Iberian power outage: "no evidence" at this stage implicating renewable energy, according to the French manager

RTE admits that the wind and solar production, which just before the blackout covered around 70% of Spain's electricity production, was "significant", but stresses that it was not "unprecedented", with "such configurations" having already been reached in 2024 and 2025.

The manager published a document on Monday in the form of 20 questions and answers on its website, some to dismiss numerous false reports that have been circulating on the networks (fires, atmospheric conditions, etc.), others to put certain hypotheses into perspective.

Since the blackout, renewable energy has been accused by some political parties in Spain of being responsible for an imbalance between electricity production and demand, since the grid operator does not control sunlight or wind strength.

But operators point out that during previous outages, the problems often came from the transmission network, not the production plants.

The French manager also believes that the results of the investigations carried out at European level "will not be known in the coming days."

In particular, they will have to "analyze to what extent this high share of renewable energy could have played a role in the spread of the incident."

A group of experts set up by the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) will investigate the incident, the European Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) announced on Monday. According to RTE, European regulations set a deadline of six months for a full report.

Following the outage, France was able to gradually reinject up to 2 GW of electricity into the Spanish grid. Six interconnectors link the two countries.

A new "Bay of Biscay" line, mostly underwater, is under construction, which will increase the exchange capacity between the two countries from 2028 to 2,8 GW by 5, helping to reduce the electrical isolation of the Iberian Peninsula.

"France must realize that interconnections must be made, whatever happens," stressed Spanish Minister for Ecological Transition Sara Aagesen on Sunday, assuring that for environmental reasons, France views with suspicion the installation of two new interconnections via the Pyrenees.

RTE says it is "ready to work with (...) its Spanish and Portuguese counterparts", but insists "on the need to strengthen the French network in parallel to ensure safe operation of interconnections over the long term".