Sanchez Is Looking for a Culprit for Biggest Blackout in Spain
(Bloomberg) -- In the end, the lights came back after half a day but the answers didn’t for what caused one of Europe’s worst outages in living memory.
Six days have been and gone since 55 million people in Spain and Portugal found themselves suddenly without power and unable to use their mobile phones. In all this time, a full explanation has yet to be provided. The public — along with investors and keen energy watchers — are simply being told that everything is possible, nothing has been excluded.
What has become evident is that Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez doesn’t want it pinned on his decision to phase out of nuclear energy and turn the country into a renewable powerhouse. Instead messaging both public and in private has focused on power companies and the grid operator.
“We will ask for for appropriate responsibility from private operators,” Sanchez said up to five times at a press conference on Tuesday, referring to the main supply companies he has battled with over taxation.
His government hasn’t ruled out a cyberattack — even tapping Ukraine for its experience in that area — nor does it exclude an internal boycott or indeed a failure at some point of the European network.
A day after the debacle, the chairwoman of Spain’s power grid operator came out swinging to defend Red Electrica and insist the country has Europe’s “best electricity network.” Beatriz Corredor Sierra’s own objectivity and expertise however is also coming under scrutiny, given she’s a political appointee. A lawyer by training, she served as a housing minister under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Socialist who was prime minister from 2004 to 2011.
Spain is now enjoying a four-day long weekend, known as a puente or bridge. Sanchez might be hoping that the disruption unleashed at 12:33 p.m. on Monday will fade into the background.
A survey conducted by the country’s public pollster CIS suggests Spaniards aren’t satisfied. Almost 60% of participants said the information provided by the government on the day of the blackout was insufficient, more than double the number of those who found it adequate.
While the blackout didn’t result in mass casualties and there are no tales of looting and public disorder, what the incident revealed was that Spain’s narrative as a renewable energy success story might not quite hold up.
The Spanish power grid is a key element to the European electric system, connecting the European Union’s fourth-largest economy to the continent’s main network alongside neighboring Portugal. Knowing what happened is important for the stability of the whole EU grid and prevent outages at any point of the system.
Finding answers will be key to a prime minister who is permanently under pressure and lacks a majority in parliament. Sanchez runs a minority government and struggles to pass every piece of legislation, yet has managed to stay in power for nearly seven years to become a veteran among European leaders.
Will the grid operator take the blame? Red Electrica has a legal responsibility over supply safety and oversees the whole network. It is a private company but the Spanish government owns 20% of its shares and pushed for Corredor to be named chairwoman.
She has refused to quit. “It would be to acknowledge we have not acted well and that’s not the case,” she told Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the opposition parties are seizing the opportunity to attack Sanchez. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative People’s Party, zeroed in on the lack of details on what happened: “Official information at our disposal is neither clarifying nor corroborated.”
The leader of the far-right Vox group went in harder on Sanchez.
“The power grid collapse has a political origin,” said Santiago Abascal at a party event on Thursday. “Pedro Sanchez is the cause.”
Both PP and Vox, who came four seats short of a majority in parliament in the 2023 election, are pushing to maintain a strong role for nuclear energy, which accounts for 20% of Spain’s power supply. However, the government is sticking to its 2035 timetable for phasing out atomic power even though some European peers are doing the opposite.
Experts point to the strong presence of renewable energy sources in the supply chain, especially solar, as a possible cause of the strong oscillations that might explain the blackout.
But this is the one hypothesis that Sanchez is quick to dismiss.
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