Rain gauges at La Palma airport recorded 77.5 litres per square metre during overnight storms. The island-wide outage began at about 06:38 on 2 November, while the island was under maximum rain alert. Endesa reported that 50,508 supply points lost electricity. All thermal generating units supplying the island disconnected, though investigators have not established the cause. Reports also identified a fault on the 66-kilovolt Guinchos-Valle line, described as La Palma’s only transmission connection. Agencia EFE reported that electricity returned to all 50,508 supplies at 10:26 local time, after 3 hours and 48 minutes.
Red Eléctrica de España (REE) began restoring service while awaiting the reconnection of Los Guinchos, La Palma’s diesel-fired thermal power station. Recovery depended on reconnecting units at the plant. Some initially failed to start. That delayed the return of service across the island. Both the transmission-line fault and the station’s disconnection were reported, but investigators have not established the precise sequence that triggered the blackout.
The outage was La Palma’s second island-wide blackout in less than 18 months. The previous one occurred on 10 June 2025, when an incident at Los Guinchos left 50,289 customers without electricity for about three hours; power was restored shortly before 21:00. The Canary Islands Government opened proceedings to clarify the cause. La Palma is in the Canary Islands and is distinct from Palma in Mallorca, where an earlier report on clashes covered a separate event.
Los Guinchos is central to the island’s electricity generation. System-operator data cited in reporting put renewable generation at barely 10% of demand at peak production in 2025. Endesa has described the plant’s generating units as the oldest in the Canary Islands; reporting also said their renewal had been held up for 12 years by a delayed public tender.
Mariano Hernández Zapata, the Canary Islands’ regional minister for Ecological Transition and Energy, said the island’s electricity infrastructure has significant weaknesses in generation and in the power networks responsible for transmission and distribution. The regional ministry characterized these as structural problems and said some corrective measures were under way, while others were progressing more slowly than desired. Hernández Zapata said the regional government is pursuing measures to improve supply security; some are under way, while others require longer implementation periods.
The regional ministry is in continuing contact with Endesa and REE to establish what happened. The Canary Islands Government raised the rain emergency on La Palma to maximum alert and activated the Plateca civil protection plan’s alert status following the failure of the electricity system. Authorities and power companies are monitoring the incident as they investigate its cause.
