An article published last week in the British newspaper The Telegraph claims that the massive power outage that left the Iberian Peninsula in the darkness on April 28 was caused by a “experiment” by the Spanish government with renewable energy.
Ambrose Evans Pritchard, world economics editor at the Telegraph, wrote that according to “Brussels Sources,” Spanish authorities are “examining how much they can push their reliance on renewable energy” in preparation for the phase-out of Spanish nuclear reactors.
He gave no further details about his sources and provided no evidence to support the claim.
The charges were covered by major Spanish media outlets and international media. newspaper, world and Antenna 3, Similarly Daily Mail and CNNand amplified by social media users.
However, if we look closely at the article, we find that it is actually published as an opinion editor rather than a news article, and that Ambrose Evans Pritchard is a regular telegraph columnist.
He is using April 28th Stop He criticizes the energy policy of the Spanish socialist government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Under a plan agreed under Sanchez in 2019, Spain will phase out nuclear power plants over the next decade and instead focus on green energy sources.
In his commentary, Evans Pritchard states that he cites “the source of Brussels.”
However, he states: “If it is established that power outages are a false and controlled experiment, if this information is withheld from the public (…), Spain’s left will face election oblivion for political generations.”
Euroverify contacted the telegraph to request clarification of the number of sources consulted and its functionality in relation to the investigation of an ongoing incident, but has not yet received a reply.
He also asked the European Commission whether they would refute or support the claim. A spokesperson said executives would not comment until they saw an investigation into the cause of the blackout.
The Commission gave Spain three months after the date of suspension to present a technical report that outlines the case, a requirement under EU law. Experts Europe The panel is also leading to presenting its own probe to the committee.
Meanwhile, the Spanish government has “resolutely denied” the claims made on the telegraph.
Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Maria Jessu Montero argued that there was “corporate interests” behind the story, adding that British newspapers are “known for trying to spread fake news, spread lies and distort public opinion.”
A spokesman for Red Ereclika, a partially state-owned enterprise responsible for managing the Spanish grid, told Euroverify it “decisively denies” the claim, adding that it was an example of “fake news.”
Experts say that the theory is “not logical”
To establish whether such a government-led “experiment” on the grid is feasible in principle, Euroverify spoke to three electrical engineering experts.
They explained that, but hypothesis You can completely ignore it. There is little prospect of such an experiment.
“Everything is possible, but this (theory) doesn’t seem rational,” Manuel Alcazar Ortega, deputy director of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Valencia University of Technology, told Euroverify.
“From a technical standpoint, Red Eléctrica had a simulator that replicated the entire transmission grid. So these simulations don’t need to be done in real life. They can be done with this simulator.”
Simulators are used to test grid capacity, develop infrastructure, and predict the evolution of the grid to adapt to future needs, explained Alcázar-Ortega.
Professor Dark Van Hertem, a researcher at the Energyville Research Centre in Belgium, confirmed that such computer simulations were used to analyze the grid.
He added that while actual tests can actually be realized, in Spain, “there is no evidence that it was done at that moment.”
Van Herteam added that the time in question would not have helped test the grid’s ability to absorb renewable energy.
Renewable energy: “No problem”
A month after the power outage, the investigation was not well drawn. Conclusiondespite the initial analysis referring to strong “vibration” in the electrical network 30 minutes before the outage, and the successive failures at substations in southwestern Spain.
Lack of answers is fueling Speculation On the impact of increasing share of renewable energy in the grid.
Asked if renewable energy could have been part of the outage, Alcazar Ortega said, “It appears that everything was with the warning that the perpetrator is probably the way this resource is managed, not the renewable energy itself.”
Spain has grown exponentially in its share of renewable energy in recent mixes, with wind, solar and hydro generating 56.8% of Spain’s electricity in 2024.
“This does not involve a system that can compensate for the lost inertia because it does not replace the actual inertia provided by traditional generators,” says Alcázar-Ortega.
System inertia within the grid helps keep frequency within acceptable ranges. Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar are considered “inertia,” making the grid more unstable and more likely to shut down.
“This is not because of renewable energy, it’s because we don’t have a storage system or other types of “gridformation” inverter (…) that can provide this frequency control,” added Alcázar-Ortega.
The Spanish prime minister said “there is no empirical evidence that the incident was caused by an overabundance of renewable energy.” It accused nuclear groups of nuclear plants that are taking advantage of cases opposed to the phasing of nuclear plants.
