A major power grid in Europe collapsed Monday sparking mass blackouts throughout Portugal, France and Spain, unfolding just days after Spain declared a renewable energy milestone.
On April 16, Spain for the first time ever was able to meet the country’s energy needs by powering its national grid with 100% “clean” renewable power, including wind, solar and hyrdo-electric energy.
Last week, PV-Magazine.com reported: “Spain’s grid operator Red Eléctrica has confirmed that renewable energy sources fully met electricity demand across the country’s peninsular system for the first time on April 16.”
“At 11:15 a.m. that day on April 16, wind and PV combined to generate 100.63% of total demand – a first in Spain’s energy history. Unlike previous milestones, this occurred on a weekday.”
Fast-forward to Monday, April 28, and a mass multi-country blackout hits, causing chaos for tens of millions of people, businesses and major transportation hubs, and prompting state of emergency declarations in Spain and Portugal.
The Guardian reported:
People were trapped in lifts, stuck on trains, stalled in traffic and abandoned in airports. Hundreds stumbled along pitch-black metro tunnels using their phone torches; others scrambled for basics in supermarkets that could only take cash, or began long trudges home from work.
Mobile networks went down and internet access was cut as power failed at 12.33pm (11.33 BST). Hospitals postponed routine operations but used generators to attend to critical cases, and while electronic banking was able to function on backup systems, most ATM screens were blank.
The Spanish power grid’s shift to renewable energy was blamed for the outage by many on social media — with some noting the issue appears to be — too much solar energy production!
Renewables don't risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it's clear that too little "inertia" due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. pic.twitter.com/FbuX1oSVcs
— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) April 28, 2025
Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia.
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025
Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78%
Nuclear: 11.5%
Co-generation: 5%
Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW)
Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm) pic.twitter.com/fF7FiIB6UD
Congrats to Spain! Nation goes 100% renewable as of April 16th, 2025! –
— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) April 28, 2025
But…Then Mass Blackouts Hit Spain, Portugal
https://t.co/KwmHfZW5XF pic.twitter.com/sgrJYYoqVr
Tell me again about how successful Spain's experiment with wind and solar power has been. https://t.co/CSfnh86E5L pic.twitter.com/vA8q8n5mUv
— David Turver (@7Kiwi) April 28, 2025
Concerning blackouts in Europe: Spain reportedly went 100% renewables – mostly solar and wind – as of April 16th. 🤔
— Gabriella Hoffman (@Gabby_Hoffman) April 28, 2025
The hard reality is this: Net-zero isn't sustainable. pic.twitter.com/EM2T3RQMri
1 day before the blackouts: pic.twitter.com/ecHG5z48u7
— Restitutor (@Restitutor_) April 28, 2025
Red Eléctrica said power should be restored within 6-10 hours, blaming “‘anomalous oscillations’ in very high-voltage lines, caused by extreme temperature variations in Spain” for the issue, according to FinancialExpress.com.
“This rare event, known as an ‘induced atmospheric variation,’ led to synchronisation failures across the interconnected European electricity network, causing successive disturbances and widespread outages,” the website noted.
The blackouts were initially believed to be the work of hackers launching cyberattacks against the energy grid — but it’s starting to look like good old-fashioned radical liberal incompetence and clean energy overzealousness are to blame.
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