Spain’s Blackout Fuels Misinformation About Renewable Energy

In a dramatic turn of events this spring, tens of millions of people across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France experienced a prolonged power outage that left trains halted and people stranded in elevators for up to ten hours. As the lights went out across southwestern Europe, an immediate wave of finger-pointing began, with many critics taking aim at renewable energy sources.

Spain, a European leader in green energy transition, derives approximately 46% of its electricity from solar and wind power, according to the think tank Ember, with that figure sometimes exceeding 70%. This substantial renewable portfolio quickly became the target of criticism, with outlets like The Daily Mail publishing headlines questioning whether renewable energy was to blame for the massive blackout.

On the day of the outage, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former fracking executive, appeared on CNBC and criticized renewable energy. “When you hitch your wagon to the weather,” Wright stated, “it’s just a risky endeavor.” This notion that solar and wind are inherently unreliable is a common refrain from renewable energy critics, often promoted by groups with ties to the fossil fuel industry.

However, a newly released report from an expert panel of European grid operators has now detailed what actually happened during the blackout, and the findings contradict these claims. The report identifies that a voltage surge — not renewable energy — caused the massive outage. This marks the first time such a voltage event has triggered a major blackout in Europe.

“It contradicts the numerous claims that we’ve seen that an overreliance on renewables was the cause,” explains Chris Rosslowe, a senior energy analyst at Ember who was not involved in drafting the report. “That is clearly not true.”

According to the investigation, oscillations, or sudden swings in power flow, initially hit the grid for reasons still being investigated. Spain’s main grid operator took measures to control these oscillations, including reducing power transmission to France. While these actions helped dampen the oscillations, they inadvertently caused voltage to surge.

Antonio Gómez-Expósito, electrical engineering professor at University of Seville, explains that voltage in an electrical system is comparable to water pressure. Just as adequate pressure is essential for water to flow, a certain voltage level is required to push electrons through a circuit. However, when voltage becomes excessive, it can cause equipment failures, which is exactly what happened when transformers and power plants shut down during the surge.

Critics of renewable energy frequently cited a lack of “inertia” as the culprit behind the blackout. Inertia, created by large spinning turbines in conventional power plants, helps stabilize sudden fluctuations in a grid’s frequency. Solar and wind installations have less inherent inertia because they don’t use these massive spinning turbines.

However, Spain’s main grid operator, Red Eléctrica, explicitly stated in their own report that “the incident was not caused by an inertia problem.” Modern power resources like wind, solar, and batteries may have less inertia, but Gómez-Expósito notes they “have infinitely greater response speeds” when properly managed.

Despite these clarifications, the misinformation has already made an impact. A survey by the Climate Action Against Disinformation Coalition found that seven in ten Spanish respondents and six in ten British respondents believed at least one false narrative about the blackout, with the most commonly accepted falsehood being that excessive reliance on renewables was at fault.

“This content makes it seem more normal and feel more normal to hate on renewables,” says Philip Newell, communications co-chair of the Coalition. “Even though they’re a solution to climate change.”

This incident mirrors similar misinformation campaigns following the 2021 Texas power outage, when critics blamed wind and solar despite investigations revealing that natural gas, coal, and nuclear plants forced offline by freezing temperatures were the primary cause of the crisis.

Contrary to these negative narratives, renewable energy is proving increasingly reliable when paired with modern grid management techniques. Elliot Mainzer, chief executive of the California Independent System Operator, points to the essential role of massive batteries in enhancing renewable reliability. California, which generated two-thirds of its electricity from clean sources in 2023, has successfully used solar-plus-battery systems to prevent blackouts during extreme heat events when gas plants were underperforming.

As climate change intensifies extreme weather events, the combination of solar power and battery storage—both of which perform well in heat—will be increasingly crucial for maintaining grid stability in a warming world.