The Pain in Spain Came Mainly From Solar Strain
Life is returning to normal in Spain and Portugal today, but Monday’s massive blackout should not be dismissed as a fluke. It should be treated as a cautionary tale of what happens when your electric grid bets too heavily on intermittent sources like solar without enough scalable, dispatchable backup power.
According to reporting from Fox News’ Greg Norman, the widespread blackout that brought train systems, airports, government buildings, and financial networks across the Iberian Peninsula to a halt is now being blamed on two likely solar plant breakdowns in southwest Spain. Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica identified the incidents as the source of instability that triggered a cascading failure, even severing the interconnection to France and knocking out electricity for millions of customers.
“We have never had a complete collapse of the system,” admitted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
This wasn’t just a brief inconvenience. 35,000 train passengers had to be rescued from tunnels and stations. Madrid’s airport and subway system shut down. Portugal’s capital went dark, with ATMs, traffic lights, and courts inoperable. The economic cost estimates now range between $2.5 billion and $5 billion.
To make matters worse, Portugal’s grid operator originally blamed a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” related to temperature swings. But Spain’s own meteorological agency later said it recorded no unusual atmospheric events at all.
The real lesson here is one energy experts in the U.S. have warned about for years: relying on solar and wind without firm dispatchable backup power like oil, natural gas, and coal, the grid is dangerously exposed to failure.
Grid stability isn’t negotiable. Spain’s blackout was a wake-up call. Let’s answer it before it’s our turn.
April 29, 2025