence, to our mini doses of dopamine. And all forgotten.

Thus passed the hours of a strange day. People overreacting, with all the right in the world given the uncertainty and the two previous points, with jugs of water, loaves of bread and cans of sardines. As if a European leader had advised us to stock up for several days. People, lots of people, who on such a warm spring day were doing something very healthy: going out. On. the. Street. More people than ever in parks and squares, for once really taking advantage of the opportunity.

All in all, a thin air. Sometimes, similar to the air one breathed, pardon the analogy, when one went into the outside world in the toughest days of lockdown during the pandemic. As if the colors were different, as if you hadn’t noticed that tree, that sidewalk, that store before. As if they weren’t there to begin with.

Meanwhile, navigating through a sea of fake news and misinformation. With no data, I went to the car to listen to the analog radio. Neighbors and other groups had shared in a cursory communication after the blackout that this was already affecting southern Italy and even Germany. On the street or acquaintances were already talking about “half of Europe.” Can I travel to the Comicon in Naples in two days, given the status of the trains? “They just evacuated the entire Atocha station in Madrid. And the food and medicine in the fridge? All spoiled. The mind searched for the instant information and constant effects that social media dose from the cell phone, but found only a kind of broken phone game and, again, a combination of worry and understandable upset. “And how can I inform the Danish headquarters of Gamereactor about what is really happening to their Spanish employees?” “Come on, I need to write something offline on my laptop so I don’t waste the day” “How about playing some Mario Kart on Switch, which still has battery life?”

Fortunately, around 3 p.m. Red Eléctrica did what it promised to do and the outage lasted from then on for 6 to 10 hours, just before it started messing with people’s heads too much. Because we know from very recent examples of the impact of tension and nerves on social behavior, no matter how exemplary it seems to have been as a rule yesterday.

Until 02:00 a.m. we had no networks in Ciudad Real, so the end of the day and nightfall were lived in complete blackout. Stress and anxiety began to give way when there was talk of “percentage recovered” and “back to normal” on the old transistor. We were still hooked and involuntarily reached for the cell phone to “check something,” but a higher hand began to stop us. The sky began to be covered with stars, cleaner and brighter than ever. It’s amazing how such a small town can sully such a beautiful view with light pollution. I felt like strolling through the streets in complete darkness and climbing the hill to see the historic, hopefully unrepeatable spectacle.

But then the two candles we had on the living room table as the only constant light source in the entire house caught my attention. The mind sought its solution for television after dinner as something necessary that is not really needed, but the archaic and minimalist solution, warm and flickering, made an unexpected call for calm. A sudden opportunity for reflection and meditation. A moment of almost involuntary relaxation. Another, welcome sense of sleep. A reminder and warning of the Sinluz I will have forgotten tonight.