24/03/2026
Grid failures, not green power, caused the Iberian outage. The real problem? Europe’s energy transition is moving faster than the rules meant to govern it.
A convenient myth, now debunked
For months, the April 2025 blackout in Spain and Portugal was weaponised.
Critics of the energy transition, from fossil fuel lobbies to Eurosceptic politicians, pointed to the outage as proof that renewables make power systems fragile. It was a neat, politically useful story. It was also wrong. The final report by ENTSO-E makes that clear: the blackout was not caused by renewable energy.
What really went wrong
Instead, investigators found a far messier reality. A combination of interacting failures – grid oscillations, gaps in voltage and reactive power control, inconsistent regulatory practices, and cascading generator disconnections – triggered the collapse. No single cause. No smoking gun. And crucially: no blame assigned to renewables.
As Prof. Alberto Alemanno, founder of The Good Lobby, puts it:
“The blackout in Spain and Portugal did not happen because of renewables. What we witnessed was a failure of grid governance, not of energy sources. Confusing the two is not just inaccurate – it is politically convenient for those seeking to delay the energy transition.”
Fix the grid, not the transition
If renewables weren’t the problem, what is?
The report’s recommendations are telling. They call for stronger operational practices, better system monitoring, and closer coordination between power system actors. In other words: fix how the system is run – not what powers it. This is a governance and infrastructure challenge, not an energy mix correction.
Spain’s paradox: cheap power, complex reality
At the same time, Spain is being held up as a clean energy success story.
Reporting by Politico highlights how the country’s rapid rollout of wind and solar has helped shield consumers from recent fossil fuel price shocks. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been quick to point to significantly lower electricity prices compared to much of Europe. But even that story comes with caveats. Spain’s advantage is not just about renewables – it’s about how often they displace fossil fuels in the pricing system, and how the broader energy mix interacts with market design. Gas still matters. System rules still matter more.
The real lesson Europe should take
The Iberian blackout was not a failure of the energy transition. It was a warning that the system underpinning it is lagging behind.
As Prof Alemanno argues:
“The harder lesson is that the energy transition is outpacing the rules and infrastructure meant to manage it. This is not an argument against the transition – it is a call to accelerate the governance and grid architecture that make it work.”
Don’t blame the future
Europe’s power system is changing fast. Its governance isn’t. Blaming renewables may score political points. But it misses the bigger picture, and risks slowing down the very transition that can deliver cheaper, more secure energy. The blackout didn’t expose the limits of green power. It exposed the limits of a system not yet built to handle it.