It’s looking like nice sunny weather in Spain, aka ‘extreme weather’, aka a ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’ caused the outage in the Iberian Peninsula, which has apparently spread even further across Europe now.
* Have said to folks for years - when a turbine can supply all the energy to make another one, I'll believe in renewable energy. This article explains why that can never and will never happen.
Half a dozen people died because of problems arising: some were suffocated by carbon monoxide from a backup generator, others more directly from the loss of power for their devices.
BBC News at Ten on the Spain blackouts: They obfuscated, saying that in the 21st century, electricity grids are more vulnerable than they were because of the risks of (i) Cyber attacks (almost certainly not the case here), (ii) Extreme weather caused by climate change (ditto) and (iii) Lower resilience due to new ways of generating electricity like wind and solar (now we're getting to it).
They admitted that a black start to regenerate the network from zero generation can take several days and reported that Portugal‘s main power operator has said it could take a week to return to full normality. They repeated the NESO recommendation to keep an emergency kit at home.
John Sullivan makes some great points on the Spanish outage in his latest post (mostly on electricity pricing which he must have drafted beforehand).
“Crucially, as is sadly being demonstrated by the ongoing power outage in Iberia, this ruinously expensive farce does not even lead to “secure home-grown power”, as our gaslighting criminal UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, keeps claiming.
John Sullivan from Facts Matter substack (https://johnsullivan.substack.com/) has been writing quite a lot of late. This is a very handy deep dive into how bad things could get (and the extent to which we would be bankrupted even trying to get to Ed Miliband's nirvana):
Well done for linking this to their record renewables supply of recent days. It will be interesting to hear what the Spaniards plan to do about it to avoid recurrences. We could face the same issue here on sunny, breezy days of low demand if by some miracle Miliband manages to triple solar and onshore wind supply and quadruple offshore wind supply, all non-synchronous.
It’s been amusing watching the desperate attempts to put the blame for this elsewhere – a fire (no doubt due to climate change) which damaged a high-voltage line, a cyber attack …
I think it’s fair to lay blame on Starmer and Miliband for their relentless, maniacal support for the climate change hoax™ over so many long years. Karma!
No spinning kinetic energy, no reactive power, low overload capability of inverters, all semiconductor with low I SQUARED T, so need to trip out at slightest overload and then the oscillations get worse. Atmospheric phenomenon I don't think so, a big alternator can withstand substantial (2 times ) overload for nearly a minute, it is a big chunk of metal takes a long time to heat up. The lesson is renewables are not reliable, will Miliband U-turn, probably not ,need more solar and wind.
Jaime
This. I'm no physicist. Born spealing Pure Maths fluently, but physics and practical maths. Ner.
But even this layman cops this.
NetZero can never work*. Because Physics
https://richardlyon.substack.com/p/the-physics-of-net-zero
* Have said to folks for years - when a turbine can supply all the energy to make another one, I'll believe in renewable energy. This article explains why that can never and will never happen.
My eldest wondered what hospitals were doing and we prayed for anyone on life support in Spain. 😬
Half a dozen people died because of problems arising: some were suffocated by carbon monoxide from a backup generator, others more directly from the loss of power for their devices.
I can't "like" your post for obvious reasons. That's really sad to read. I feared as much.
Hopefully, they do have emergency backup diesel generators.
You'd hope so......no doubt Crazy Ed Minibrain will outlaw those in the UK 😬
Careful, you'll be sent to the gulag writing satire like this 🤣
Wondering why this hasn't hit Southern California? Or maybe it has. Huge ugly wind turbine spreads in San Bernardino county.
It just demonstrates the dangers of putting all your eggs in one basket. Everything electric - power goes off - back to the stone age.
They literally used a Men In Black phrase. Are they intending to neuralize the masses?
Thank you Jamie. I was just reading the post about this as published on the Watts UP With That? website: "Congrats to Spain! Nation goes 100% renewable as of April 16th 2025! – But…Then Mass Blackouts Hit Spain, Portugal" https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/04/28/congrats-to-spain-nation-goes-100-renewable-as-of-april-16th-2025-butthen-mass-blackouts-hit-spain-portugal/
“A reliance on Net Zero energy left Spain and Portugal vulnerable to the mass blackouts engulfing the region, experts said last night” https://www.aol.com/finance/blackout-risk-made-worse-net-201539746.html.
BBC News at Ten on the Spain blackouts: They obfuscated, saying that in the 21st century, electricity grids are more vulnerable than they were because of the risks of (i) Cyber attacks (almost certainly not the case here), (ii) Extreme weather caused by climate change (ditto) and (iii) Lower resilience due to new ways of generating electricity like wind and solar (now we're getting to it).
They admitted that a black start to regenerate the network from zero generation can take several days and reported that Portugal‘s main power operator has said it could take a week to return to full normality. They repeated the NESO recommendation to keep an emergency kit at home.
Here’s the very unsafe Spanish “Gridwatch” electricity supply mix just minutes before the outage. What were the authorities thinking about? https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/1916857352197701963.
Next up is Michael Shellenberger on Public: Over-Reliance On Renewables Behind Catastrophic Blackouts in Spain, https://www.public.news/p/over-reliance-on-renewables-behind (paywall lifted for this post).
Lol 😂
John Sullivan makes some great points on the Spanish outage in his latest post (mostly on electricity pricing which he must have drafted beforehand).
“Crucially, as is sadly being demonstrated by the ongoing power outage in Iberia, this ruinously expensive farce does not even lead to “secure home-grown power”, as our gaslighting criminal UK energy secretary, Ed Miliband, keeps claiming.
Let us hope, calamitous as the current blackouts are for the unfortunate citizens of Spain and Portugal, this current disaster finally acts as a wake-up call for Europe.” https://johnsullivan.substack.com/p/the-costs-rise-and-the-blackouts
John Sullivan from Facts Matter substack (https://johnsullivan.substack.com/) has been writing quite a lot of late. This is a very handy deep dive into how bad things could get (and the extent to which we would be bankrupted even trying to get to Ed Miliband's nirvana):
https://sites.google.com/view/the-lpf/home
Well done for linking this to their record renewables supply of recent days. It will be interesting to hear what the Spaniards plan to do about it to avoid recurrences. We could face the same issue here on sunny, breezy days of low demand if by some miracle Miliband manages to triple solar and onshore wind supply and quadruple offshore wind supply, all non-synchronous.
It’s been amusing watching the desperate attempts to put the blame for this elsewhere – a fire (no doubt due to climate change) which damaged a high-voltage line, a cyber attack …
I think it’s fair to lay blame on Starmer and Miliband for their relentless, maniacal support for the climate change hoax™ over so many long years. Karma!
No spinning kinetic energy, no reactive power, low overload capability of inverters, all semiconductor with low I SQUARED T, so need to trip out at slightest overload and then the oscillations get worse. Atmospheric phenomenon I don't think so, a big alternator can withstand substantial (2 times ) overload for nearly a minute, it is a big chunk of metal takes a long time to heat up. The lesson is renewables are not reliable, will Miliband U-turn, probably not ,need more solar and wind.
So the future has arrived earlier than expected.
The future's too bright and the Spaniards forgot to wear shades.
If Keir can't dim the sun, I'd invest heavily in shades.
I see you obtaining a patent for shades for Solar Panels. Every cloud has a silver lining.