This is a blackout that promises to be a landmark event. On April 28, around noon, the Spanish grid suffered a sudden loss of 15 gigawatts of electricity production, or 60% of national demand. In a matter of seconds, Spain and Portugal were disconnected from the rest of the European grid. Nearly 55 million people were without power, trains and metros were shut down, and several strategic infrastructures were paralyzed. While the precise causes of this blackout remain to be confirmed, initial analyses point to a series of technical incidents, followed by a cascade of disconnections.
Why is renewable energy being singled out?
The European energy transition relies on the development of renewable energies, the production of which logically complicates the real-time management of the balance between supply and demand. Spain, which relies nearly 40% on solar and wind power, would therefore be more dependent on weather conditions than a country relying solely on nuclear power. Especially since, unlike other countries, Spain has no way of storing the energy produced by wind turbines and solar panels. It is therefore unable to take over in the event of a grid failure.
For specialists, the renewable energy hypothesis does not hold water. “The scale and nature of the outage make it unlikely that renewable energy volumes were the cause,” Daniel Muir, a senior analyst at S&P Global, told the Guardian. Spain’s electricity system is regularly subject to much larger peaks in wind and solar generation.
In reality, the exact causes of the outage remain unclear. Portugal cites an “unexplained transmission issue,” while Spain cites two separate incidents of lost generation at substations in the southwest. The link with the connection to France, which was severed at the same time, is also discussed.
Could France be affected?
France has a more flexible network thanks to nuclear and hydropower, but it is not completely immune to a domino effect. The interconnection of European networks, which allows the country to be supported by the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany, can also become a catalyst in the event of an energy crisis. However, the network is not built in the same way. In the event of a breakdown, it is the interconnection with our neighbors that will save the day, before nuclear power takes over. It is difficult to take a position without having been confronted with the problem head-on.
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