Blackouts, Blame Game, And The Future Grid

When millions of homes across Spain and Portugal were plunged into darkness on April 28, it took only hours for the political blame game to ignite. Pro-nuclear advocates and renewable energy critics seized the moment, framing the event as “proof” that wind and solar are destabilizing our power grids. The reality, however, speaks to a far more nuanced challenge: how to build a system that’s not just sustainable, but also secure and resilient in the face of growing volatility.

The Weaponization Of Renewable Energy

In the wake of the blackout, critics of Spain’s energy policies, particularly those opposed to the country’s nuclear phase-out, were quick to point fingers at renewables. But this was not the first time grid failure has been politically weaponized. After the 2021 Texas blackouts, state leaders and media commentators were also quick to blame renewables, in particular wind energy.

However, independent investigations later revealed that the primary cause was frozen natural gas infrastructure. All generation sources, including gas, coal, nuclear, wind, and solar, were affected by the extreme cold, highlighting the broader vulnerability of a grid unprepared for extreme climate.

Across Europe, concerns about the reliability of existing grid infrastructure in the face of a rapidly evolving energy landscape, have also gained traction. Germany, for instance, revisited its nuclear stance, floating the reactivation of plants and investment in small modular reactor research. Switzerland has also announced plans to lift its ban on new nuclear construction to pursue SMR projects.

Yet, while nuclear is back in the political spotlight, the underlying issue goes deeper: energy systems are under pressure, and existing planning, operational, and market structures are struggling to keep pace.

What Really Happened On April 28?

According to ENTSO-E, at 12:33 p.m., a sudden outage at a substation in Granada caused a 2.2 GW generation loss, followed seconds later by further breakdowns in Badajoz and Sevilla. At the time, renewables supplied about 70% of Spain’s electricity. While technically manageable and not unusual, this level of variable generation demands precise, real-time balancing.

The root cause of the April 28 blackout was a sequence of voltage oscillations that triggered widespread instability across the grid. Under normal conditions, such fluctuations can be absorbed by stabilizing mechanisms like synchronous generators, frequency reserves, or flexible imports via interconnectors. But in this case, the system had fewer synchronous generators online than planned, and several did not respond correctly to control signals.

Compounding the situation was insufficient voltage control and limited cross-border transmission capacity, leaving the grid more vulnerable. As the instabilities intensified, multiple generation units disconnected, some even prematurely, pushing the system into collapse.

Spain’s limited interconnection capacity with the rest of Europe (just ~3% of its installed capacity, far below the EU’s 2030 target of 15%) further reduced the system’s resilience.

Modern Grids Require Modern Tools

The lesson here is that we must modernize how we manage grids and markets. Unlike traditional power plants, which inherently provide inertia through their spinning mass, wind and solar installations lack this stabilizing force which is crucial in the event of sudden disturbances.

However, this does not mean renewables cannot support grid stability. On the contrary, they can – just through different means. With advanced inverter technologies providing “grid-forming” capabilities, renewables can now be designed to emulate the stabilizing behavior of conventional plants. These innovations allow renewables to play an active role in maintaining frequency and voltage, especially when paired with other flexible assets.

One of the most promising solutions is grid-scale battery storage. Large battery systems can respond in milliseconds, absorbing excess electricity when there is too much supply or discharging it when demand rises, thus providing precisely the kind of fast, real-time support that modern grids increasingly require.

The UK grid incident in 2019 offers a powerful example of this, especially as the supply from synchronous generation declines: After a lightning strike triggered a cascading series of failures that removed nearly 1.4 GW of generation from the grid in seconds, frequency dropped below the safe operating limit of 49 Hz, forcing operators to begin low-frequency demand disconnection (LFDD) to avoid a larger collapse. Crucially, battery storage operators responded almost instantaneously, discharging 475 MW to support grid frequency. Thanks in part to these batteries, grid frequency was restored to safe levels within just four minutes.

Across Europe, momentum is building. The European market for autonomous battery storage solutions (by application) is forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11.24% between 2024 and 2031. The deployed battery storage systems will be able to provide grid-forming services, helping to stabilize the grid in the same way as conventional fossil-fueled powerplants once did. In fact, numerous battery systems deployed have these capabilities, however they are not being used. Without clear pricing or incentives for such grid services, this valuable resource remains untapped.

After experiencing several major blackouts, the U.S.A has also come to recognize the necessity of investing in grid flexibility over the years. Despite looming cuts to clean energy tax credits introduced under the Inflation Reduction Act, battery storage capacity is expected to grow 70% in 2025 alone, with 18.2 GW of utility-scale storage slated for installation.

The Missing Link: Energy Markets Design

Beyond modernizing infrastructure and ramping up storage capacity, the design of electricity markets will also play a critical role in determining our energy security. As renewables grow, electricity pricing is being reshaped, and supply planning must be reorganized.

Today’s market frameworks, across both Europe and the U.S, were built around dispatchable generation from coal, gas, nuclear or hydro power. These assets can be turned on or off to follow demand, and they bid into markets based on their fuel and operating costs.

Renewables, however, behave differently, with their power output depending on the weather, while having an effective marginal cost of production of zero once installed. This causes significant shifts in market dynamics.

One consequence is growing price volatility. For example, excess wind and solar power purchase agreements that are strictly based on energy produced can push wholesale market prices down to zero or even into negative territory, meaning producers must actually pay to feed electricity into the grid. On the other hand, when solar and wind production dip, especially during morning and evening demand peaks, prices can spike dramatically.

Such volatility creates uncertainty for investors and challenges the profitability of energy producers. That makes it all the more important to develop real-time balancing mechanisms and price signals that reflect the true value of stability and responsiveness in a renewable-heavy grid. On the demand side, transparent pricing like hourly electricity contracts, is changing how customers use power – encouraging them to shift consumption based on price signals.

Moreover, the ability to quickly balance supply and demand as renewable output fluctuates needs to be valued in today’s markets. In many cases, services like fast frequency response, grid-forming capabilities, and storage are treated as ancillary rather than core components of system planning. This leaves key flexibility providers, including batteries, demand response, and distributed energy resources, at a disadvantage when competing for market revenues.

Grid operators and policymakers need to recognize that market structures need to evolve:

• Price signals must be designed to reward flexibility and stability, not just raw energy production.
• Grid fees and market rules must allow storage and demand-side resources to fully participate.
• Markets must send clear investment signals to guide where flexibility and new grid infrastructure are most needed.
• New market instruments must be developed and deployed to harness the already installed and rapidly increasing capacity in energy storage systems.

The Path Forward

The energy transition is accelerating. The question is no longer whether grids can handle high shares of renewables, rather how to adapt infrastructure, markets, and regulations to this new reality.

Crucially, modernizing grids to integrate flexibility and decentralization isn’t just a technical necessity; it’s also more economical in the long run than trying to retrofit outdated systems. With the right investments and a fact-based public discourse, we can build a resilient, affordable, and clean power system fit for the future.