Disturbance
And as Many energy experts have already pointed outit is unlikely that the lack of inertia has caused problems among Spanish renewable energy providers.
But that’s not the point. The key to blackouts as a result of the lack of inertia in renewable energy is to create renewable energy. Structurally Fossil fuels cannot be exchanged. This means that not only are there nuclear and gas needed, but net zero is a disruptive policy that is doomed to fail.
However, the presentation of this story is misleading, causing solar energy to be the source of confusion, and renewable energy appears to be structurally unreliable.
However, increasingly evidence points to the combination of technical negligence and the failure of private energy suppliers as the causes of power outages.
What we know so far is that grid frequency disturbance occurred before the generator was disconnected. This means that the solar array and wind farm were cut off after an interference occurred to protect the power plant.
surge
There are some indications that a major failure occurred in some of the grids with connections to the French network.
This obstacle was generated by sudden rise and fall in power levels, resulting in a cascade of shutdowns with the whole grid.
The sudden variability in energy flow can be due to the combination of two things. There is a surge in energy that appears on the grid and a technical failure or error in the Spanish-French connection.
Mexican Daily La Giornada One of the triggers is likely to be the excess energy that solar power companies were trying to offload to a grid that Spain didn’t need (an additional 5,000 megawatts).
This could have caused the transmission line to overload France. In fact, “companies reported that converters in solar power systems warned of voltage surges (over-energy production) in the grid before cutting.”
The sun is abundant
This surge could have tripped the system over the interconnect, which probably led to its shutdown by mistake.
However, while the blackout was not caused by inherent problems with renewable energy or “net zero madness,” people should emphasize the nature of power generation as a problem.
But the right thing will give the answer wrong. The real problem is not the renewable energy, but the private and commercial nature of energy generation.
Energy companies aim to maximize profits. Their job is not to provide cheap energy, but to make money. Solar energy companies, like other energy companies, want to maximize profits.
For Spanish companies with a rich sun that ends up being surplus of solar energy, they need to close (cut) production or find other buyers.
Consuming
Production reductions are expensive and profits are often protected by law, which can cost a lot of money. This means there is an incentive to export or offload energy beyond Spanish demand.
The amount of “reduced” renewable energy reached 1.7 terawatts in 2024, a 13% jump from the previous year. The cost of managing this process has increased from an average of 390 million euros In 2024, 2.5 billion euros will start from 2017 to 2020.adds the energy operator cost.
At the same time, building generation capacity has outweighed investments in grids and wider energy infrastructure, increasing strain.
Energy prices have dropped as more capacity comes online – 20% over the past three years – Featuring the fantasies of occasional negative energy price events that are looming on investors.
If there is so much energy available in the market, there will be a negative price event to pay you to consume it rather than reducing production. Such events usually lead to a backlash from “traditional” energy producers, such as coal and nuclear generators.
Infrastructure
More broadly, low prices generate low profits and AS Outlined by Brett Christophersprofits drive the energy market and ultimately take responsibility for lack of investment in energy infrastructure.
Additionally, for-profit drives have resulted in poor connections between the Spanish and French grids, one of the triggers of the blackouts. The EU has an interconnection target of 15% of installed generation capacity, while the Spanish France has only 3% of interconnection.
This is not just because the connections are difficult and expensive. Most of the reasons why more capacity isn’t built is French energy companies want protection from cheap Spanish solar energy. Like Spain itself, companies do not want competition, they want the certainty of profits.
Proof of blackouts Renewable energy is entitled to mobilize to declare that it is inherently bad, but the reality is that profit-driven energy systems create difficulties and crises.
One of the first theories that circulated was that the blackout was caused by weather abnormalities. This has been trusted since then, but the idea that climate change is responsible for social and infrastructure breakdowns is far from ridiculous.
anger
Storm has already shut down its energy system The drought will close both nuclear and hydroelectric power plants from France to Zimbabwe.
Extreme temperatures include heating air conditioningWater shortages have forced the government to install energy-hungry desalinated plants. High temperatures also reduce efficiency in generating electricity and transmission, making energy systems more susceptible to failures and shutdowns.
A chaotic, profit-driven transition adds to these risks, but raises tensions in critical systems as companies ignore the more expensive and critical elements of shared infrastructure, while focusing on areas where profits are maximized.
Part of our hot world paradox is that it’s the political right that cashes out the climate turmoil, but it’s denies it and condemns efforts to mitigate it as a conspiracy to make us poorer.
Already, small businesses have gone bankrupt, lives have been lost, blackouts have become commonplace, and political rights combine anti-employment rage with conspiracy theory to build the foundation of power through climate turmoil.
The cruel irony, as the performance of power shows, their profits only exacerbate the problem.
This author
Nicholas Behrette is a lecturer at the University of Essex and studies the politics and political economy of climate change and green transition. His book or Worse: Why we NEED to disrupt the climate transition I went out at Verso in September 2025.
