Ben Pawlowski
LAST month’s mega-blackout that wiped out electricity across the Iberian peninsula came just one week after the Spanish government launched an experiment to test how much of the country’s power supply could be provided by green sources, a report has claimed.
The conservative newspaper ABC and English broadsheet The Daily Telegraph have cited sources that claim Pedro Sanchez’s socialist government ordered the national grid operator, Red Electrica, in which the government holds a golden share, to substantially increase the use of renewable energy ahead of Spain’s transition away from nuclear reactors by 2027.
One week later, the Iberian peninsula was struck by an unprecedented power cut which paralysed businesses, hospitals, transport systems, mobile phone networks and other critical infrastructure for hours.
According to the report, renewable energy sources constituted 72.66 per cent of the total energy supply at 12.30pm on 28 April, the day of the blackout.
READ MORE: Culprit for Spain’s blackout narrowed down to substation in Andalucia
The government has set a target to reach 81 per cent by 2030. Last year, renewables contributed 56 per cent of Spain’s total electricity production.
The government has strenuously denied accusations of a cover-up, with a spokesperson insisting ‘no order was given for any experiment or so-called unstable programmes’.
Sara Aagesen, ecological transition minister, told parliament: “It is false, totally false, that the government carried out any sort of experiment on the grid prior to the outage.
“It is irresponsible to assign blame while the cause of the blackout remains under investigation. And it is equally irresponsible to claim that the government was conducting experiments.”
Her comments were echoed by Beatriz Corredor, the head of Spain’s electricity operator REE, who described the reports as ‘completely false’.
READ MORE: Spain probes cyber weaknesses of small generators amid investigation into nationwide blackout
The power cut has provoked a fierce debate between Spain’s socialist government and the conservative opposition over Sanchez’s championing of renewable energy and green causes.
The political implications have even crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Last week, U.S Republican senator Steve Daine told a hearing on Capitol Hill: “Spain reminds us that intermittent energy sources cannot replace the reliable base power provided by fossil fuels or other stable sources.”
Yet uncertainty still remains over the cause of the blackout, one of the worst in modern European history. On Tuesday, the energy companies Iberdrola and Endesa demanded ‘clarity, coherence and transparency’ from the grid operator on the cause of the failure, complaining that there was no ‘official and detailed’ explanation from the authorities.
