Eastern European outage shows weakness of ‘renewable’ energy

Like most of Western Europe, Spain and Portugal have been at the forefront of the green movement in recent decades. Both nations have embraced renewable energy sources, especially wind and solar, as they have transformed their energy grid infrastructure to rely heavily upon these sources.

With that being said, it should come as no surprise that the extensive power outage that crippled these countries and parts of others earlier this week was primarily caused by a huge drop in solar power output in a short period of time.

To be exact, as the Associated Press reports, “In a span of just five minutes, between 12:30 and 12:35 p.m. local time (1030-1035 GMT) on Monday, solar PV generation plunged by more than 50% to 8 gigawatts (GW) from more than 18 GW.”

Based on an early report, the sudden drop in solar power occurred at two solar facilities in southwest Spain, which triggered a “complete collapse of the system,” according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Because power grids are complex structures that are often intertwined among nations, when one country experiences a major outage, it typically spreads to its neighbors as well. Such is why areas in Portugal, France, and Belgium experienced large power outages after the Spanish grid collapsed.

Predictably, the mainstream media are totally ignoring the cause of this manmade disaster.

For now, the official narrative is that the abrupt power outage was due to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon.”

The truth is that Spain, which generated 56 percent of its electricity mix in 2024 from renewables, has become a canary in the coal mine for other nations that are considering going all-in on renewable energy.

Red Electrica, a fitting name for Spain’s monopolistic utility power provider, blamed the power failure on “severe oscillations in high-voltage lines in southern France or inland Spain.” The company said the possible causes “include a physical fault (line disconnection), a sudden loss of generation within Spain, or an atmospheric phenomenon.”

What recently occurred in Spain, Portugal, France, and Belgium is not an isolated incident; it is only the latest instance of an electric grid being unable to deliver on-demand power due to an overreliance on renewable energy.

The same thing has been occurring more and more in the United States in recent years, especially after President Biden’s four-year war on natural gas and coal, which can provide abundant, affordable, and reliable energy 24 hours per day, seven days per week.

As the federal government, in cahoots with state and local governments, has pushed electricity grid operators to build more solar and wind power facilities instead of dependable natural gas plants while prematurely shuttering perfectly operable coal power plants, the U.S. grid has suffered.

As the American Energy Alliance notes, “ power outages have increased by 93 percent across the United States over the last 5 years—a time when solar and wind power have increased by 60 percent. Texas, which leads the nation in wind generation, and California, which leads the nation in solar generation, have had the largest number of power outages in the nation over those 5 years.”

It also must be emphasized that wind and solar are not environmentally friendly.

While it is true that solar panels and wind turbines produce little to no direct carbon monoxide emissions, it is also true that the manufacturing process requires vast amounts of rare earth elements.

It is also the case, as even the Los Angeles Times acknowledged in 2022, that enormous solar fields and gigantic wind turbines destroy pristine lands, disrupt habitats, are nearly impossible to recycle, and result in the mass killing of birds, whales, and other animals.

Finally, it is essential to reinforce the fact that not only are wind and solar unreliable and bad for the environment, but they also cost more, not less, than natural gas and coal.

As James Taylor, President of The Heartland Institute, notes in a new Policy Study, “a peer-reviewed analysis of full-system levelized costs of competing power sources shows wind power is seven times more expensive than natural gas power and solar power is 10 times more expensive.”

The good news for Americans is that President Trump understands the fundamental folly of the so-called green movement. Unlike his predecessor, Trump is not interested in pushing what he calls the “green new scam.”

Over his first 100 days, Trump has taken a vast array of actions to roll back Biden-era regulations that stifled domestic energy production. Moreover, Trump wants to export natural gas to Western Europe, which would weaken Russia’s war machine while bringing our traditional European allies back in the fold.

Hopefully, this dark episode will help other European nations, Germany in particular, recognize that you simply cannot run a modern nation primarily on wind and solar power.

Chris Talgo is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

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