Why Blackouts are no longer rare events…and how this effects energy security
Lars Schernikau: Energy Economist, Commodity Trader, Author (recent book “The Unpopular Truth… about Electricity and the Future of Energy”)
Details inc Blog at www.unpopular-truth.com
On April 28, 2025, the lights went out across Spain and Portugal, and just four days later, the island of Bali was wrapped into darkness.
In both cases, it happened in seconds. No war. No cyberattack. No act of nature. Just the hard truth of how today’s energy systems can wobble and break!
But let´s be honest… what happened in Spain, Portugal, and Bali isn’t just their problem. It’s our preview… a warning.
Power outages used to be rare, localized, and manageable. But not anymore. What happened in Spain, Portugal, and Bali in April 2025 was caused by fragile systems operating under idealistic assumptions.
In this article, I unpack what really triggered these cascading failures, what they reveal about the state of our energy infrastructure, and why grid reliability should now be considered a global security issue and not just a technical one.
Are we making the grid is becoming more fragile…
Our daily lives depend on a constant, hum of electricity, which is what keeps our cities moving, data flowing, phones ringing and healthcare running. But the grid that delivers it, was not built for what we are now throwing at it now.
Worldwide, we are adding more solar, wind, and complex transmission and network integration than ever before, while removing the coal, gas, and nuclear plants that gave us the resilience we are used to when it comes to our energy systems. The result? A grid that’s becoming a lot more fragile and less reliable.
Spain’s blackout was a textbook case. Just 15% of its generation came from dispatchable, rotating-mass sources like gas and nuclear which is the backbone of a stable AC grid. The rest, came from inverter-based energy generation from solar and wind. When two large solar plants tripped offline, it set off a chain reaction. The system began to oscillate as inertia disappeared and in just five seconds, the system collapsed.
Officially, “only” 60% of demand was lost. But in reality, almost the entire country went dark.
It’s not just the lack of sunshine…it’s the inverters
This isn’t about whether wind and solar are “good” or “bad” but rather about what happens when we ignore physics.
Wind and solar energy need inverters to be fed into the grid. Unlike traditional generators, these inverters don’t provide inertia or sufficient short-circuit strength… it worse, because they introduce electrical “noise” that can interfere with the grid’s waveform. As more inverters pile in, the risk of desynchronization increases.
It’s akin to an orchestra without a conductor attempting to perform a symphony by ear, inside a large shed with a tin roof, during a thunderstorm. The performance is bound to start off poorly, and a complete breakdown is inevitable.
A quick run-down…Grid-following inverters chase the existing frequency, but can’t lead. Grid-forming inverters try to lead but only work well in isolated systems, not big interconnected ones. Batteries? In theory, yes but in practice, there is no proven large-scale success thus far.
Spain, Bali, Chile, Ukraine, Texas, Bangladesh…
What happened in Spain and Bali isn’t isolated. It’s just recent.
Chile also saw a massive blackout in 2025 and Ukraine’s grid was targeted by hackers…twice! Bangladesh, Pakistan, Argentina, and India have all experienced nationwide Blackouts in the last decade. In Texas in 2021, millions froze in the dark when cold weather crushed an overconfident system.
Yes, the causes of these Blackouts vary: cyberattacks, system design flaws, underinvestment, political choices, extreme weather. But for now, let’s address the false assumption that “clean” automatically means “stable” energy. Read more on my blog
The bigger picture: Security, Reliability, Reality
We need to be honest with ourselves… wind and solar alone can’t provide energy security. Not today. Maybe not ever without massive redesigns.
We have leaned too hard on brittle inverter-based systems and we’ve treated energy like a lifestyle choice instead of the critical infrastructure support it is.
The path forward should be an energy mix, designed with eyes open.
- invest in dispatchable, weather-independent generation (yes, that includes gas, coal, and nuclear)
- consider reserve margins that reflect real risk, not best-case scenarios
- plan for blackouts…because they are most likely coming
- recognize that physics does not negotiate…either the system works, or it doesn’t
What now?
I was asked recently: “What can we do?”
Here my simple advice:
- Personally: Prepare for 3-5 days by stocking up on water, food, light, power backups. No one’s coming to save you in hour one
- Professionally: Push for systems thinking rather than designing for optics. Start designing systems that supply us with stable, affordable energy simultaneously protecting the environment
- Politically: Demand realistic energy policy and not slogans
Let’s start envisioning the grid of the future designed to grow with our energy needs.
Read my full blog post – Blackouts, what causes them? share it if it makes sense, push back if you disagree…but don’t ignore it. 😉
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Stock up on pitchforks and torches, possibly metaphorically, and remove from office the True Believers who demanded wind and solar.
They showed very bad judgement in going Green, and should be punished politically for doing so.
I was surprised to learn in Australia that they call a flashlight a torch. Up to that point I thought they were bas asses.
😉
English lingo is common in Australia.
Not in Canada which spells words British style but does not use bonnet and boot of car areas, confuses with torch and ‘paraffin’ for kerosene fuel whereas in Canada is is used for wax.
They showed very bad judgement in going DARK, and should be punished politically for doing so.
They showed very bad judgment in going Green, and should be punished
politicallycriminally for doing so.During the heat of our fight (sadly, lost) to stop the Leviathan Koshkonong Solar/Battery Plant I brought up ALL of these issues of risk and diminishment of reliability. I tried to demand serious grid and safety risk analyses – even provided examples – that were hallmarks of the aerospace and pharma industries I worked in. Turns out, the only risks pertinent to the politicians, utilities, and rent-seeking merchant power plant builders is the risk to the money and political power they seek.
But, of course, their power, money and rent seeking is at risk eventually.
One of the factors working against reality is that wind and solar plants can be put up in far less time than a thermal power plant. So, for people unaware that there are fundamental differences in generating sources, and who are in need of a source to cover a looming adequacy problem, an obvious choice is to put up a solar or wind plant. I have solid, personal evidence that management in the utilities is unaware of the full realities of wind/solar. Unfortunately they do the planning.
When mental midgets with college degrees push their fake ass religion on people disaster is all that will result.
True!
I believe the GloTEC data from NASA holds a key to why the blackouts occurred when they did.
GloTEC | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center
The relevant data is archived, but it’s a complicated data set.
While I find Ben Davidson a bit much, I do like his short morning updates on space weather. Here he is discussing the blackout event. The first 5 or 10 minutes tell the tale
Earth’s Pole Shift Hits Another Level
The electron flux due to this phenomenon certainly could be a factor and as such it needs research and not denial.
The Flux Capacitor was in backward.
It was revealed that ENTSO-E now have allowed a minimum standard of 2 seconds of inertia for the European grid. That is, the inertial energy stored in rotating machines (both generators and large industrial motors) would be enough in theory to run the grid for 2 seconds if suddenly all the fuel supply was cut. What this means in practice is that there is very little time to react to grid disturbances.
Hydro plants that could react in seconds to deliver full power are now too slow. The grid now absolutely starts to depend on rapid reaction from batteries and on the reaction being correct. One of the things that emerged from the UK August 2019 partial blackout was thar batteries only provided about 60% of the response they were supposed to. Dinorwig wasn’t even called on.
Meanwhile in Spain the government is claiming that since inertia was at 2.3 seconds ahead of the apagon, low inertia was not to blame, and anyway was not the original cause. The idea that if you send a high wire walker out with no balancing pole and arms tied to his side it is almost inevitable he will fall off if there is a gust of wind doesn’t register.
Incidentally there is still no proper confirmation of how the blackout started, and a degree of confusion caused by inadequate machine translation of Spanish technical terms. All we really have are reports of overvoltage in the South causing trips at major substations (not power plants as such – there aren’t any indivudual huge solar facilities : the biggest at 400ha or 250MWp was not yet commissioned). Of course that would immediately lead to all supplying generators tripping out, and a corresponding shortfall of power for onward delivery cumulating to 2.2GW that provoked frequency fall and cascading trip to the North.
It seems that ENTSO-E may have set their inertia standard by arguing backwards: if they needed in to be 2 seconds to allow for a high renewables grid then that is what it would be, with modelling to pretend that such a grid could remain stable. Now we’ve done the experiment. I can imagine what Feynman would have said.
The amount of inertia, as measured by how much kinetic energy the rotating mass in a thermal power plant there is (GWhr), divided by the nominal output of the plant (GW), is typically in the neighborhood of 2 to 2.5 seconds in thermal plants. This is a sort-of time constant in the system — i.e. if, in a thought experiment, one were to shut off generating input to all the prime movers, leaving loads connected, this time constant would describe how the frequency of the grid would decay with time. So, from this simple calculation it looks like there was plenty of “inertia.”
Frankly, with such a large input of solar compared to thermal plants at the time, I don’t see how this pretend inertia was nearly so high as 2.3 seconds. Of course, I have also not seen any figures on what fraction of solar plants use grid forming (GFM) rather than grid following (GFL) inverters. Yet, if a lot of this 2.3 seconds of inertia was contributed by GFMs there is still a fundamental difference, in my view, between such inertia and the inertia contributed by a true rotating mass.
In the case of a rotating mass, its K.E. is available instantaneously to damp negative disturbances in frequency (conversely its ability to absorb energy is instantly available to damp positive disturbances). A GFM has to determine its local departure in frequency before it can supply or absorb energy, and even if done purely with analog electronics, there is a delay in the feedback loop. I have wondered if this delay allows one part of a grid to begin working, in see-saw like fashion, against another part. A network of many interconnected GFM solar plants, depending on the topology, could exhibit all sorts of eigenvalues in its small disturbance behavior.
I saw one report that imagined that all the generators on the grid are rotating in harmony as if connected on a common shaft.
Nice analogue but not really true – its more like a springy shaft (like made of rubber) and each transformer fed section of grid is running at its own absolute phase angle relative to all others this is due to the impedance of the load (and phase angle changes through the transformers etc.) – however they are all rotating in sync – but…
If one suddenly lets go – this is what causes the oscillations – the ripple effects can domino and grid collapse can occur.
This can happen in milliseconds, the protection is automatic – no time to call a bureaucratic meeting and devise an action plan – it just happens.
You just can’t run a grid as a social experiment – it’s going to end in tragedy and we are starting to see the first flickers of a dying flame.
The springy shaft analogy is reasonably accurate for phase differences up to 30º, with the important insight that generators can oscillate against each other. The damper windings on synchronous generators play a role in damping out oscillations that may not be present in grid forming inverters.
One has to admit that the problem is so complex that people propose such unrealistic models in hopes of finding an analogy that works to give them some insight. When you say “springy” that is probably exactly how a chain of solar plants, each connected with a GFM inverter to a grid, would behave. From mechanics we know that a chain of masses connected by springs, even if each has a high characteristic frequency (square root of k/m), collectively produces a large number of eigenmodes — some very slow, depending on topology. The equivalent in a chain of solar plants could involve the very low natural frequency of connected themal plants.
Unfortunately, we are doomed to run this social experiment because we have taken too much time fooling around and encouraging the closure of thermal plants to suddenly build new ones.
Red Electrica have publicly commented that this is very difficult to model. Potentially a chaotic system, and it seems that the chaos regime has occurred on a number of occasions.
One thing that makes the math a little easier is that the generators in a given locality are going to be tightly coupled and thus act as a single unit when doing large system analysis (e.g. European grid, Eastern U.S. grid and western U.S.grid).
As I have mentioned several times in these discussions, synchronous generators have damper windings that are specifically designed to dampen oscillations. In the early days of power generation, interconnected generators would “hunt” (oscillate) and that was solved by applying the damper winding. These windings are effectively a squirrel cage induction machine, where power output is proportional to difference in line frequency and rotational speed.
With low inertia, grid events happen too fast for control systems to respond – think phase margin when designing op amp circuits.
Correct: one of the Spanish grid engineers who was quoted fairly early on as a whistleblower mentioned that the conventional generation is so equipped, but not the inverters. He attributed the lack of “power oscillation damping” as a key factor behind the instability that led to overvoltages and the trips.
Actually, typical generator inertia is rather higher than you suggest. About 4 seconds for nuclear plant, with CCGT closer to 5: coal might be under 3, but that is now almost all gone in Spain. Plus there is inertia on the demand side from large industrial motors, and in Spain’s case from pumped hydro pumping. Moreover, if you look at overall grid inertia for say PJM or ERCOT it remains above 4 seconds, and NESO were also maintaining the GB grid above 4 seconds (though they keep wanting to flirt with lower numbers). CAISO is a bit lower, perhaps down to 3 on a bad day.
You can see how frequency fell, accelerating to 4Hz/sec precisely because of the low inertia. Most kit attached to the grid has historically been required to stay connected at up to 1Hz/sec RoCoF, but now 2Hz/sec is increasingly demanded in high renewables grid codes.
Thanks for these figures. I don’t recall the source of my figure, but it was 6GWsec for a 2.5GW nuclear plant, and I planted that in my mind. When you say, “You can see how frequency fell…” I don’t see what you refer to.
Sorry – I meant to include it:
Very interesting. I’d seen graphs showing several 6 second cycle disturbances of frequency in the Spanish grid but those graphs quit about 10 minutes before the real trouble. You mention the grid being so complex that it maybe resembles a chaotic system — well this graph makes it look like an orbit growing toward a limit cycle which is not unheard of in chaos.
“Now we’ve done the experiment. I can imagine what Feynman would have said.”
I like to think he would remind us all that the purpose of the experiment was to reduce atmospheric CO2. How’s that working out?
Point 1. For something that is claimed to be well mixed, the chart does not support that claim.
Point 2: Mauna Loa observatory was relocated some 200 miles away due to volcanism on the Big Island.
Point 3: Located on one Earth’s most active volcano, why is there no information on how the gasses emitted are considered in the measurements?
Point 4: The purpose of the experiment was to reduce atmospheric CO2? Really?
Nicely done. Paper is even better. Thank you.
It’s very difficult to try to educate the public..or governments and politicians.
And impossible to correct those that take the money!
There is a claim that there was a 0.6Hz frequency excursion at 12:03 which was seen in Germany, France and Spain, for which there is no explanation [try low inertia and a lot of solar on the grid across Northern Europe – for the CEE grid that is a HUGE excursion]. 20 minutes later there was a further less severe blip but which was seen as far away as Latvia – the other side of coal dominated Poland. They are trying to cast these events as laying the groundwork for the Spanish collapse – despite the fact that that originated entirely in Andalucia in the South, furthest away from the main CEE grid.
https://www.msn.com/es-es/noticias/tecnologia/el-apag%C3%B3n-en-espa%C3%B1a-a%C3%BAn-nos-plantea-muchas-inc%C3%B3gnitas-las-nuevas-hip%C3%B3tesis-apuntan-a-otras-causas-m%C3%A1s-all%C3%A1-de-la-falta-de-inercia/ar-AA1FvD29
They’ll keep throwing good money after bad and blame it on the technology and “unforeseen weather anomalies”, not the engineering/planning. The reason they get away with this is media support with misinformation supporting renewables.
“Here my simple advice:
Personally: Prepare for 3-5 days by stocking up on water, food, light, power backups.”
Folks need to do more. Water for uses other than drinking, medicines, pet food, a non-electric can opener … more …., and don’t forget the “church key.”
Or a propane generator with a nice big tank of fuel.
I’ve been seeing predictions around here about this, and I’ve seen those predictions consistently dismissed by some. Now that it’s happening, I’m seeing it said that it’s not due to “renewables”.
I’m just following along to see how far things go before reality sets in.
And we’re the “deniers”.
It’s a bit like if it was decided that arsenic needed to be added to the water, and then when people started getting sick saying “we’re adding too much arsenic to the water; we need to cut back on it.”
No. Stop it altogether. Same with wind and solar.
Prepare for 3-5 days by stocking up on water, food, light, power backups. I think in the UK we need to plan for longer than that.
In an old fashioned UK water system with a header tank you had a week’s water in the loft. A primus for picnics and candles for emergencies were standard in a lot of homes.
I guess only those of us who remember the 3 Day Week, Miners Strikes and Oil Embargoes have these things available within about 30 seconds.
“Start designing systems that supply us with stable, affordable energy simultaneously protecting the environment”
Add this clause: ” … by releasing as much beneficial, Nature-pleasing CO2 to the atmosphere as you like”.
Perhaps state laws should be enacted that restrict inverter based sources to never exceed 66% of operating system load. good luck with multi state systems.
How did you derive 66%?
In other words, engineering tolerance levels are ignored.
That’s what always happens when bean counters are in charge of projects.
STORY TIP
Microsoft says its Aurora AI can accurately predict air quality, typhoons, and more
“One of Microsoft’s latest AI models can accurately predict air quality, hurricanes, typhoons, and other weather-related phenomena, the company claims.
In a paper published in the journal Nature and an accompanying blog post this week, Microsoft detailed Aurora, which the tech giant says can forecast atmospheric events with greater precision and speed than traditional meteorological approaches. Aurora, which has been trained on more than a million hours of data from satellites, radar and weather stations, simulations, and forecasts, can be fine-tuned with additional data to make predictions for particular weather events.”
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/23/microsoft-says-its-aurora-ai-can-accurately-predict-air-quality-typhoons-and-more/
Bye bye Forecaster Paasch?
Who are the geniuses who decided it was wise to tear down the existing energy infrastructure before a replacement was ready?
Let’s set aside, for now, the fact that unreliable, “renewable” energy can never replace the existing grid. The power is too expensive, unreliable and requires a parallel, duplicate system to keep it going.
You need to look larger. A grid will always have these issues. A grid of grids might work but that introduces its own complications. Face it, the grid is the problem.
Solar and battery technology will only improve and get cheaper. Only minimally interconnected and thus with minimal line loses. Ultimately with good enough solar capture and battery storage, individual houses will be independent. This is why special interests keep focusing on large itegrated grids that can be centrally controlled and billed.
Solar and batteries are no solution except in the sunniest climates some degrees away from the Equator (which is frequently cloudy), where seasonal variation is not particularly great. See for example
https://euanmearns.com/solar-pv-potential-in-scotland/
https://euanmearns.com/more-on-going-off-grid-in-uk/
Thank you for acknowledging that solar and batteries aren’t currently a good solution and are too expensive. Please get back to us when they become practical and affordable.
In the meantime, let’s not deploy any more solar and batteries. They are a bad solution.
And this garnered me 8 downvotes? People aren’t seeing the bigger picture. Solar and batteries are not “there’ yet. When they get “there” is will make sense for a distributed system for most of the demand. A grid system is the power version of mass transit.
The grid will exist for forcing people to pay more.
Solar & batteries are running neck & neck with nuclear fusion to see which is first to be declared “only 10 years away”.
That’s not fair. Solar cell efficiency has increased while costs have declined. The same for batteries.
Solar works at night in your world?
Take a look at the pictures of solar farms after hail and windstorms and get back to us.
You failed to read the links I gave. Solar generation is limited by the available solar input, however efficient the panels are (which just marginally affects the area you have to devote to them which is the biggest cost, especially in high density populations). Neither storage nor excess capacity in combination can overcome seasonal and weather variation at any economic cost.
Here’s a case just 10 degrees south of the equator.
https://euanmearns.com/wind-and-solar-on-thursday-island/
Your Thursday Island analysis was 7 years ago on 20 year old technology.
If it genuinely doesn’t make economical sense Ergon wouldn’t be doing this
Because
Renewables aren’t an either/or proposition. Prices are continuing to come down on solar, wind and batteries and adding them at a sensible pace without jumping to premature complete replacement makes sense.
Re: Solar
Are you ignoring rooftop installations with this statement? Rooftop installation is zero cost for area. Arguments that it makes no economic sense to use large amounts of prime land for solar farms are valid. So dont do it.
They are a bad IDEA for anything grid connected.
They were NEVER a “solution,” since the “prblem” is imaginary.
You’re forgetting why grids came about in the first place. A large grid provides for diversity in load and generation, larger generating units typically cost less and are more efficient than smaller generating units.
Battery performance is limited by Thermodynamics. There will never be a battery chemistry better than lithium ion simply because there is no element lighter nor more electropositive than lithium.
Have you calculated the mass of a lithium ion battery big enough to support a countrywide grid?
You are defining niche applications.
You are also defining grid scale application is nothing but a disaster waiting for a trigger.
Your point of special interests not wanting individuals to be independent (and free to make choices) is part of the ideology.
Too many misread your post.
Subsidizing wind and solar drove reliable power out of the market.
Subsidizing wind and solar has impoverished consumers everywhere.
We already had reliable energy systems that also protected the environment.
“Fragile Grids”
Well, that is one way to describe it. It may be the best way given it has an emotional content.
From a systems engineering, control theory, perspective, those grids were marginally stable. When a marginally stable grid gets hit with a step function, it oscillates.
Of course way too many do not want to hurt their heads, so calling if fragile instead seems the better approach.
This debate over energy is not, unfortunately going to be won with the facts. The skeptics would have won long ago had this debate been about facts.
I’m not saying to lie, mislead or distort like the climate change hysterics do. I’m saying facts and reason can’t change an opinion that is based on emotions.
A few long, nationwide blackouts will change public opinion much faster than logical argument and facts. It’s already happening.
Referring to the pre-event oscillations graphic, it the T-17min mis-marked?
It seems out of time sequence with the T-30 and T-19 marks.
I noticed, and thought about questioning it, but in the end decided the image was colorful and confusing. It might take a long explanation. For example, it appears that Germany (purple) was a big player in this although nothing was said about why.
Take generators A B, and C. Make A master. Sync B to A. No problem. Sync C to A no problem. Now Sync C to B. Problem, because the signals from A and B arrive at different times because the distance from A to C is not the same as the distance from A to B to C.
This a fundamental timing problem in large meshes like power grids..
For a grid to function properly, the generators need to vary their relative phase to accommodate changes in power flow.
Better plan:
Build coal, gas and nuclear power plants, coal and nuclear for baseload, and gas to respond rapidly to variations in demand, frequency, etc.
Stop worrying about CO2, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Strip weather dependent sources from their mandated grid “prioritization” and let them compete on an even playing field (= they will go out of business and no more money or resources will be wasted on them). Government selection of “winners” and “losers” = everybody who isn’t in on the grift loses.
Bonus: We will stop funneling money to China.
Correction: We will funnel less money to China. We should stop financing our enemies.
So the Bali event was more like the widespread blackout in the NE US when supply from Quebec failed, which IRRC happened twice for different reasons:
IOW a failure of primary transmission conduits.
I recall a case in ON or PQ of guard cables sagging under weight of ice/snow until they touched live conductors, shorting them out. I don’t recall why there were guard cables above live conductors, I remember that was rethought after the occurrence.
(A capacitor unit is used to offset inductance in the system.)
The operation of capacitance and inductance combination is sometimes called ‘reactance’ and particular units ‘reactor’, theorized by some as the reason the Squamish Five terrorist group from the Vancouver BC area bombed an electrical power substation on Vancouver Island. (It went on to bomb a defense manufacturing plant in ON.)
(Popularly named ‘Squamish Five’ because they had a cache of stolen explosives in the Squamish area north of Vancouver BC and were arrested on their way to it.
They illustrate risk of homegrown terrorism and the morphing of activists into different agendas – they began in activism against exploitation of women, committed arson in that activism.)