Green energy doesn't have to mean blackouts

Posted: September 22, 2025

This spring, grid operators in southern Europe saw their worst nightmare come true.

In late April, a widespread power outage plunged most of Spain and Portugal into the dark ages. Traffic lights went out. Planes were grounded. Hospitals had to suspend routine operations.

Phone and internet access failed. People had to be rescued from stranded trains and stuck elevators.

The aftermath of the outage prompted lots of finger-pointing. Solar, wind and other renewables are often blamed when modern power systems fail.

That’s in part because renewable sources lack one crucial service long provided by thermal power plants: inertia.

Without inertia, grids are more vulnerable to the kind of sudden surges (or drops) that can destabilize the whole system.

But the actual cause of the Iberian blackout was more complicated than critics of green energy claim, and it highlights deeper concerns about how our future grids will function. Many of these concerns will need to be addressed with technological solutions.

The Spanish government said the grid operator miscalculated the energy mix. The grid operator argued that thermal power plants failed to do their job and maintain the right voltage level.

What gets lost in the blame game is a simple truth: running reliable grids is becoming harder and more complex.

Variable renewables are inherently trickier to manage than a handful of large thermal power plants.

At the same time, electrification raises demand and, if not managed properly, makes consumption patterns more unpredictable.

It also raises the stakes whenever an outage occurs.

Consider that the Iberian blackout already brought much of daily life to a halt and caused more than €1bn in economic damage.

Now imagine a similar event in a world where most people drive electric cars, heat and cool their homes with electricity and the power industry runs on solar and wind.

And the challenges don’t stop at grid management.

More frequent extreme weather is already straining physical infrastructure. Cyberattacks are on the rise, too.

That means grid companies, regulators and authorities face a growing list of threats, and many of them are intensifying.

The bottom line is that the clean energy transition, rising demand and extreme climate pressures all mean the potential for disruptions is increasing.

How to build a better energy system  

Blackouts like this highlight one critical need above all: real-time visibility into grid conditions.

Situational awareness is essential for everything—from long-term strategic planning to day-to-day operations.

What does that mean in practice? More data, better communication and stronger integration.

Data-driven insights can improve redundancy and contingency planning.

During a crisis, better real-time monitoring and advanced analytics can help balance loads and, ideally, prevent outages altogether.

The same applies to other grid threats. Take climate hazards, for example.

Utilities are already using weather monitoring and dynamic line rating forecasts to proactively protect their networks.

AI-powered real-time data is improving the modeling of climate impacts and other early warning systems.

Insights from Earth observation satellites and IoT sensors can help spot hazards before they become critical threats. 

In other words: rather than looking for scapegoats, power producers and grid operators should focus on technical solutions and closer collaboration.

Spain has already proposed a series of measures to strengthen the grid and prevent similar blackouts.

These include expanding battery storage, improving governance of the energy system and enhancing voltage monitoring.

Spain also wants to better integrate the peninsula with the European grid.

All of these measures move in the right direction. They also underscore the complexity of building a resilient energy system.

The lesson is clear: the response to blackouts cannot be to slow or abandon the energy transition.

Instead, the focus must be on strengthening grid resilience to keep the transition on track.