section_path: Power restoration/Spain
section_name: Spain
paragraph_text: Spain
  
  About 16:00 CEST on 28 April, Spanish electrical operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE) estimated it would take "between six and ten hours" to restore service calling the outage "exceptional and totally extraordinary". The international power lines from France first restarted the regions Aragón-Cataluña and Galicia-León, which then repowered the main grid. Hydropower and gas turbines increased the power. The international power lines from Morocco also contributed; to alleviate the power cut, Morocco delivered 900 MW of electricity through the Spain-Morocco interconnection that crosses the Strait of Gibraltar from Fardioua to Tarifa, while France sent up to 2 GW of electricity through power lines supplying Catalonia and the Basque Country, and in turn Germany sent power to France. The supply reactivation after the "zero energy" in Spain was accomplished by the Aldeadávila hydroelectric power plant in Salamanca, operated by Iberdrola. This hydroelectric power plant has an autonomous start, which differentiates it from most power plants that need energy to keep producing. Thus, it was possible to reactivate other power plants and substations gradually. By evening, most of the Peninsula had power, and Luis Atienza (former REE president and member of Spain's ruling PSOE) noted the relatively quick repowering of such a large area, in comparison to the days of rotating outages during the 2021 Texas power crisis. In the following days, gas turbines were delivering more power than usual, as their inertia and voltage stability was demanded by the grid operator, but increasing the cost by about 1 eurocent per kWh.
  
  By 07:00 CEST (05:00 UTC) on 29 April, electricity had been restored to 99% of energy demand, and full restoration was achieved by 11:00 CEST (09:00 UTC) that same day. Exports to France also resumed.