Six days ago, the media celebrated a significant milestone: Spain’s national grid operated entirely on renewable energy for the first time during a weekday.

At 12:35 pm today local time, the lights went out (black out) across Spain and Portugal, and parts of France.

As Michael Shellenberger writes at PUBLIC, this wasn’t just a Spanish blackout. It shook the entire European grid.

…none of this should have been a surprise. The underlying physics had been understood for years, and the specific vulnerabilities had been spelled out repeatedly in technical warnings that policymakers ignored.

…

As countries replaced heavy, spinning plants with lightweight, inverter-based generation, the grid became faster, lighter, and far more sensitive to disruptions. That basic physical reality was spelled out in public warnings as far back as 2017.

…

Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close.

…

Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024. 

Coal plants closed. Nuclear units retired. 

On many spring days by 2025, Spain’s midday solar generation exceeded its total afternoon demand, leading to frequent negative electricity prices.

The system was being pushed to the limit.

And today, at 12:35 pm, it broke.

…

Spain’s blackout wasn’t just a technical failure. It was a political and strategic failure.

…

Unless Spain rapidly invests in synthetic inertia, maintains and expands its nuclear fleet, or adds some other new form of heavy rotating generation, the risk of future blackouts will only grow worse.

Crucially, comprehending problem of inertia (or lack of it) is key to apportioning blame for this farce in a major western nation in the 21st century. Mark Nelson (@EnergyBants) simplifies the concept with the following useful metaphor:

The Small or medium-sized disturbances on the grid become very difficult to manage and can cascade into wider instability and outages when the grid is in a low inertia condition, as was the case Monday in Spain just before the massive ongoing blackout

Portugal’s grid operator, REN (Rede Eléctrica Nacional), claimed that the massive power outage affecting Portugal and Spain was sparked by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon,” specifically “extreme temperature variations” in the Spanish electricity grid. 

British media outlet LBC News provided more color on REN’s claim:

Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were “anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration'”.

“These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”

. . .

REN added that normalisation of the system could take up to a week.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas noted:

And this:

Additional BBC News headlines of the chaos unfolding across Europe’s Iberian Peninsula:

  • Delays at Spanish and Portuguese airports
  • In London, Gatwick reports delayed flights to affected areas
  • Portugal blames outage on ‘fault in Spain’s electricity grid’
  • ‘Extreme temperature variations in Spain’ contributed to outage – Portuguese grid officials
  • Restoring power across Portugal ‘could take up to a week‘
  • No indications of any cyber attack, says European Council president
  • Power back on in some substations, says Spain’s electric operator, but railways still suspended
  • French operator supplying electricity to Spain
  • Grid operator says power returning in parts of Iberian peninsula

Disruptions…

“I’m in Spain and trust me the issue isn’t the darkness…No payments possibles without cash (so no food and transportation), very limited internet and no clue whether it’ll actually be resolved,” one X user told Javier. 

The blackout highlights just how fragile the new digital and “green” society has become.

*   *   * 

Large swaths of Spain and Portugal plunged into darkness on Monday. 

Spanish power grid operator Red Electrica wrote on X:

  • Plans activated to restore electricity supply in collaboration with sector companies following the blackout that occurred in the peninsular system.
  • The causes are being analyzed, and all resources are being dedicated to resolving it.

“Parts of France also appear to be affected, according to Spanish media reports, which said Seville, Barcelona and Valencia were hit by the outage,” SKY News reported.

Bloomberg’s Javier Blas called the power outage “Massive — really, massive.” 

“Massive — really, massive — electricity outage hits Spain, which large part of the country suffering blackouts (including Madrid and Barcelona). Data from Spain’s national grid shows a lost of >10 GW of demand, from ~26GW to ~12GW in a few seconds. Reason unknonw.”

Cloudflare reported that internet connectivity dropped “by as much as 30% in Portugal and 37% in Spain” due to the power outages. 

Outages have begun to affect air travel. 

Footage:

https://twitter.com/cryptotrader_si/status/1916811862655537429

Red Electrica provided no details about what caused the nationwide blackout. 

Source Zero Hedge