High tensions in Spain

too much sun puts prime minister Sanchez in a hot spot

I was lying on the table at my chiropractor Toni’s in Málaga when, last Monday at exactly 12:32 p.m., the power went out across all of Spain, and as it later turned out, also in Portugal and parts of southern France. Toni managed to crack my spine and my wife’s shoulder by feel, so the power outage didn’t throw a wrench in things here. We drove along the coastal road back to our village, where we had planned to do some shopping at local stores and the supermarket.

On the car radio, the national broadcaster stayed on air via the AM shortwave band, with the presenter futilely searching for reasons behind this sudden nationwide blackout. “Maybe a cyberattack,” he suggested. Eventually, his editorial team managed to get hold of the inevitable “expert,” whose phone, miraculously, was still working. It turned out to be a retired senior official who kept repeating how important he had been in his heyday. He had been the liaison between the grid operator and the government, he incessantly reiterated whenever he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer a question. Because, as it turned out, this retired—and likely politically appointed—official had no idea what was going on. Why would he? I could vividly imagine his former colleagues were more than happy to see him go when he retired, because, man, could this guy ramble on about nothing, uninterrupted by a lackluster interviewer who forgot to ask relevant questions and, like the listeners, probably dozed off slightly amid the drivel. “Maybe a cyberattack?” the presenter tried again, only to say shortly after that no premature conclusions should be drawn, as social media was already buzzing with rumors of a cyberattack. “Tsk tsk, social media!” In the next twenty minutes, the presenter himself suggested four more times that it might be a cyberattack, each time cautioning the public not to jump to conclusions and to be wary of spreading misinformation on social media.

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Since we cook with electricity at home, we decided to have lunch in our village at a chiringuito, a beach shack where they still grill fish over a wood fire. We ordered sardine skewers and a tomato salad that required no electricity. We weren’t the only ones with that idea—the terrace was packed, and the waitress, puffing and sighing, apologized in advance that the beer wasn’t as ice-cold as usual. At the table behind us, a group of loud women were lamenting the lack of power, especially the fact that they couldn’t go to the supermarket to shop for dinner. They started loudly listing all the things that were now impossible without luz (light), gradually realizing just how many devices rely on a power outlet. “But… but… my mobile phone isn’t working either,” one woman realized with a shock. “Now I can’t reach my husband to tell him I can’t cook tonight.” “Maybe it’s Trump’s or Putin’s fault,” the waiter, who had joined them, grinned. A schoolgirl, about fifteen, chimed in with her own complaint: “Does that mean I can’t watch TV tonight?” she sobbed desperately. My wife and I looked at the waves crashing over the beach and simultaneously rolled our eyes at the whining from the table next to us. “Luckily, the sea still works without electricity,” I joked as we paid in cash. “It’s a harsh lesson for some to be confronted with reality like this,” I said to my wife as we got back in the car, “but maybe a shock like this is good to make everyone realize how much our lives revolve around electricity in particular and energy in general.”

On the car radio, they were now reporting major traffic jams in and around Madrid, as well as problems at charging stations for electric cars and even at gas stations, since fuel pumps also need electricity to function. Once home, Estrella dug out an old battery-powered radio alarm clock so we could keep following the news, as the internet and mobile signals were completely down. “Maybe a cyberattack?” I heard the radio presenter say again. Over the course of the evening, a few more experts came on, none of whom, oddly, mentioned that the Spanish grid operator, Red Eléctrica, had proudly announced on April 16 that the entire Spanish electricity grid had run on 100% renewable energy—wind, solar, and hydropower—for the first time. At 11 p.m., Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez gave a radio address, thanking the emergency services, emphasizing that hospitals remained operational, and singing the praises of the unique technology of Spain’s electricity grid. He couldn’t yet explain the cause of the outage but noted that 15 gigawatts of electricity had “disappeared” in five seconds that afternoon. Since the national broadcaster RTVE had a news monopoly all day via its AM radio broadcasts, there was no critical voice to challenge Sánchez’s claim about “disappeared electricity” by, say, invoking the second law of thermodynamics.

By 6 a.m. the next morning, power was restored, and we had access to reports suggesting that the reason for the apagón (blackout) was likely the complete reliance on solar panels, which at the time of the outage accounted for 65% of Spain’s electricity production. The issue, apparently, wasn’t that they produced too little electricity but too much. “The massive solar panel farms risked overheating because they couldn’t offload their electricity and shut themselves down for safety reasons,” an expert on the news site eldebate.com explained. “There had already been warnings in recent months, including incidents with large industrial consumers and the railway network.” But even the overheating of solar panels remains, for now, just a theory—a theory Prime Minister Sánchez dismissed during a press conference on Tuesday. He still didn’t rule out a cyberattack, in line with the national broadcaster’s narrative the previous day (“Could it be, no surely they wouldn’t collude…?”), despite a Red Eléctrica spokesperson stating earlier in a press conference that the cyberattack theory had been ruled out after investigation. In his statement, Sánchez targeted private electricity companies, shielding Red Eléctrica—chaired by former socialist housing minister Beatriz Corredor, who has been conspicuously absent.

Meanwhile, opposition leader Feijóo of the Partido Popular (PP) smells blood and sees an opportunity to go after the already embattled prime minister, weakened by the DANA disaster and a budget that remains in disarray. Sánchez, in turn, has called on the EU to investigate what went wrong, unwilling to relinquish the feather in his cap as the first country to run on 100% renewable energy. He hopes an investigation by Green Deal loyalists in Brussels will favor him.