What does the outage mean for visitors and residents?

For 22 minutes, in the middle of the morning routine, La Palma had no mains electricity. According to Endesa, power went at 07:23 on 4 November and came back at 07:45.

The reports do not say which municipalities lost power. So anyone living or on holiday in the south of the island cannot tell from them whether their own accommodation was affected.

No official notices, closures or new rules are known, and no compensation has been announced. The reports only suggest that the grid remains fragile, above all in bad weather.

Anyone on La Palma now should charge phones and power banks early. That is general advice, not an official recommendation.

What exactly happened on 4 November?

Endesa says several generating units at the Los Guinchos power station shut down, and that is the immediate cause. The deeper cause is unknown and under investigation.

Los Guinchos, the thermal power station in Breña Alta, is described as the oldest in the Canaries. Press reports put parts of the plant at 50 to 54 years old, but Endesa does not blame age for the outage.

Another report speaks of about 20 minutes and a return of power around 07:43. The two-minute gap changes nothing, so Endesa’s 22 minutes stand.

According to that report, Endesa admits it does not know the exact reasons for this new outage. No list of affected municipalities is available.

How does the outage link to the blackout of 2 November?

On Monday 2 November, the whole island lost power, and 50,508 connections went dark. The blackout began at 06:38, and full supply returned at 10:26, after 3 hours and 48 minutes.

The trouble had started earlier. At 04:10, a fault on the 66-kilovolt Guinchos–Valle line had already hit 17,624 connections.

At 05:40, supply came back through switching in the medium-voltage grid, while the high-voltage line stayed out of service. From 07:56, the grid operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE) reconnected the Los Guinchos generators step by step.

At 08:40, a diesel generator joined the grid. Severe thunderstorms and heavy rain under the highest warning level hit at the time of the blackout, and first indications point to a link with the storm, but it is not confirmed.

What does the government say, and who is responsible?

Mariano Hernández Zapata, consejero (regional minister) for Ecological Transition and Energy in the Canaries, sees “important shortcomings in generation, transmission and distribution” on the La Palma grid. His government says it is in contact with REE and Endesa, with some solutions under way and others taking longer.

In June 2025, after that month’s outages, Zapata opened investigation proceedings against REE and Endesa Generación and ordered on-site inspections. He said sanctions were possible.

At Los Guinchos, more than half the units are older than 25 years, and two are older than 50. Endesa blames a tender from the Ministry for Ecological Transition (MITECO) that it says has been open for over 12 years.

By its own statement of 17 July 2025, Endesa was the only bidder. The renewal of the diesel plants on La Palma, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura is due before 2029, and neither the capacity nor the investment sum is known.

Have outages like this happened on La Palma before?

On 10 June 2025, the whole island lost power, with 50,289 connections hit, according to Endesa’s report to the Cabildo (island government). The regional ministry gives 2 hours and 45 minutes, and a turbine fault at Los Guinchos set it off.

On 8 May 2025, about 19,000 people lost power for almost two hours. On 12 May, more than 17,000 customers were hit when a construction machine damaged an underground cable near the former airfield in Breña Alta.

That was the third outage within a month. REE also rejected the claim that the June outage began at its Los Guinchos substation.

On La Gomera, a total outage in 2023 lasted about three days, and the ministry says the sanction proceedings are still running. The Cabildo de La Palma demands clarity on the causes but has no authority over electricity.

Is there compensation, and what happens next?

Royal Decree 1955/2000 governs supply quality and counts interruptions of more than three minutes. A 22-minute outage is above that threshold, and the decree makes the distribution company liable towards consumers.

The sources give no amounts for the 2025 or 2026 outages either. Nothing on this has been published.

Whether REE, Endesa or the ministry will open formal proceedings is unclear. So far, nobody has published dates, deadlines or investment plans.