On April 28th, just after midday, the lights went out. Across the entire Iberian Peninsula. No storm. No cyberattack. Just silence. Then generators kicking back into life, confused calls to grid operators, and a collective scramble to understand what had just happened.
Naturally, the finger-pointing started almost immediately. Social media lit up with self-anointed grid experts blaming renewables. “Too much wind and solar!” they cried. “The grid can’t cope!” declared the usual suspects. The Telegraphroared “Net zero blamed for Europe’s biggest power cut,” while US think tanks long allergic to climate ambition seized their moment.
But here’s the thing: now we’ve got the facts. Red Eléctrica, Spain’s grid operator, and a government-backed crisis committee have both released detailed, technically rigorous reports. And the headline?
It wasn’t renewables. Not even close.
So, What Actually Went Wrong?
Let’s strip it down.
According to Red Eléctrica’s “black box” analysis and the government inquiry, the blackout was caused by a cascading voltage control failure, not a shortage of power, not low inertia, not solar panels acting up.
Here’s how it unfolded:
At 12:03 PM, two “forced oscillations” shook the system, most likely triggered by a technical fault in a conventional generator.
Three major generation units – again, mostly fossil disconnected incorrectly. They tripped before voltage thresholds were breached, in clear violation of operational norms.
Critically, several generators failed to meet their legal obligations under P.O. 7.4 [PDF in Spanish], which mandates dynamic voltage regulation. Some of these units, paid specifically to stabilise the grid, did the opposite — injecting reactive power when they were supposed to be absorbing it.
Voltage levels climbed out of control. More generators tripped. Synchronisation with France’s grid was lost. Within 30 minutes, the peninsula had gone dark.
Not a renewables failure. A compliance failure. A systems failure. A rules-enforced-but-not-followed failure.
My Personal Experience – Why Resilience Must Be Local
When it happened, I was home in Seville. The blackout rolled through — and my house didn’t go dark. Not because I had some industrial battery bank or a diesel generator. No. I had my Kia EV3 in the driveway. And thanks to its vehicle-to-load (V2L) function, I was able to power our fridge, router, laptops, and most importantly, the coffee machine (!) for hours while the grid rebooted.
I wrote about it here: “Why Solar Alone Isn’t Enough”. That moment made one thing clear: resilience isn’t centralised anymore. It’s distributed, dynamic, and driveway-powered.
Don’t Blame the Future — Fix the System
The knee-jerk blame game targeting renewables isn’t just wrong, it’s reckless. It derails public understanding. It empowers those eager to stall the transition. And it blinds us to the real challenge: modernising the grid to handle a cleaner, smarter energy mix.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this pattern. South Australia, 2016. A major blackout, the same blame game – “too much wind,” “unstable renewables.” Fast forward to today? South Australia runs on 75% wind and solar, up from 42% at the time of the outage. Reliability didn’t suffer. It improved. Why? Because they updated the system. Added fast-response batteries. Upgraded protection settings. Allowed grid managers more flexibility.
New Insights from South Australia: Renewables Attract Industry, Not Chase It Away
We’ve already mentioned South Australia’s 2016 blackout, and how, far from abandoning renewables, the state doubled down. But the latest data shows that wasn’t just a political or climate play, it’s now an economic magnet.
According to ElectraNet, more than 37 large industrial customers – including miners, green steel manufacturers, and data centres – are actively seeking to connect to South Australia’s 100% net renewable grid. Why? Because they want clean power. Cheap power. And increasingly, local power. Combined, these industries are looking to draw an astonishing 15 GW — more than five times the state’s current peak demand.
This isn’t hypothetical. Even if just 10–20% of those projects go ahead, it would still add 1.5 to 3 GW of new load. And that load is coming because of wind and solar, not despite them.
It completely obliterates the old “renewables will kill industry” myth. In fact, the opposite is now true: no renewables, no future industry.
South Australia has already hit 74% renewables over the past year and is on track for 100% net renewables by 2027. It frequently runs on 100% wind and solar, with fossil generators either offline or asked to stay idle. Project EnergyConnect will soon allow the grid to run without a single conventional generator online. Rooftop solar now supplies so much power that daytime demand frequently goes negative, a preview of what’s coming to grids everywhere.
This isn’t chaos. It’s coordination. It’s what the future looks like when the rules are modernised, the market is designed for flexibility, and the technology is allowed to deliver.
Spain is following a similar path. In 2024, renewables covered 43% of Spain’s electricity. Emissions dropped. Energy imports fell. The country is still on track to exceed 74% renewables by 2030, in line with its climate commitments.
Blaming wind and solar for grid failures is like blaming seatbelts for car crashes. It’s backwards. It’s lazy. And it’s dangerous.
The Fix Isn’t Slower Renewables, It’s Smarter Grids
So what needs to happen?
1. Enforce P.O. 7.4.
Let’s start with the basics. If generators are contractually obligated to provide dynamic voltage control, they need to actually do it. No more reactive power in the wrong direction. No more phantom compliance. Enforce the rules, and issue fines for non-compliance.
2. Build a Dynamic Voltage Control Market.
Red Eléctrica recommends a nationwide service where all generators contribute to dynamic voltage regulation – not just a handful, and not only when it suits them.
3. Enhance Observability and Interconnection.
Spain’s interconnection with France helped restore power. But we need more visibility across the grid. More sensors. More data. More real-time coordination. A digital backbone that can respond in milliseconds.
4. Update Protection Settings.
Generators tripping early means something’s wrong with their relay logic. Fix it. Test it. Certify it. This isn’t just software, it’s system integrity.
5. Deploy More Fast-Response Resources.
Batteries. Flywheels. Synchronous condensers. Smart EVs with V2G. We’ve got the technology. What we lack is the political will to make them standard practice.
The Government Gets It: A Smarter, Cleaner Grid
The best part? Spain’s government isn’t falling for the blame game either.
In response to the blackout, they’ve drafted a new “anti-blackout” Royal Decree Law that doesn’t roll back renewables, it supercharges them. The decree includes:
Letting renewables participate in voltage control markets (and get paid for it).
Accelerated storage deployment, with streamlined permitting.
Support for repowering older solar and wind plants with modern tech.
Fast-tracked electrification of demand – including EV charging and heat pump incentives.
Activation of demand-side aggregators, so consumers can help balance the grid and get paid for flexibility.
Even capacity payments for backup conventional generators, while keeping renewables in the driver’s seat.
This is what energy transition leadership looks like: not flinching in the face of disruption, but upgrading the system to make it better, smarter, and stronger.
This Was a Warning — Not a Verdict
Let’s take a step back.
Despite the chaos, Spain managed to restore half the nation’s electricity demand within 10 hours, and 99.95% by 7AM the next day. That’s impressive by any international standard. And it underscores a vital truth: this wasn’t a structural collapse, it was a stress fracture in the rules.
If anything, it proves we need more renewables, not fewer, and a grid designed for how electricity is generated in 2025, not 1995.
Read the Reports. Know the Facts. Push for Better Systems.
If you really want to understand what happened, not the Twitter version, but the truth, read the reports yourself:
Let’s stop recycling the same tired scapegoats. The future of energy is decentralised, dynamic, and decarbonised.
But it only works if we modernise the systems that hold it together.
This analysis was first published on TomRaftery.com
