Summary
⚈ European markets stayed calm, with Spanish utility stocks quickly rebounding.
⚈ Rising grid tensions and past failures raise concerns over future stability.
On Monday, April 28, Spain and Portugal experienced what both the authorities in both European countries have described as nationwide electricity outages, though at press time, there is no explanation for the incident.
Madrid’s Barajas and Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado airports have, reportedly, been closed, and passengers across both countries found themselves stuck with some allegations that metro trains have stopped in tunnels between stops.
Subsequent reports also indicate that some citizens of Andorra – a microstate nestled in the Pyrenees between Spain and France – and of southern France have likewise experienced a power outage.
The geographic location has led some to link the ongoing incident with a fire in the Alaric mountain of France, as it has reportedly damaged a high-voltage power line.
Simultaneously, media in the Iberian countries reported that the outage might be due to issues with the European electric grid, though, at press time, there are no official answers.
European equity markets react to the outage
Despite the scale and persistence of the outage, European equity markets have, as a whole, not reacted with the benchmark STOXX Europe 600 index staying on its modestly upward course.
The more directly related Spanish stocks, such as the airport manager Aena SME (BME: AENA), and the country’s two biggest electricity firms, Endesa (BME: ELE) and Iberdrola (BME: IBE), all fell approximately 0.50% on the initial reports.
European investors, however, appear to have taken the incident as a ‘buy the dip’ opportunity, with all three stocks either back in the green or close to level compared to the Monday open by press time on April 28.
Is there more trouble ahead for the European Energy Grid?
The Iberian power outage comes as anxiety over certain aspects of the European Energy Grid. In recent years, the dispute between France and Germany has taken center stage, but there has also been a greater trend against international connections.
In the first half of 2024, the Swedish government refused to link its grid with Germany via an undersea cable, and late in the same year, reports about Norway’s push to disconnect from the rest of the continent emerged.
Lastly, the summer of 2024 also saw a major international power outage in Southeast Europe, as the heatwave drove AC usage up in Montenegro, triggering a domino collapse in parts of Albania, Bosnia, and Croatia.
Featured image via Shutterstock
