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Former regulators, experts and former government officials have all said that the failure of Spain’s electrical grid to handle an unusually large supply of solar energy was a critical factor in the catastrophic blackout on Monday.
Around 55 percent of Spain’s electricity supply came from solar sources. On Monday afternoon, 15GW was disconnected within five seconds from the grid. This caused a large-scale shutdown of Spain and Portugal’s power systems.
Several European experts said that Spain appeared to lack enough firm power — readily available, reliable energy supply from sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear that can be reduced or raised — to kick in when the grid’s frequency dropped sharply at 12.33pm on Monday. For the grid to work, it is important that the frequency, or the rate of alternation, remains stable.
Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has said that it still does not know the exact cause of the outage. Chief executive Beatriz Corredor denied that renewables “made the system more vulnerable” in an interview with El País on Wednesday.
But André Merlin, the founder and former chief executive of France’s grid operator RTE, told the Financial Times: “Two-thirds of [Spain’s electricity] Production was made of non-controllable materials. These non-controllable resources . . . ”These non-controllable resources…
Jorge Sanz, former Spanish energy minister and board member of the International Energy Agency, said on Spanish television Wednesday evening that a possible oversupply in electricity was at first responsible for the problem. Sanz explained that the grid operator normally would have asked traditional plants to reduce their output, but it was not possible due to the small number of plants on-line.
Then, to prevent damage to the equipment, electricity would be disconnected. This in turn could have led to a power outage.
Sanz: “There’s a shortage of supplies.” [The grid operator] “It is unable to reduce the electricity supply because it has barely connected firm facilities.
Last month, transport minister Óscar Puente revealed via his X account that “an excess of voltage in the network” had caused a failure that left some high-speed rail lines out of operation for several hours.
A close adviser to the European Commission has also stated that experts are investigating whether the blackout was caused by the country’s high reliance on renewable energy and its lack of power to counterbalance intermittent supplies.
Grid operators must balance the supply and demand for electricity constantly to maintain the frequency of grid and prevent damage or outages. Solar, nuclear or fossil-fuel powered turbines are more stable than renewable technologies like solar. Spain’s grid frequency fell sharply below its optimal 50Hz rate on Monday at 12.33pm.
The reliance on solar energy at the time of the outage has led to criticisms of Red Eléctrica. Solar energy accounts for about one fifth of all the electricity in the country.
Sanz, former advisor on energy transition for the Spanish Government, stated that the grid was being “poorly managed” by not scheduling enough energy from nuclear, hydroelectric, or fossil fuels to balance the system. Just 5GW of the 26GW scheduled for Monday came from sources that were not intermittent.
The Brussels-based adviser pointed to Red Eléctrica’s own 2024 annual report, which said that disconnections caused by “high renewable penetration” without enough “necessary technical capabilities for an adequate response to disturbances” was a risk to the system.
Merlin’s criticism of the operator was tempered, but he said the renewables policy needed to be re-evaluated in light of this incident. “I do not think that the Spanish or Portuguese operators have been incompetent. “We need to be very careful with the policy of maximising the development of renewable energy and using it to the maximum extent possible, at the cost of other more conventional sources.”
Experts say that a series of events rather than one problem could have caused the outage. Kristian Ruby is the secretary-general for the industry group Eurelectric.
Merlin said that solar plants could have been the very first to fail. He proposed a different theory than Sanz’s solar oversupply. He suggested that heavy clouds could have caused production at some solar plants to drop quickly, directly impacting grid frequency.
Corredor of Red Eléctrica, who is under intense pressure to explain what happened, said the company had yet to identify the cause of the outage and could not say solar plants were behind the disconnection. She stated that the operator observed a sudden disconnect in the south-west of Spain where there are many solar plants.
“But she launched a fierce defence of Spain’s solar and wind energy systems. She also pointed out the inreliability of other energies, including nuclear.[Renewables] They are not unreliable technologies. The proof is that the system operates with renewables every day . . . It is not true that a higher penetration of renewables makes the system more vulnerable.”
Spain’s renewable network has reduced energy prices compared to many other European nations, thereby helping to boost industry and economic growth.
Pedro Sánchez’s government has set out plans to raise renewables production to 80 per cent of electricity generation by 2030, compared with more than half in 2023.
But Sánchez has come under fire from opposition politicians for plans to phase out Spain’s costly nuclear network, and several experts including Merlin have advocated for greater use of nuclear power in Spain to ensure energy security.
Iberdrola’s executive chair Ignacio Galán told analysts on Tuesday that nuclear was “the least expensive solution to secure system stability”.
A second solution would be to accelerate the roll-out of battery or storage technology, or improve connections with other countries in order to import more electricity.
Pratheeksha Ramdas is an analyst for Rystad. She said, “More capacity in storage should be the main focus of the country right now.”
David Sharrock reports from Madrid
