An unprecedented chaos… and predictable? | EUROtoday

On Apr 29, 2025

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12:33 p.m. Monday, April 28. Spain goes out. In only a few minutes, the entire nation rocks in an unprecedented electrical nothing, adopted intently by Portugal. Spanish electrical energy consumption collapses, going from 25.18 GW to midday and a half, solely 12.4 GW about fifteen minutes later, in accordance with actual -time knowledge from Red Eléctrica de España (REE), the equal of the French RTE.

From Madrid to Lisbon, from Barcelonne to Seville, thousands and thousands of residents discover themselves trapped in an unbelievable chaos: immobilized metros forcing passengers to extract tunnels to the glow of their telephones, cease trains, paralyzed airports, constrained hospitals to urgently launch their mills … The shock wave, in every single place Some supermarkets, the instant cease of factories, the collapse of cell networks and web visitors, till the interruption of the Madrid tennis open, spectators leaving the stadium in an unreal environment.

At 10 p.m., whereas the present returned timidly to a number of areas, the Spanish authorities indicated that it had succeeded in bringing its electrical energy manufacturing to round 18 GW – an slower effort, this time, by sundown which means the cease of photovoltaic manufacturing. At this hour of the night, normally, Spain consumes between 25 and 30 GW. Four nuclear energy crops have stopped robotically, their reactors tilting on diesel engines, in accordance with the Spanish Security Council. A reflex reporting a severe disturbance.

What occurred? “The technicians report that 15 gigawatts suddenly disappeared from the system in the space of five seconds. It had never happened before. This is equivalent to 60 % of the country’s demand, “elected Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez this Monday evening. What caused him? They have not yet been able to determine it, but they will succeed. Without dismissing any hypothesis, without excluding any possibility ”. In Portugal, Luis Montenegro had identified, earlier throughout the day, “an issue on the Spanish community”, without further details. But what problem? In the absence of an answer, the hypotheses ignite.

In search of causes

The track of a cyber attack, immediately mentioned, was quickly dismissed by the president of the European Council, António Costa. A fire on a high voltage line between Spain and France? The rumor is categorically denied by the French operator RTE. An isolated hardware failure? “It wouldn’t trigger a blackout of this magnitude,” doubts the Point A network expert. At the end of the afternoon, the Portuguese operator REN evokes “irregular oscillations” in the Spanish high tension lines, attributed to “excessive variations of temperatures within the inside of Spain. “A wave” uncommon atmospheric phenomenon “, deemed unconvincing by the experts consulted by The point : None were able, Monday evening, to confirm this version.

Another explanation is particularly explored, both by the players in the electrical systems and by the European Commission: a sudden inadequacy between supply and demand for electricity, caused by a punctual overproduction of renewable energies, which the network would have been unable to absorb.

The challenge of networks in the face of renewable energies

Spain, where 56 % of electricity comes from solar, wind and hydraulics, has seen its share of renewable leaping in its electric mix at an accelerated rate: between 2022 and 2024, the wind production fleet thus increased from 22 GW to almost 32 GW, while the solar production park extended from 7 to 31 GW. At 12:30 p.m., at the time of breakdown, Spanish electricity production exceeded 28 GW, including 60 % generated by solar, according to data compiled by Electricity Maps. However, Spain is poorly equipped, in the event of a production peak, to manage the surpluses. Its storage capacities remain limited. And the peninsula, a kind of “vitality island”, has limited interconnections with Europe: the country can export some 3,000 megawatts to France, as much to Portugal, and 1,400 megawatts to Morocco. What to do, at the moment T, if his neighbors do not need surplus electricity? “The dependence on renewables exposes to unpredictable factors,” says an professional.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

In the night, the director of companies for the working of the Spanish operator Ree, Eduardo Prieto, refused to hypothesis, indicating that the operator would wish to check “hundreds of thousands of data” to establish the origin of the disaster. The “total collapse of the electrical system” would have been generated by “a strong oscillation of energy flows accompanied by a very large loss of production”. “This lack of manufacturing has exceeded the reference disruption with which electrical methods are designed and exploited all through the European Union and, due to this fact, {the electrical} system of the Spanish peninsula has been disconnected from the remainder of the European system. In different phrases, interconnection with France has been interrupted, “he stated.

The operator’s investigation will quickly ship its conclusions. In the meantime, if the lamps are reluctant, Spain retains its breath. Gathered in London at a summit on April 24 and 25, world consultants from the International Energy Agency (AIE) hammered the urgency of modernizing electrical methods to help the vitality transition, pleading for a steadiness between ENR, storage and versatile sources (gasoline, hydraulic) to stabilize networks.

https://www.lepoint.fr/monde/panne-electrique-en-espagne-un-chaos-inedit-et-previsible-29-04-2025-2588476_24.php