Spain's competition regulator CNMC opened a formal probe into grid operator Red Eléctrica over "very serious" alleged infringements linked to the Iberian blackout of 28 April 2025, and launched separate "serious" infringement probes into power generators Iberdrola, Naturgy, Endesa and Repsol. It is the first time, nearly one year on, that Spanish authorities have assigned different degrees of wrongdoing to companies tied to the outage, which cut power to nearly 60mn people in Spain and Portugal.

The CNMC opened five probes apiece into Iberdrola, Naturgy and Endesa, and one into Repsol. Against Red Eléctrica — whose parent is led by former Socialist minister Beatriz Corredor — the regulator is citing the law's provisions on scheduling of power generation, balancing the grid, information sharing and instructions to power suppliers. A 49-day Spanish government investigation completed in June 2025 had already spread blame between "bad planning" by the grid operator and errors at power plants. European grid operators earlier called the event "the first of its kind" and demanded continent-wide reforms.

Final conclusions from the CNMC probes will take nine to 18 months. The regulator stressed that the indications of wrongdoing are not necessarily the causes of the blackout, which "had multiple causes". Source: Financial Times, 17 April 2026, Barney Jopson.