Nearly a week after a major power outage struck the Iberian Peninsula, Spain’s Minister of Ecological Transition has warned that it will take “many days” to determine its cause, subtly hinting at a potential initial fault in photovoltaic installations.
“In terms of knowing the precise causes of the incident, we are talking about a lot of days to wait,” Sara Aagesen stated in an interview published on Sunday in El Pais, mentioning the complexity of the electrical system.
“All hypotheses are open,” the minister assured, including the possibility of a “cyber attack.”
However, when repeatedly questioned about the role renewable energies might have played in the blackout, the minister conceded the possibility of an initial anomaly in photovoltaic installations in southwestern Spain, as previously suggested by the Spanish electricity network operator (REE).
“As of today, we do not know which installations stopped functioning within the system,” Sara Aagesen said. “To talk specifically about solar photovoltaics might be premature, even though we can see on the map the various production technologies in the region. There’s a significant amount of solar photovoltaics in southwestern Spain.”
Following the outage, industry experts speculated about a potential imbalance between electricity production and demand, which could be harder to address in a network where wind and solar power hold a larger share, potentially contributing to the collapse of the Spanish system.
The minister highlighted that electricity production in the country has long incorporated this “energy mix,” dismissing the notion that a sudden influx of renewable energy overwhelmed the system. She noted there have been many other days with higher solar production in Spain and much lower demand, and the system has functioned well.
