{"id":862328,"date":"2025-07-13T23:13:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T04:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/13\/did-solar-power-cause-spains-blackout\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T23:13:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T04:13:46","slug":"did-solar-power-cause-spains-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/13\/did-solar-power-cause-spains-blackout\/","title":{"rendered":"Did solar power cause Spain\u2019s blackout?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>At roughly midday on Monday, April 28, the lights went out in Spain. The grid blackout, which extended into parts of Portugal and France, affected tens of millions of people\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/travel\/2025\/04\/29\/travel-mayhem-in-spain-and-portugal-as-power-outage-grounds-flights-and-paralyses-train-ne\" target=\"_blank\">flights were grounded<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/english.elpais.com\/spain\/2025-04-28\/widespread-power-outage-in-spain-leaves-thousands-cut-off-calls-and-messages-nearly-impossible.html\" target=\"_blank\">cell networks went down<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euronews.com\/business\/2025\/04\/28\/how-spain-and-portugals-economies-could-be-hit-by-the-blackout\" target=\"_blank\">businesses closed for the day<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Over a week later, officials still aren\u2019t entirely sure what happened, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/trumps-energy-secretary-baselessly-blames-spains-power-outage-on-renewables\/\" target=\"_blank\">some (including the US energy secretary, Chris Wright) have suggested<\/a> that renewables may have played a role, because just before the outage happened, wind and solar accounted for about 70% of electricity generation. Others, including Spanish government officials, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/apr\/30\/environment-minister-warns-against-blaming-spain-blackout-on-renewable-energyhttps:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/apr\/30\/environment-minister-warns-against-blaming-spain-blackout-on-renewable-energy\" target=\"_blank\">insisted that it\u2019s too early to assign blame<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>It\u2019ll take weeks to get the full report, but we do know a few things about what happened. <strong>And even as we wait for the bigger picture, there are a few takeaways that could help our future grid.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start with what we know so far about what happened, <a href=\"https:\/\/english.elpais.com\/spain\/2025-05-01\/the-five-seconds-that-plunged-spain-into-darkness.html\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Spanish grid operator Red El\u00e9ctrica<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A disruption in electricity generation took place a little after 12:30 p.m. This may have been a power plant flipping off or some transmission equipment going down.<\/li>\n<li>A little over a second later, the grid lost another bit of generation.<\/li>\n<li>A few seconds after that, the main interconnector between Spain and southwestern France got disconnected as a result of grid instability.<\/li>\n<li>Immediately after, virtually all of Spain\u2019s electricity generation tripped offline.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>One of the theories floating around is that things went wrong because the grid diverged from its normal frequency. (All power grids have a set frequency: In Europe the standard is 50 hertz, which means the current switches directions 50 times per second.) The frequency needs to be constant across the grid to keep things running smoothly.<\/p>\n<p>There are signs that the outage could be frequency-related. Some experts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-blackout-in-spain-and-portugal\/\" target=\"_blank\">pointed out that strange oscillations<\/a> in the grid frequency occurred shortly before the blackout.<\/p>\n<p>Normally, our grid can handle small problems like an oscillation in frequency or a drop that comes from a power plant going offline. But some of the grid\u2019s ability to stabilize itself is tied up in old ways of generating electricity.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Power plants like those that run on coal and natural gas have massive rotating generators. If there are brief issues on the grid that upset the balance, those physical bits of equipment have inertia: They\u2019ll keep moving at least for a few seconds, providing some time for other power sources to respond and pick up the slack. (I\u2019m simplifying here\u2014for more details I\u2019d highly recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrel.gov\/docs\/fy20osti\/73856.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">this report<\/a> from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.)<\/p>\n<p>Solar panels don\u2019t have inertia\u2014they rely on inverters to change electricity into a form that\u2019s compatible with the grid and matches its frequency. Generally, these inverters are \u201cgrid-following,\u201d meaning if frequency is dropping, they follow that drop.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the blackout in Spain, it\u2019s possible that having a lot of power on the grid coming from sources without inertia made it more possible for a small problem to become a much bigger one.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Some key questions here are still unanswered. <\/strong>The order matters, for example. During that drop in generation, did wind and solar plants go offline first? Or did everything go down together?<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not solar and wind contributed to the blackout as a root cause, we do know that wind and solar don\u2019t contribute to grid stability in the same way that some other power sources do, says Seaver Wang, climate lead of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research organization. Regardless of whether renewables are to blame, more capability to stabilize the grid would only help, he adds.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not that a renewable-heavy grid is doomed to fail. As Wang put it in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughjournal.org\/p\/its-okay-to-notice-when-solar-and\" target=\"_blank\">an analysis<\/a> he wrote last week: \u201cThis blackout is not the inevitable outcome of running an electricity system with substantial amounts of wind and solar power.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>One solution: We can make sure the grid includes enough equipment that does provide inertia, like nuclear power and hydropower. Reversing a plan to shut down Spain\u2019s nuclear reactors beginning in 2027 would be helpful, Wang says. Other options include building massive machines that lend physical inertia and using inverters that are \u201cgrid-forming,\u201d meaning they can actively help regulate frequency and provide a sort of synthetic inertia.<\/p>\n<p>Inertia isn\u2019t everything, though. Grid operators can also rely on installing a lot of batteries that can respond quickly when problems arise. (Spain has much less grid storage than other places with a high level of renewable penetration, like Texas and California.)<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, if there\u2019s one takeaway here, it\u2019s that as the grid evolves, our methods to keep it reliable and stable will need to evolve too.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re curious to hear more on this story, I\u2019d recommend this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.carbonbrief.org\/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-blackout-in-spain-and-portugal\/\" target=\"_blank\">Q&#038;A from <em>Carbon Brief<\/em><\/a> about the event and its aftermath and <a href=\"https:\/\/heatmap.news\/energy\/spain-blackout-inertia\" target=\"_blank\">this piece from <em>Heatmap<\/em><\/a> about inertia, renewables, and the blackout.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is from The Spark, <\/em>MIT Technology Review<em>\u2019s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday,<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/forms.technologyreview.com\/newsletters\/climate-energy-the-spark\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>sign up here<\/em><\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> Casey Crownhart <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2025\/05\/08\/1116166\/spain-blackout-grid\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At roughly midday on Monday, April 28, the lights went out in Spain. The grid blackout, which extended into parts of Portugal and France, affected tens of millions of people\u2014flights were grounded, cell networks went down, and businesses closed for the day. Over a week later, officials still aren\u2019t entirely sure what happened, but some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":862329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[414,3945],"tags":[6008,7566],"class_list":{"0":"post-862328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-power","8":"category-solar","9":"tag-power","10":"tag-solar"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}