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After Spain’s blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It’s part of a bigger attack.

Julia Simon, October 8, 2025

 After Spain’s blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It’s part of a
bigger attack. a new report from an expert panel of European grid operators details what happened. The report finds that for the first time in Europe, a voltage surge caused the massive outage. Voltage needs to remain within limits for an electrical grid to work.

While many things went wrong, the
problem was not a power grid with too much wind or solar, says Chris
Rosslowe, a senior energy analyst at Ember who was not involved in drafting the report. “It contradicts the numerous claims that we’ve seen that an overreliance on renewables was the cause,” Rosslowe says. “That is clearly not true.” But the misinformation about solar and wind energy causing the outage has had an impact.

A new survey found that a majority of Spanish respondents believe at least one false narrative about the blackout, and the most common was that too much reliance on renewable energy was to blame.

Countries around the world are using renewable energy to move away
from polluting fossil fuels. That’s why it’s so important to counter false
narratives about solar and wind, says Philip Newell, communications
co-chair of the Climate Action Against Disinformation, a coalition of
nonprofits.

 NPR 8th Oct 2025,
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/nx-s1-5534949/spain-blackout-misinformation-renewable-energy

October 19, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable