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The PM and ministers met with energy company bosses on Tuesday. EFE
No answer yet as to what caused electricity grid to collapse in Spain
Blackout in Spain

No answer yet as to what caused electricity grid to collapse in Spain

The spotlight is on the national network operator and its boss who have changed messages over the week to align more closely with ministers

PAULA DE LAS HERAS

MADRID.

Friday, 2 May 2025, 20:25

The government was still in the dark on Thursday this week as to the causes of the blackout that affected the entire Iberian Peninsula on Monday. On Wednesday, the head of part-private national grid operator Red Eléctrica, the former Socialist minister Beatriz Corredor, spoke out for the first time but was unable to shed the slightest light on what happened. Refusing to resign, she said this serious incident "will not happen again". "We have learned, we have all safety measures in place to ensure that is the case," she added.

Corredor, appointed by the government of Pedro Sánchez in 2020, is in the eye of the storm. Much of the attention was focused on her when on Tuesday the prime minister said he would demand from private operators "all relevant responsibility is taken" for what happened, among which, strikingly, he included Red Eléctrica, a company in which the state is the largest shareholder.

Ministers have asked all operators in the electricity industry to hand over their data to try to get to the bottom of why 60% of the energy supply to meet demand suddenly dropped off just after midday on Monday.

Difference in emphasis

Conflicting messages on the cause coming from grid operator Red Eléctrica, on one hand, and the government on the other over the first two days of the crisis caused confusion. Ministers were said to be unhappy that the electricity supplier had both ruled out a cyberattack so early on and fuelled theories that the origin of the problem might be the huge fluctuation of renewable energy from wind, water and solar.

These views were seen as going against the government's current narrative on security and defence (just as it tries to get its left-wing coalition partners to agree a defence budget increase) and its green energy transition credentials.

By Wednesday, Red Eléctrica boss Corredor was at pains to change her message in media interviews to align with the government in rejecting the role of renewables in what happened, despite the fact that this is where most experts were pointing to in their analyses.

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surinenglish No answer yet as to what caused electricity grid to collapse in Spain