Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
Engineers were warning the grid was close to crashing due to excess solar
The mass blackouts in Spain and Portugal wrecked havoc on April 28 last year. At the time everyone accountable was feigning confusion, blaming it on a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” which might have set up mysterious oscillations in the line. They were bandying around terms like “ ‘induced atmospheric vibration’ and talking about extreme temperatures (you know, like 23 degrees C). But all along, the head honchos at Red Electrica knew it was due to an excess of solar power and a lack of reliable generation, because the technical staff had told them what was coming:
“Today was really bad, you all saw it”: new audio recordings confirm that Red Eléctrica knew three months before the blackout that the system was failing
By Paula Maria, Elmundo
The Senate committee investigating the blackout heard a second round of conversations this week between private electricity companies and Red Eléctrica, the system operator. Almost a year after the incident, and with no one yet taking responsibility, the latest recordings demonstrate that as early as January 2025, three months before the total blackout, the company chaired by Beatriz Corredor knew that the entire Spanish electricity system was at its limit. They also show that its technicians foresaw an imminent risk— “at some point , we’re going to crash,” they even predicted—and that they had identified the source of the voltage fluctuations: an excess of solar photovoltaic power and a lack of nuclear and gas generation. Once again, the recordings of the incident put the spotlight on the management of the company controlled by SEPI (the Spanish State Holding Company) and call into question the narrative of its leadership.
On January 31st, there was such a bad power surge that staff at the Asco nuclear power plant warned, “if the units trip, we’ll be left with zero power .” They went on to say that “Solar power isn’t like wind power, which has inertia. With solar, someone comes along and pushes a button, and if they don’t scale it up a bit, they’ll cause problems, and that’s what happens.”
Prophetically, on the morning of the blackout, staff knew exactly what they needed, telling the state’s operator’s control center: “We need more large-scale, thermal generation capacity, which is what regulates the situation.”
For a laugh, lets remember those glorious excuses:
What caused it?
The Guardian April 2025
The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns.
REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
Not only did the Spanish staff lie to the voters, but most of the media in the West covered up their lies, didn’t ask hard questions, and let them get away with it.
The reports are coming out now, but no one who was accountable has been held to account. (Not yet). Will it ever happen?
h/t Steve Hicks, @NetZeroWatch
Mysterious line oscillations,
And rare atmospheric vibrations,
Showing power failure signs,
In the high voltage lines,
Caused blackouts in the Iberian nations.
–Ruairi
UPDATE from commenter Paulie: The final 472 page report — “Don’t mention the Solar Excess”
The Final Report into the Spanish blackout was released on 21 March 2026:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2026/03/20march-finalreport-iberianblackout/
For those who don’t have the time to read it all, it is a 472 page apology for not being able to identify a clear causal sequence leading up to the blackout. Lots of excuses, including insufficient instrumentation on their lower voltage transmission network, and operators not being able to provide documentation on the behaviour of specific generators.
Specifically, the report takes great pains not to identify the generators or specific equipment that were the source of the voltage instability that caused the blackout. But Figure 1-2 on page 10 shows that, on the day of the blackout, that voltage instability started at about 10:30am local time.
Figure 1-6 shows how voltage instability resulted in a rapid rise in grid voltage to well outside the normal operating band (max 420kV) within the final minute before the blackout. Again, while this figure identifies some critical events, the report fails to address why the grid operators were unable to deal with this rapid voltage increase.
The investigators were able to do one very useful thing: they built a model of the Spanish grid and were able to accurately replicate the behaviours seen on the day. But it takes them until page 311 to produce a result that clearly shows the source of the problems on their grid.
Figures 4-114 and 4-115 show the behaviour of grid voltage and frequency, had the grid had eight new synchronous condensers operating. The preceding text provides no technical information on the capacity of those syncons, but the results from their simulation are self-evident. They show that complete failure would not have occurred had the syncons been operational.
Had the Spanish grid maintained sufficient synchronous generation, from coal, nuclear, gas or hydro, the blackout would not have occurred.
So the authors of the report never say the obvious! The Spanish grid failed because it had too much inverter based energy, and not enough synchronous energy. When instability events happened, the lack of sufficient system strength and inertia caused the grid voltage to increase uncontrollably, tripping numerous automatic safety systems, that led to the blackout event.
But you won’t find any such straightforward explanation in the report’s Root Cause Tree 14 factors on pages 333/334.