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Investigates Investigates Money Diaries Daft.ie Property Magazine Allianz Home Magazine The 42 Sports Magazine The Journal TV Climate Crisis Cost of Living Road Safety Newsletters Temperature Check Inside the Newsroom The Journal Investigates The Explainer A deep dive into one big news story Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture have your say Or create a free account to join the discussion Advertisement More Stories Debunked: No, the electricity blackouts in Spain and Portugal were not caused by a solar flare A solar storm shut down telegraph systems in 1859, though no such flares were recently recorded. 2.52pm, 29 Apr 2025 Share options POWER CUTS THAT plunged most of Spain and Portugal into blackout conditions have been incorrectly blamed on solar flares by online commentators, despite no significant solar activity being recorded yesterday. Electricity had been restored to more than 90% of mainland Spain early today, the REE power operator said. The cause of the blackout is still unknown, and an investigation is underway to understand what caused electricity to go down throughout most of the Iberian peninsula on Monday, leaving passengers stranded in trains and elevators. However, that has not prevented baseless speculation about the cause of the blackouts; online accounts have cited false information about the blackouts, in posts shared by thousands of others and viewed millions of times. “The Authorities are blaming the mass power outages in Spain, Portugal & France on a Solar Flare” a post by a conspiracy theorist account on X that was viewed more than 1,700,000 times said. (Authorities, such as Spain’s Prime Minister, have actually said the cause is currently unknown and asked people not to speculate.) The post includes a short clip of images from NASA’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), which shows images of the sun’s surface, including flares and eruptions. The video appears to show a dramatic eruption. However, the clip also shows the date on which the footage was recorded: 10 May 2024, almost a full year before the blackouts. A clip of a solar flare, dated May 2024 Claims that the Iberian blackouts were caused by solar flares, or that authorities had at least blamed the blackouts on solar flares, have been viewed millions of times on X. About a dozen posts making the same claim were also published on Facebook, including one that was viewed more than 17,000 times. Advertisement The idea of a solar flare causing blackouts isn’t fictional. An eruption from the sun hit Earth in 1859, causing dramatic currents to surge through electrical systems. Although a similar event today could shut down electrical grids, in 1859 the effects were less catastrophic; the telegraph system went down, operators got electric shocks, and some paper in telegraph machines caught on fire. However, ice cores indicate that similar events happen every few centuries, and if such a flare were to hit nowadays, it would likely have disastrous consequences given our reliance on extensive electrical and communication grids. Many of the online posts blaming solar flares for the Iberian blackouts also claim that there is some sort of a cover-up and blame the transition to more sustainable energy sources. “The solar flare excuse is a lie,” an American conservative said on X, instead promoting another unproven accusation. “Spain outage is why green energy doesn’t work.” These claims are false. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitors the sun continuously in order to predict disruptive events on the Sun. Their Space Weather Prediction Center includes warnings as well as readouts of data from the sun. No significant jumps in the proton flux were reported in the last week, and readings remained far below the 10 MeV warning threshold that characterises a minor solar storm. The only recent warnings, given on Sunday, were said to potentially affect satellites only. Other theories on the cause of the Iberian blackouts, including weather fluctuations, cyber attacks, and human error, have all been suggested, and then dismissed as baseless by authorities. However, although the actual cause has yet to be established, it is certain that the electrical grid was not overwhelmed by a solar flare that, according to scientific instruments aimed at the sun, didn’t happen. With reporting from AFP. Want to be your own fact-checker? Visit our brand-new FactCheck Knowledge Bank for guides and toolkits The Journal’s FactCheck is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles. You can read it here. For information on how FactCheck works, what the verdicts mean, and how you can take part, check out our Reader’s Guide here. You can read about the team of editors and reporters who work on the factchecks here. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... It is vital that we surface facts from noise.Articles like this one brings you clarity, transparency and balance so you can make well-informed decisions. We set up FactCheck in 2016 to proactively expose false or misleading information, but to continue to deliver on this mission we need your support. Over 5,000 readers like you support us. If you can, please consider setting up a monthly payment or making a once-off donation to keep news free to everyone. Support The Journal The Journal's monthly FactCheck newsletter keeps you in the loop about what misinformation trends Ireland is experiencing - and how we're fighting back. 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