Your power could be off for six hours tomorrow

If your power cuts out on Sunday morning, don't call anyone. It's planned. It's Saturday, 22 August. Twenty-seven degrees. Air quality: 34 (Good). Here's what you need to know.

🗞️ YOUR POWER COULD BE OFF FOR SIX HOURS TOMORROW

E-REDES, the company that operates Portugal's electricity distribution network, has scheduled maintenance work for this Sunday that will temporarily cut power to parts of Lisbon, the Alentejo and the Algarve. Some areas could be without electricity for up to six hours.

In Lisbon, one of the longest interruptions is in Arroios, where electricity is expected to be cut between 5am and 11am. If you live in Arroios, that means no router, no air conditioning and no coffee machine for most of the morning. Charge your phone and any devices tonight, and if you rely on a freezer, keep the door shut, most food will stay frozen for four to six hours in a well-stocked unit. Mafra, in the wider Lisbon district, will also be affected, with work scheduled between 6am and midday across several locations.

Further south, parts of Odemira in the Alentejo are included, with cuts planned between 7am and 11am in the Union of Parishes of São Salvador and Santa Maria, and in Longueira/Almograve during the same window. Elvas will lose power in parts of São Brás and São Lourenço between 6am and 11am, and Mora is also on the list from roughly 7am to 11am.

In the Algarve, Vila do Bispo and Raposeira are scheduled for 7am to 11am. The municipality has warned that if the work runs over, it could extend to 3pm. Locations affected there include Monte Figueira Velha, Rua Vale Matias Fernandes, Sítio Alamedas, Sítio das Eiras, Vale Marmeleiro and the Vila do Bispo Industrial Zone.

The work is part of a broader programme. Earlier this month, the government approved E-REDES's new five-year investment plan for the distribution network, worth €1.58 billion between 2026 and 2030, a 50% increase on the previous plan. Around 45% of that goes to modernising ageing infrastructure across the country's 230,000 kilometres of distribution lines, with the rest split between digitalisation and preparing the grid for more renewable energy and electric vehicles. Sunday's cuts are routine scheduled maintenance under that programme, the kind of work E-REDES carries out regularly on weekends to minimise disruption, though the timing alongside an incoming weather system is unfortunate.

The cuts are targeted, not blanket: only the specific addresses listed in the E-REDES schedule will be affected, not entire municipalities. You can check whether your address is included on the E-REDES scheduled interruptions page at e-redes.pt, searching by date, municipality and parish. The programme may still be updated before Sunday.

It’s worth knowing, this comes alongside an unusual weather shift. IPMA, the Portuguese meteorological institute, has warned of a depression with "characteristics more typical of autumn" arriving as early as Sunday, bringing persistent rain, strong winds and rough seas mainly to the north and centre, potentially lasting into Tuesday. IPMA meteorologist Ângela Lourenço told Lusa it has "more autumnal than summer characteristics." If you are in a cut zone and also expecting rain, plan accordingly tonight.

Bottom line: check e-redes.pt for your address, charge what you can tonight, and keep an eye on the weather forecast for Sunday.

⚡ QUICK HITS

ChatGPT will start showing ads in Portugal on Monday. OpenAI confirmed this week that its advertising programme expands to 31 European markets, including Portugal, from 24 August. The ads will appear only for users on the free and lower-cost Go plans, not for paid subscribers on Plus, Pro or Enterprise. At launch they will not be personalised in Europe under GDPR rules, and will instead be selected based on the topic of the conversation, approximate location and device type. Health, mental health and political ads are excluded near sensitive content. OpenAI says advertisers will not have access to individual conversations. The rollout follows a US pilot that began in February.

Portugal's pension surplus may not be what it seems. A report published this week by a working group led by economist Jorge Bravo warns that Portugal's social security surplus is misleading once you combine it with the Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA), the public body responsible for civil servants' pensions. The authors put the real deficit at nearly €1.94 billion in 2025. The apparent surplus, they say, is propped up by rising immigration and the structural shift of CGA contributors onto the general system. The report recommends introducing automatic workplace pensions. The government has already said it will not pursue a structural pension reform before 2029.

Portugal exported more than 66 tonnes of medicinal cannabis in the first half of this year. Figures from Infarmed, the national medicines regulator, show 66,305 kilograms shipped between January and June, already more than 80% of the total for all of 2025. Germany, Spain and Denmark are the leading buyers. Domestically, prescriptions are rising fast too: 5,413 in the first six months, compared with 7,023 for the whole of last year. Portugal legalised cannabis-based medicines in 2018, and 43 entities are now authorised to cultivate and manufacture. The country is Europe's largest exporter and the second largest globally, behind Canada.

Somewhere between the third "let's circle back" and an endless Slack thread, you started skimming business news instead of actually understanding it. Can't blame you—most of it reads like a lifeless shareholder memo.

Sound familiar? Morning Brew fixes that. Inflation, global trade, the weird stuff happening in business—we cover it like a smart friend explaining the news, minus the boring parts. Plenty of puns, plenty of sense.

Business news doesn't have to be boring. Join over 4 million professionals who found the loophole.

Try it for free

A quick note: today's ad comes from one of our network partners, Morning Brew. Partnerships like this one are what keep The Lisbon Letter free to read every morning, and we thank them for it.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

GRENACHE THE BISTRO (ANJOS)

This is the casual sibling of the one-Michelin-star Grenache, opened at the end of April by chef Matshaya Pinto, who runs it while her partner Philippe Gelfi stays at the original in Alfama. She is from Goa, he is from France, and the idea was simple: bring the same care and technique to a menu people can eat on any given evening without spending €85 a head.

The space is small, 24 seats on Rua Angelina Vidal 88B, in a stretch of Anjos that has been filling up with new openings over the past couple of years. The menu is seasonal, changes regularly, and applies French bistro technique to Portuguese ingredients. Think classic terrines, tartares and slow-cooked dishes, always driven by what is available locally. There are around 500 wine references, the same depth as the Michelin-starred parent at a fraction of the markup, and a small upstairs lounge for a drink before or after.

It is open Thursday to Monday, 6pm to midnight, and closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A meal for two with wine runs around €50 to €70.

→ Find them here ←

Insider tip: the wine list is worth asking about. It has the same depth as the Michelin-starred parent but at bistro prices. Ask the staff what is open that evening and let them point you somewhere good. The space is walk-in friendly, that was the whole idea, but with only 24 seats, booking ahead is smart.

📅 WHAT'S ON

See you tomorrow morning.

Reach Lisbon's English-speaking community, every morning. Advertise.