Source: Expose-News.com

A massive blackout hit the Iberian Peninsula, affecting Spain and Portugal last Monday.  At the time, Spain was running on 100% “renewable” energy for the first time. 

The blackout was likely caused by a reliance on non-dispatchable “renewable” energy sources, making the grid fragile and unable to handle sudden disruptions.

Spain was forced to import electricity from nuclear-powered France and coal-and-oil-powered Morocco to restore its grid.

Spain and Portugal Go Dark

By Craig Rucker, 2 May 2025

Trains froze in place. Traffic lights went dark. Elevators trapped their passengers. Refrigerators shut down.  Flights were cancelled.  Life ground to a halt.

A massive blackout shut down the Iberian Peninsula on Monday, 28 April, shortly after Spain announced that it was running on 100% “renewable” energy for the first time ever.

Michael Shellenberger wrote, “It was one of the largest peacetime blackouts Europe has ever seen. And it was not random. It was not an unforeseeable event. It was the exact failure that many of us have been, repeatedly, warning lawmakers about for years – warnings that Europe’s political leaders systematically chose to ignore.”

Marc Morano posted this analysis to CFACT’s Climate Depot:

Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little of what’s called “dispatchable spinning generation,” which means power plants, like gas or nuclear, that can quickly adjust their output to keep the grid stable … Traditional plants provide this with their spinning turbines, but renewables don’t, making the grid more fragile if you don’t have a way to very rapidly load-balance in the case of an outage. This likely contributed to the outage that hit Spain, Portugal and parts of France, as the grid couldn’t handle sudden disruptions well.

A reliance on net zero energy left Spain and Portugal vulnerable to the mass blackouts engulfing the region, experts said last night.

Spain’s socialist government has been letting the Greens have their way. Radicals celebrated as Spain shut down its nuclear and hydrocarbon plants, just when neighbours have been delaying and even increasing nuclear generation.

Spain was forced to import massive amounts of electricity from nuclear-powered France and coal-and-oil-powered Morocco to get its grid back online.

Time and again, Europe illustrates how not to manage our energy economy.

Fortunately, as President Trump takes stock of his first 100 days, shutting down the Left’s energy mistakes has been among his finest accomplishments.

Wind and solar are not up to the task of powering our future, but they do have their moments.

A silver lining of the power outage: Spanish cafes dishing out free ice cream … before it melted.

About the Author

Craig Rucker is a co-founder of CFACT and currently serves as its president. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, has written extensively in numerous publications and has appeared in such media outlets as Fox News, OANN, Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Hill, among many others. Rucker is also the co-producer of the award-winning film ‘Climate Hustle’ and the acclaimed ‘Climate Hustle 2’. As an accredited observer to the United Nations, Rucker has also led CFACT delegations to some 30 major UN conferences.

Featured image: A man and child inside a local market in Vigo, Spain, during the massive blackout on 28 April 2025. Source: Wired