Iberia mess places timely focus on grid resilience

Reuters

30-04-2025

LONDON, April 30 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The mass blackouts that brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill earlier this week were unprecedented in their scale. Authorities have yet to establish the definitive cause of the disruption, with an Iberian over-reliance on low-carbon energy, electricity exports to other countries and even cyberattacks all bandied around as potential culprits. That creates a risk to the low-carbon energy transition, but also an opportunity.
Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica identified a 'strong oscillation' in power flows at around midday on Monday, triggering a precipitous drop in electricity generation. The loss overwhelmed the network, which was initially disconnected from the wider European power system before suffering a much bigger collapse. Neighbouring Portugal, which imports electricity from Spain, was caught up in the cascading failure.
Grid problems are far from unusual, even if the 60% of the Spanish network affected this time is. In 2019, a lightning strike and a series of subsequent mishaps cut off power, opens new tab to a million UK customers. But while it's a good thing that wind and solar power supply over 60% of Spain's electricity, such a relatively high national proportion can make transmission networks more brittle in the face of unforeseen outages. That's because the massive rotating generators used in nuclear and fossil fuel plants keep turning and generating power when supply falls, through so-called 'inertia'.
The risk now is that forces hostile to decarbonisation seize on the confusion and blame the mess on the fact that solar and wind generation don't have much inertia unless they've been fitted with spinning machines that provide grid stability. Given that energy experts have long understood the problem, and Spain may just not have had enough of these so-called 'synchronous condensers', that would be highly misleading. But President Donald Trump's hostility to net zero considerations has emboldened fellow green sceptics.
Yet, absent official findings showing green energy was more centrally to blame, Spain's grid disaster may also have a silver lining. Steps like replacing polluting petrol cars with electric vehicles mean that electricity's share of energy demand, opens new tab will need to grow from around 20% today, to up to 70% by 2050. To avoid this torrent of zero-carbon energy swamping the grid or being shut out of it, the Energy Transitions Commission reckons grid investment needs to rise from around $300 billion a year today to $800 billion in 2050.
These funds should allow for the replacement of old lines and the construction of new ones, as well as upgrading grid capabilities. But it's easy to see how ostensibly more pressing requirements like rearmament shove these considerations down the priority list. If nothing else, Spain's situation could bring creaking energy networks to the forefront of European lawmakers' minds.
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CONTEXT NEWS
Spain and Portugal suffered the worst blackout in their history on April 28 following cascading failure on the electricity transmission network. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the country lost 15 gigawatts of electricity generation in just five seconds, or around 60% of national demand.
The outage grounded planes and stopped metro services, while hospitals were forced to cancel routine procedures. Electricity was largely restored to both countries by the afternoon of April 29, though the cause of the failure has not yet been established.
Spain's High Court will investigate whether energy infrastructure was deliberately sabotaged. Grid operator REE has ruled out a cyberattack, and suggested a connection failure with France triggered the blackouts.
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