CHRIS TALGO: Eastern European Outage Shows Weakness Of ‘Renewable’ Energy
Like most of Western Europe, Spain and Portugal have been at the forefront of the green movement in recent decades. Both nations have embraced renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar, as they have…
Like most of Western Europe, Spain and Portugal have been at the forefront of the green movement in recent decades. Both nations have embraced renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar, as they have transformed their energy grid infrastructure to rely heavily upon these sources.
With that being said, it should come as no surprise that the extensive power outage that crippled these countries and parts of others earlier this week was primarily caused by a huge drop in solar power output in a short period of time.
To be exact, as the Associated Press reports, “In a span of just five minutes, between 12:30 and 12:35 p.m. local time (1030-1035 GMT) on Monday, solar PV generation plunged by more than 50% to 8 gigawatts (GW) from more than 18 GW.”
Based on an early report, the sudden drop in solar power occurred at two solar facilities in southwest Spain, which triggered a “complete collapse of the system,” according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Because power grids are complex structures that are often intertwined among nations, when one country experiences a major outage, it typically spreads to its neighbors as well. Such is why areas in Portugal, France, and Belgium experienced large power outages after the Spanish grid collapsed.
Predictably, the mainstream media are totally ignoring the cause of this manmade disaster.
For now, the official narrative is that the abrupt power outage was due to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon.”
The truth is that Spain, which generated 56 percent of its electricity mix in 2024 from renewables, has become a canary in the coal mine for other nations that are considering going all-in on renewable energy.
Red Electrica, a fitting name for Spain’s monopolistic utility power provider, blamed the power failure on “severe oscillations in high-voltage lines in southern France or inland Spain.” The company said the possible causes “include a physical fault (line disconnection), a sudden loss of generation within Spain or an atmospheric phenomenon.”