Spain, Portugal blackouts: ​​Secrets behind disinformation campaign vs renewable energy

Ever wondered how flipping a switch lights up your room, or powers a train, in an instant?

That’s thanks to the magic of the electricity grid — basically the highway system for electrons.

Its job? Carry electricity from wherever it’s made (a coal, nuclear, or gas-powered plant) straight to your home, office, or favourite coffee shop.

Grid revolution

Let’s rewind to where it all began: in 1882, when Thomas Edison powered up the Pearl Street Station in New York City. 

It was the first commercial grid, and it lit up just a few city blocks — but it kicked off a revolution.

That humble spark gave rise to a massive, complex web we now call the large-scale power grid.

The traditional grid was built like a well-oiled delivery system, and here’s how it worked:

Fast forward to today: The grid has gotten a serious tech upgrade. Enter the smart grid — a grid with brains. 

Now it’s not just about moving electricity. It’s about managing it smartly, using computers, sensors, and automation to detect outages, shift loads, and keep everything humming smoothly.

Smart grid and renewables

Smart grids also play nice with renewables like wind and solar, with a well-known downside: they don’t always produce power on schedule.

But they have a huge upside: once installed, they don’t need any fuel to produce electricity. Talk about free power, virtually.

Now, their reliability greatly improves when used with mega-power storage banks.

Standford University’s Tony Seba calls this the SWB – solar, wind and batteries – juggernaut.

Here's the rub: Solar power is already be cheapest source of electricity. In the last 10 years, solar has come down in price by over 90%.

It hasn’t seen the bottom yet. Seba, who wrote "Clean Disruption" (among other books) argues that solar, wind and batteries, together, will take over as the future of power generation, as well as off-grid living.

Seba has been proven right numerous times. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported solar is now the cheapest electricity in history.

Still, the sun does not always shine. And the wind doesn't always blow.

Giant power banks

That’s where grid-scale batteries come in — massive energy storage units (think: supersized power banks) that soak up extra energy when the sun’s out or the wind’s blowing – and release it when it’s dark or calm.

These batteries can store megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy and act like backup quarterbacks when the main generators need a break — or when demand spikes, like during a heatwave.

On Monday, April 28, 2025, in the five minutes between 12:30 and 12:35, something "anomalous" happened.

Specifically, at 12:33pm, something "strange” was seen in the grid data: a sudden drop in the Iberian power grid. The Iberian peninsula is home to nearly 60 million people.

What happened? There's still no official explanation.

'Perfect storm'

The Baker Institute, reported that the "exact causes remain under investigation". But it was quick to blame “the limited availability of conventional generation”.

It also pointed to "unexpected losses, combined with reduced support from neighbouring systems” — which caused an instability that triggered a disconnection from the French system — creating a “perfect storm” for a massive power outage.

Recovery

Fortunately, the electrical system had largely recovered within 10 hours. The damage is done, and consequences of the outage are still being assessed.

Meanwhile, energy expert Carlos Cagigal explained the outage "probably happened" because Spain’s nuclear plants weren’t operating at the time, meaning all of its electricity was coming from renewable sources (i.e. solar and wind) that were feeding saturated substations.

Disinformation networks were quick to the draw: The blame was put on renewables (i.e. solar and wind) for being “unreliable” and “too dependent on weather.”

So-called think-tanks readily pointed to so-called "vulnerabilities" of the Iberian power grid allegedly "due to the increasing reliance on variable renewable sources" (again, solar and wind) without “adequate grid support infrastructure”.

Denial by Spain's grid operator

Interestingly, two days later (on April 30), Spain's grid operator (Red Eléctrica Española, commercially known as Redeia) denied that overdependence on solar power was to blame for the blackout.

So what went wrong?

Energy experts and independent grid operators clarified: the causes were multi-factorial, including:

The event has exposed the decades of underinvestment in smart grids by legacy operators.

$1 trillion upgrade needed

One study, reported by Reuters, shows that the European Union (EU)'s power grid needs "up to $1 trillion" in upgrades to avert Spain-style blackouts.

What in means on the ground:

A key challenge: better renewable energy integration, and the upgrade of inverters and substations to handle variable inputs from solar and wind, and investing in grid-scale energy storage (e.g., batteries, pumped hydro) to manage intermittency.

On the policy front, legislators may need to work on updating grid governance:

In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) updated its "roadmap", showing key benefits of smart grids.

It cited the Italian smart grid pilot project: the use of smart metres and automation reduced peak load by 5–10%, thus lowering stress on the grid and enhancing reliability.

At the same time, dynamic pricing and demand response, enabled by smart infrastructure, have shown up to 20% load-shifting potential in certain regions.

A smart grid also facilitates dynamic load balancing systems that match supply and demand in real-time.

It turns out the anti-renewables narrative, which has spread faster than facts, has become a convenient excuse.

There are powerful stakeholders behind such narratives, primarily the legacy grid and fossil fuel industry.

The network is broader: It includes companies that lose market share as solar/wind/batteries get better and cheaper.

Some are known to fund think-tanks or lobby groups that publish “studies” questioning renewable reliability.

Data that was ignored

Around the time of the April 28 Iberian blackout (until 12.30pm) the price of electricity on the official market in Spain was in the negative: at around -1€/MWh. 

At these prices, Spain was exporting electricity to Morocco, Portugal, and even France.

In addition, part of the available energy was also being used to pump water from low-lying river basins into upper reservoirs of pumped-storage hydro electric plants. 

Spain has 18 such pumped-storage hydroelectric power (PSHP) plants, the latest of which was the Valdecañas, which ramped Iberdrola España's hydroelectric installed capacity to 6,000 MW (6GW).

These plants, once built, has a service life of 50 years or more. They can be quickly switched on and off, within 15 seconds, as per ScienceDirect.

So there's plenty of renewable energy capacity in Spain itself.

Software glitch?

As the blackout post-mortem continues, a Spanish energy expert cited a curious data:

By 12:35pm, "photovoltaics (solar) mysteriously dropped sharply" from generating 18,000 MW to just 8,000 MW – in just a few seconds – as per the Spanish National Grid Network (REE).

“Since the sun had not vanished, it must have been an automated command that switched off thousands of solar facilities,” J Guillermo Sanchez Leon, of the Instituto Universitario de Física Fundamental y Matemáticas (IUFFyM), Universidad de Salamanca, wrote for The Conversation.

So was it really solar power (the lack of it?) or the “automated command” – software – that switched off solar power production during a sunny day that's to be blamed for the widespread blackout?

Scapegoating renewables

Scapegoating renewables has become part of the blame game. These include utilities with legacy infrastructure – companies with big investments in coal, gas, or nuclear plants – who generally resist grid reforms that prioritise decentralisation and renewables.

Then, there’s the camp that brands renewable energy as “woke” or “elitist.” Reason: Transitioning to renewables reduces demand for thermal coal and some forms of oil-based products.

Fear mongering

Politicians aligned with fossil fuel donors also amplify fear-mongering about blackouts and job losses. Some are believed to run or fund misinformation "bots" on social media platforms, often using climate incidents (like blackouts) to cast doubt.

That's because when energy adoption stalls in the West, or anywhere, there will be winners and losers among those who have a stake in it.

Disinformation tactics, weaponising uncertainty

The blame game now takes usual route: tie any blackout to solar/wind — even when unrelated, then cherry-pick data to highlight days when renewables underperform.

In short: a bury-your-head-in-the-sand strategy, hoping everybody else does the same thing.

Then there are those who engage in “astroturfing”, i.e. create fake grassroots movements claiming renewables “raise bills” or “destroy jobs”, which has become an industry.

They warn of another blackout, blame it on renewables, and drum up fears about “energy insecurity,” “battery fires,” or “wind turbine noise.”

What’s at stake?

There are trillions in assets that could face demand destruction as a result of the shift to clean energy, particularly solar-wind-batteries + hydroelectric.

Energy is power — literally and figuratively. So shifting energy sources could reshape economic and geopolitical alliances.

The energy game is getting a makeover. By the looks of it, smart grids aren’t just coming… they’ve already plugged in.

It's up to the biggest stakeholders — the consumers — to flip the switch.