A massive blackout that left millions in western Europe in the dark has raised concerns among energy experts that the event stemmed from or was worsened by an overreliance on renewable energy. [emphasis, links added]
The outage, which occurred on Monday, disrupted communications, caused some water services to fail, shut down trains, halted electronic payments and ATM transactions, disturbed traffic, and stranded travelers around Spain, Portugal, and France.
Europe’s increased dependence on renewable energy, promoted by its pursuit of net-zero emissions policies, has made the grid more vulnerable to such disruptions, according to energy policy experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The grid failure that began in Spain also impacted its neighboring countries, as the grids are interconnected. Most of the power had been restored by Tuesday morning, the Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE) wrote on X.
REE’s director of services for system operation, Eduardo Prieto, dismissed the possibility of a cyberattack and stated that “two separate disconnections” led to the grid failure, though a final report will determine the outage source.
“We don’t know exactly what the immediate cause was,” Emmet Penney, a senior fellow at the Foundation For American Innovation and writer, told the DCNF.
“Regardless of what happened, Spain has overindexed on renewable energy, which has left it vulnerable to what would be minor disturbances having a catastrophic effect.”
Penney explained that before the outage, much of the power portfolio in Spain was reliant on wind and solar energy production. In 2024, for example, 56% of Spain’s electricity stemmed from renewables, according to REE.
The outage comes less than two weeks after Spain announced that renewable sources had supplied all the electricity needed across the country’s mainland grid on April 16 — the first time this has occurred on a weekday.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that the outage occurred when 15 gigawatts of power were “suddenly lost from the system” within just five seconds.
This sharp decline disrupted grid frequency and led to cascading failures throughout the interconnected systems.
Portugal, which depends heavily on power imports from Spain, suffered widespread outages, while parts of southwestern France experienced brief disruptions due to the break in the electrical link with Spain.
At least five deaths have been attributed to the blackout due to oxygen machine failures and generator use, the Guardian reported.
Sánchez claimed that the blackout was not caused by the country’s use of renewables and further denied that a lack of nuclear energy contributed to the incident during a speech on Tuesday, adding that recovery “would have been slower” if the nation had relied more heavily on nuclear energy.
Less than two years ago, climate activists in Spain celebrated the announcement that the country’s largest coal plant would be shut down by November 2023.
A representative from Beyond Fossil Fuels said the plant’s closure highlights “how much renewables are outperforming fossil fuels on price, energy security, and desirability.”
Spain also plans to completely phase out nuclear energy, which made up 19% of the nation’s energy in 2024 according to REE, by 2035 in favor of renewable sources, though some companies in the country are lobbying to get the deadline pushed.
Other European countries like Germany have made similar pledges, though Italy and Belgium have recently moved to reverse their nuclear phase-out plans.
Top photo via On Demand News/YouTube screencap
Read rest at Daily Caller
Indonesia is currently recovering from a massive blackout in Bali. It appears to have been triggered by an issue with an under sea power cable. However, the reason there was such a massive failure is likely caused by a fragile grid, the same as Spain. With both countries, it is too soon to know for sure. Time will tell. If lack of inertia from spinning turbines due to over reliance on renewable energy is the cause, we are going to see more massive failures.
Australia is heading in the same direction as Spain…. it’s just a matter of time.
The Australian energy minister has told Australians that “nukler” won’t work in Australia and that renewables will by 80% of our grid by 2030. There is already a small nuclear reactor here that makes nuclear medicines and its been here for decades… In the meantime, this stupid Australian government is paying subsidies to: renewables develpers; select coal power stations to remain open; homeowners because their electricity bills are so high and; land owners where winmills and solar panels have been installed. We are in the process of installing 28,000 kilometres of new power lines to connect renewables, which are scattered all over the country, to the existing grid.
I heard on the news this morning that the Islands of Fiji in the South Pacific have decided to buy some nuclear power ocean going vessels that can be used to supply electricity onshore, rather than using renewables or continuing with diesel generators, their main source for electricity.
The Fijian government is obviously much smarter than Australia.
Col, the reason nuclear won’t work in Australia is because you guys are all upside down so the core would fall out of the pressure vessel. That must be it since they work just fine here in the US and over in France which uses nuclear for most of their electricity!
You just have to scratch your head at the inane comments from government officials such as your energy minister. Is he ignorant or actually really stupid? Does he not understand how an electrical grid works? My guess is he hasn’t a clue, just as those in Spain and Portugal (and Germany and the UK and…)