{"id":80849,"date":"2025-05-08T07:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T05:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-la-gran-apagada-no-es-una-crisi-aillada\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T09:21:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T07:21:23","slug":"idees-dactualitat-la-gran-apagada-no-es-una-crisi-aillada","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-la-gran-apagada-no-es-una-crisi-aillada\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – The great blackout: not an isolated crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The major blackout of 28 April was the largest power outage in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. In just five seconds, the Spanish electricity grid suffered a sudden loss of 15 gigawatts, which caused an automatic disconnection of the system from the rest of Europe, isolating the peninsula and paralysing its critical infrastructures in a matter of minutes. From that moment on, hospitals, airports, transport networks, emergency services and communications, among others, experienced simultaneous interruptions that also had an impact on the economy. An assessment carried out by CaixaBank Research<\/a> estimates the loss to the Spanish economy at 400 billion euros, a little less than one tenth of a percentage point of Spanish quarterly GDP, with a 34% drop in consumer spending by Spanish households as a whole, which recovered in the days that followed, so that the net effect of the electricity impact was 15%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to the possible causes of the incident, the think thank Global Strategic Communications Council<\/a> (GSCC) has compiled a series of data that point out some of the keys to understanding the blackout. 56.8% of all electricity generated in Spain in 2024 used natural sources such as solar, wind and hydro, and on 16 April, 100% use of renewable energies was reached for a few hours. The report points out that the high percentage of renewable energy use in Spain and the flexibility of technologies such as hydro allowed the system to react and recover more quickly. In other words, if Spain had not had so much renewable capacity, the return to normality of the grid would have taken longer. Another prestigious organisation, the Regulatory Assistance Project<\/a> (RAP), had previously pointed out that none of the incidents that have occurred in markets with a high share of renewables such as Spain have been due to an excessive dependence on these energy sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The causes, therefore, do not seem to lie so much in the renewable energy generation systems as in the implementation model imposed by large companies, which are more concerned with profits than with the common good. Multiple reasons (environmental, scarcity of fossil fuels…) make it necessary to advance in the production of renewable electricity. However, this transition cannot be made in any old way: renewable energy must be accompanied by stabilisation systems. Failure to do so is a serious irresponsibility on the part of the large companies, which have prioritised profits over system stability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, an underlying problem is the integration of large volumes of renewable energy generation into the high-voltage grid without accompanying them with the necessary and mandatory current stabilisation systems. While the amount of renewable energy that was integrated into the grid was in the minority, the rest of the sources were responsible for maintaining stability. On days like the blackout, renewable energy accounted for 80% of the total electricity produced. The incident therefore underlines the importance of modernising and strengthening the electricity system to ensure resilience in the energy transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blackout has highlighted the investment shortfalls that many of the infrastructures that underpin all aspects of our modern lives have carried for decades. Many electricity, water and logistics networks were designed for climatic and demographic realities that are very different from today\u2019s and have not been upgraded to meet the challenges of a more complex and vulnerable world. Investing not only means building new infrastructure, but also maintaining, modernising, and digitising existing infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, stabiliser systems that dampen and synchronise the frequency must also be introduced, since when there is a lot of renewable production and few conventional power plants in service, solar energy is more sensitive to frequency variations. In these cases, for the electricity system to guarantee the necessary stability, the best solution is grid forming, a technology that replaces the mechanical inertia of thermal power plants with a virtual inertia based on power converters, which prevents the operator from having to lower the power or even disconnect the grid in the event of mismatches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With cheaper energy that increases the competitiveness of companies, renewable energies create a new production paradigm, but they also create a new need: that of adapting the distribution network. The profit-driven model that predominates in the sector (all the major electricity companies are in the hands of financial funds) explains why not all the necessary investments have been made to avoid a problem that the grid cannot take on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blackouts like last week’s remind us that we live in societies that use highly complex technologies, but which are enormously vulnerable to unexpected incidents. We rely so much on technologies that we find it difficult to understand why they fail, even when the most plausible hypothesis is that of a systemic failure caused by the fact that renewable energies (solar, wind) generate a more unstable electricity flow that requires investment in expensive stabilising equipment. Although the gradual restoration began the same day in the afternoon, the blackout highlights the vulnerability of essential systems and the need for sustained investment in energy resilience, while at the same time pointing to the need for in-depth reflection on a fundamental problem that goes beyond the current situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has become clear that international energy interconnection, while providing efficiency and stability under normal conditions, can also act as a vector for amplifying the risk of systemic errors. In this case, for example, France has always been reluctant to allow cheap renewable energies into its market. Thus, the French Energy Regulatory Commission opposes trans-Pyrenean electricity interconnections with Spain, which goes against the EU’s objectives of increasing interconnection capacity between member countries to improve energy security and the efficiency of the electricity market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, what has happened is also an opportunity to rethink a grand strategy for infrastructure resilience, integrating climate adaptation, technological innovation, and social justice. Sustained investment in energy, water, transport, waste, and communications is not just a matter of prevention; it is also a way to promote green jobs, improve the quality of urban and rural life and strengthen the ecosystems on which our long-term stability depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident should also serve as a catalyst for vulnerability audits to identify critical weaknesses in current systems, promote investment plans to ensure the progressive modernisation of essential infrastructure, develop decentralised support systems – such as local energy grids – and integrate climate resilience criteria at all stages of the design and operation of basic infrastructure. Strengthening infrastructure, diversifying support systems and prioritising climate adaptation are decisions that cannot be delayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week’s big blackout is ultimately part of a set of alarm signals that have not been understood. Only if we place it in a precise order, as the third great wake-up call, will we be able to fully grasp the significance. The three major crises of the last five years – the COVID-19 pandemic, the floods in Valencia, and now this major Iberian blackout – warn us that the model of society we are building needs to be reviewed. Deep down, this incident is also a symptom of a crisis of the economic system, of over-reliance on technological progress and of the way of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: A street in Barcelona. April 28, 2025. Pere L\u00f3pez Brosa. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Fari\u00f1a, Marta Dato and Maria Fuxi Cervera, trainees at the CETC, have participated to this issue of Idees d’actualitat<\/em>.<\/sub><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The major blackout of 28 April was the largest power outage in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. In just five seconds, the Spanish electricity grid suffered a sudden loss of 15 gigawatts, which caused an automatic disconnection of the system from the rest of Europe, isolating the peninsula and paralysing its critical infrastructures in a matter of minutes. From that moment on, hospitals, airports, transport networks, emergency services and communications, among others, experienced simultaneous interruptions that also had an impact on the economy. An assessment carried out by CaixaBank Research estimates the loss to the Spanish economy at 400\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":80782,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-80849","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - The great blackout: not an isolated crisis – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-la-gran-apagada-no-es-una-crisi-aillada\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - The great blackout: not an isolated crisis – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The major blackout of 28 April was the largest power outage in the history of the Iberian Peninsula. 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