Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
“Unprecedented surge in demand driven by the rapid expansion of large-load data centers and broader economy-wide electrification,” is noted by PJM as one of the the three drivers of grid strain, alongside “the accelerated retirement of dispatchable generation due to environmental policy and economics; and significant supply chain and permitting frictions that have extended the time required to bring new resources online.”
Data centers are the primary drivers of rising electricity consumption, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA expects electricity demand to grow by 1% in 2026 and 3% in 2023, potentially outpacing new energy supply.
“The result is a transition from an era of managing surplus to an era of managing scarcity,” the memo continues, highlighting long lead times on new energy developments. “Construction timelines have doubled,” the report continues. “Today, a new natural gas turbine plant – the reference technology for the capacity market – requires at least four years under optimistic assumptions from financial investment decision to commercial operation.”
Permitting requirements contribute considerably to long development times. The average environmental review takes over fouryears to complete, according to the Council on Environmental Quality.
PJM’s white paper highlights three paths toward keeping the grid solvent.
Path A aims to stabilize markets “through long-term forward commitments either through mandatory Load Serving Entity (LSE) hedging requirements or through a PJM-administered, long-term procurement, such as a tiered, multiyear capacity market.”
LSE is a catchall term for any authorized seller of electricity to its principal users.
Alternatively, PJM’s Path B institutes differential reliability.
“This could be implemented geographically (different states or zones procuring different levels of reliability) or by customer class (for example, with residential and native loads insulated from curtailment while unbacked new large load additions are curtailed first),” the memo notes.
Under the differential reliability model, data centers using preexisting supply would be subject to throttling during periods of high demand. Residential consumers who contributed to existing supply would be prioritized for output.
Path C aims to partially transition grid use to a supply-and-demand pricing model, while maintaining long-term contract optionality. PJM would “pursue a deliberate, phased shift of revenue recovery from the capacity market” combined with “long-term forward energy contracting requirements to protect consumers from increased energy price volatility and to support investment.”
“Constrained supply” is at the heart of PJM’s complaints. This shortage largely stems from the many regulatory reviews required to break ground on energy developments, according to the Consumer Energy Alliance.
The Trump administration has employed statutory actions to cut regulation and expedite permitting, notably overturning the Obama-era endangerment finding that allowed for federal regulation of carbon emissions.
These actions have not been made law by Congress. Though the House of Representatives passed the Standardizing Permitting and Expediting Economic Development Act in December 2025 to modify the National Environmental Policy Act, the legislation is frozen in the Senate.
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If you don’t like fossil fuels — and who does? — our betters in academia and environmental NGOs have the perfect answer: we can just get our energy in the form of electricity from the wind and sun. The fuel is abundant and free for the taking. The New York Times has reported that the cost of electricity generated from wind and sun is now lower than the cost of generation from fossil fuel sources.
If you don’t like fossil fuels — and who does? — our betters in academia and environmental NGOs have the perfect answer: we can just get our energy in the form of electricity from the wind and sun. The fuel is abundant and free for the taking. The New York Times has reported that the cost of electricity generated from wind and sun is now lower than the cost of generation from fossil fuel sources. And even as we save money on electricity, we’ll be saving the planet! All the sociology and gender studies majors agree that we have a moral duty to switch our energy system away from fossil fuels to “clean and green” wind and solar electricity. Who could possibly be such a monster as to stand in the way?
At this website, I have devoted considerable attention to documenting major flaws in this narrative. In particular, I have written dozens of posts on the subject of the intermittency problem of wind and solar generation, which leads to a need for either full back-up at all times from another generation source, or alternatively for massive capacity of energy storage, in order to make a fully-functioning electricity system to power a grid without regular blackouts. As demonstrated in my Energy Storage Report of December 2022, providing sufficient energy storage in the form of batteries could multiply the cost of electricity from wind and sun by a factor of ten or more.
And it turns out that the intermittency problem is just one of the major issues with wind and solar generation that make those sources completely impractical and unaffordable to run an electrical grid. Another huge problem, which I have previously barely touched on here, is the problem of synchronization and inertia. My assumption is that nearly all readers will be almost completely unfamiliar with this issue, and with why this issue becomes an insurmountable problem as countries try to move to a predominantly wind/sun generation system. So let this post introduce you to the topic.
One of the things I do in my spare time is serve on the Board of something called the American Friends of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. That organization is an American charity that raises funds to support two affiliated organizations in the UK — the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and Net Zero Watch. On March 9, Net Zero Watch sponsored a presentation in Edinburgh by an energy consultant named Kathryn Porter. The title of the presentation was “Scotland’s Energy Crisis.”
Ms. Porter’s full talk can be found at this link. This Kathryn Porter is not to be confused with Katherine (“Katie”) Porter, the rather crazy ex-Congresswoman and current gubernatorial candidate in California. Our Kathryn Porter runs an energy consulting business in the UK and has a very informative website called watt-logic.com. And she definitely knows what she is talking about on the subject of how an electrical grid works.
While Ms. Porter’s talk specifically addressed the current situation of the electrical grid in Scotland, it turns out that that the most important problem that Scotland’s electrical grid faces is the problem of maintaining synchronization. If you don’t know what that means, I’ll let Ms. Porter introduce the subject:
Our power grids are built around alternating current, that is current that varies in a regular sine wave pattern over time . . . . Voltage also varies in the same way. This electricity is generated utilising some fundamental principles of physics. If you rotate one magnet inside the magnetic field of another magnet you can induce a current in a wire. In our power grids, this happens in conventional power stations.
An external power source is used to power electromagnets mounted on a rotor which is driven by a turbine to rotate inside another electromagnet called a stator. The turbines [of] all power stations turn at 3000 RPM to give a wave that has a frequency of 50 Hz (by dividing 3000 RPM by 60 seconds to get 50 cycles per second also known as 50 Hz) . . . . The entire power grid is structured around these properties: current and voltage alternate at a stable 50 Hz and the size and shape of the voltage wave must remain stable everywhere on the grid. [In the U.S., the frequency is 60 Hz rather than 50.] . . . Before a generator connects to the grid it must match the grid’s voltage, frequency and phase – that is the peaks ad troughs of the waves line up. This process is known as synchronisation.
What Ms. Porter calls “conventional power stations” include all thermal plants — fossil fuel and nuclear — and also hydroelectric power plants. But the term does not include wind and solar generators. Those do not have large and heavy rotating components that create and maintain the alternating current with constant frequency that is the essence of grid function. Instead, they produce what is called “direct current,” and then they have devices called “inverters,” that transform the direct current produced by the turbines or panels into an alternating current at the grid frequency. But while the wind and solar electricity can be altered by these devices into synchronized alternating current to fit into an existing grid, the wind/solar generation has no ability to maintain, let alone create, the necessary grid frequency. Ms. Porter explains:
“[I]nertia”. . . is a property where a conventional power station resists . . . changes in frequency – falling frequency would try to slow the rotation of the turbines but they are big heavy lumps of metal whose speed is hard to change, meaning they resist those changes and help to keep the frequency stable. This is important because a lot of equipment can break if the frequency moves away from 50 Hz by too much, including turbines, so they have protection relays that will simply cause them to disconnect if they detect a dangerous frequency level. If your power stations start disconnecting you end up with blackouts so it’s pretty important that doesn’t happen.
Conventional generators also have electromagnetic inertia which means they also support voltage. . . . If voltage rises too high or falls too low equipment can be damaged. If grid voltage rises, the current in the electromagnets that generate electricity in synchronous generators automatically adjust and act to pull the grid voltage back down. In both cases – frequency control and voltage control – conventional power stations do this automatically due to their physical properties. They do not require an external control system to detect changes in grid behaviour and instruct the changes.
Wind and solar generators behave very differently. They produce direct current i.e. current and voltage that do not vary in time. They are converted to alternating current using electronic devices known as inverters. . . . Inverters work by following what the grid is doing. . . . These inverters are “grid following” i.e. they cannot create the current and voltage wave.
So if you get rid of all the “conventional” generation sources, and you’re down to just wind and solar, how can you create a grid and keep it running with a stable 50 or 60 Hz frequency? Ms. Porter explains that there is a concept called “grid forming inverters”.— but those things don’t yet exist!:
There are some efforts to develop grid forming inverters that would [create the current and voltage wave] but there are big challenges in their development and so far there are no such devices in operation anywhere in the world where they are actually forming the grid.
The “grid forming inverters” are thus much like the magical “dispatchable emissions-free resources” that our New York energy bureaucrats are expecting someone to invent one of these days to solve the intermittency problem.
Ms. Porter explains that the big blackout in Spain in April 2025 arose from a lack of conventional power stations with sufficient inertia to stabilize the grid when a voltage anomaly occurred:
Spain has allowed most of the conventional generation in the south to close and is now struggling to control voltage, with the grid operator warning that further blackouts cannot be ruled out. . . .
And then Ms. Porter explains that Scotland has gotten itself into basically the same position as Spain. Scotland has gone all in on wind generation, while closing all but two of its conventional power stations. Thus Scotland seems to have plenty of electricity most of the time. But it is totally dependent on the two conventional stations to maintain grid frequency and inertia. One small blip, and the whole thing goes down. Oh, and they plan to close both of those last two conventional power stations within the next few years. Hey, the wind and sun are abundant and free!
There’s much more of interest in Ms. Porter’s talk, and it is well worth your time if this subject interests you.
Fritz Vahrenholt, a German chemist, former SPD politician published an article in early January 2026 titled “Eine grundsätzliche Lehre aus dem Terroranschlag auf das Berliner Stromnetz” (translated: “A Fundamental Lesson from the Terrorist Attack on the Berlin Power Grid”).
His Monthly newsletter refers to the arson attack on January 3, 2026, on high-voltage cables in southwest Berlin, claimed by the far-left extremist group Vulkangruppe. This sabotage caused a multi-day blackout affecting tens of thousands of households, businesses, hospitals, and public transport. German authorities investigated it as a terrorist act.
Fritz Vahrenholt, a German chemist, former SPD politician published an article in early January 2026 titled “Eine grundsätzliche Lehre aus dem Terroranschlag auf das Berliner Stromnetz” (translated: “A Fundamental Lesson from the Terrorist Attack on the Berlin Power Grid”).
His Monthly newsletter refers to the arson attack on January 3, 2026, on high-voltage cables in southwest Berlin, claimed by the far-left extremist group Vulkangruppe.
This sabotage caused a multi-day blackout affecting tens of thousands of households, businesses, hospitals, and public transport. German authorities investigated it as a terrorist act.
the global temperature continued to decline significantly in December 2025. It is only 0.3 degrees Celsius higher than the long-term average. Overall, 2025 was significantly cooler than 2024. The cooling trend continues.
A fundamental lesson from the terrorist attack on the Berlin power grid
The shutdown of the electricity supply in the south of Berlin has made us aware of the fragility of the policy of the energy transition. The aim of the energy transition is not only to convert the electricity supply to wind and solar energy, but also to convert the other two pillars of the energy supply, namely the heat supply and the transport sector, to electricity. Everything on electricity means doing without gas and oil in the heating sector and oil (petrol/diesel) in the motor vehicle sector.
Sector coupling was the name given to this narrowing of the energy supply to one energy source. This sector coupling was disseminated and celebrated by the green high priests as a sustainable model for the future. In its origin, it was an attempt to correct the weakness of renewable energies, which lead to unusable surpluses in times of high wind and solar power. These useless surpluses were to be pushed into the heating sector and the motor vehicle sector after storage. The fact that this sector coupling leads to an exorbitant increase in costs has been described often enough here. Frontier economics estimates the total cost of the energy transition by 2045 at an unaffordable 4800 to 5400 billion euros.
But now the attack in Berlin shows us that such an energy system, based solely on electricity, is highly vulnerable. We learn that in the event of a power failure, the heat supply also fails, at least if it is to be generated by heat pumps. And to make matters worse, we learn that in sub-zero temperatures, heat pumps are threatened with total loss due to bursting pipes. In any case, this package insert has not yet existed with Habeck’s heating law, which the black-red federal government wants to continue seamlessly. The content of the law will remain the same, but so that the citizens do not really notice it, the name of the law is to be changed.
We also learn that in the event of a large-scale power outage, e-vehicles can only help if they happen to have been charged before the bang. Otherwise, this use will also be cancelled. Until now, there has been a great deal of resilience associated with being able to rely on two storable systems for 75% of the energy supply, namely the gas supply for heat and the fuel supply for mobility. The fact that the third pillar, the electricity supply, which has so far provided 25% of energy consumption, is now also being made weather-dependent and is then supposed to serve all three pillars, has turned out even more clearly since the Berlin events to be a left-green ideological pipe dream that will not survive the reality test. The text of the first claim of responsibility makes use of the context of the justification of green and left-wing ideologies of climate anxiety:
“In the greed for energy, the earth is drained, sucked dry, burned, maltreated, burned down, raped, destroyed. Entire regions are made uninhabitable under the heat. They simply burn. Or habitats disappear under the floods during floods or due to rising sea levels. Shutting down fossil fuel power plants is manual work.”
Except for the last sentence, one could read similar formulations in party congress resolutions of the Greens, the Left and the SPD. The sentence “Entire regions become uninhabitable under the heat” even comes from a UN report from 2022. The ideological justification for the energy transition stems from the same context of climate alarmism that the Vulkangruppe uses to justify its criminal actions.
On our own behalf
This newsletter is shorter, because I would like to spare myself the intensive research that you are used to so far, in this and the next newsletters. I have started to write a book, together with Björn Peters, about the future of nuclear energy. The book will be published by Langen-Müller in autumn and requires intensive research. That’s why I have to cut back on the newsletter, which has always cost me 4-5 working days, for two or three months. I hope you understand.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican incumbent in Virginia, warns that the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) will drastically raise utility rates due to its overreliance on “green energy.” Unless the Virginia General Assembly steps in to lighten the regulatory load in the energy sector, an “impending train wreck” in the form of rising utility bills will remain in motion, according to a statement from the commonwealth’s energy director.
Youngkin offers up nuclear power as an innovative solution in the run-up to the November election
Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican incumbent in Virginia, warns that the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA) will drastically raise utility rates due to its overreliance on “green energy.” Unless the Virginia General Assembly steps in to lighten the regulatory load in the energy sector, an “impending train wreck” in the form of rising utility bills will remain in motion, according to a statement from the commonwealth’s energy director.
Youngkin points to the VCEA—enacted under his predecessor in 2020—as the primary culprit behind projected increases in utility bills. Known as the “Virginia Green New Deal,” the VCEA is laced with green energy mandates that are expected to become more costly in the absence of Youngkin’s veto pen.
The Virginia Power Grid Hangs in the Balance
But there’s still time for Virginia to cut a different path in line with Youngkin’s “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy, which includes nuclear power. Glenn Davis, the Virginia Department of Energy director, points to the Commonwealth Fusion System’s (CFS) planned commercial fusion plant at the James River Industrial Park as a prime example of the kind of initiatives policymakers should pursue. The CFS plant is poised to become the first grid-scale commercial fusion power outfit of its kind anywhere in the world. In an exclusive statement to Restoration News, Davis said:
Virginia is leading the way in energy innovation, especially nuclear, as the home to the world’s first commercial fusion reactor. This plant is just one piece of a much larger energy plan to meet the 6.5% growth in demand Virginia is expecting as we continue to see a soaring increase in jobs and investment. Fusion has been talked about for generations and now is becoming a reality, right here in Virginia, with not only a plant but also an innovation hub. Under Governor Youngkin’s leadership, Virginia has embraced all-American, all-of-the-above power and is front and center in an energy and power renaissance that will power the Commonwealth with safe, secure, reliable, and affordable energy for years to come. Unfortunately, while the Youngkin administration has been working arduously to give Virginians relief on their energy bills, the Virginia Clean Economy Act is about to cause utility bills to skyrocket, with a projected compliance cost exceeding $5 billion over the next ten years, beginning with bill increases this September. For four years, Governor Youngkin has warned of this impending train wreck, but General Assembly Democrats have refused to address it.
The outcome of this year’s gubernatorial race will likely determine the trajectory of energy costs for Virginia residents. That’s because Abigail Spanberger has a history of supporting Green New Deal-type policies—that was evident during her time in Congress. Her voting record shows she supported extending a moratorium on drilling off Virginia’s coast. Spanberger also voted against prohibiting bans on gas stoves and gas-powered cars, and she opposed ordering the government to issue all federal permits for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which runs through Virginia.
As the Democratic candidate for governor, Spanberger has also expressed support for having Virginia rejoin a carbon tax scheme known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. By contrast, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, her Republican opponent, supported Youngkin’s decision to withdraw from RGGI. Earle-Sears is also running on a platform of lowering living costs.
Stephen D. Haner, a senior fellow for environment and energy policy at the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, expects an almost 50% increase for Virginia ratepayers within the next two years. Haner bases this forecast on an analysis of the rate increase applications Dominion Energy—the Virginia public utility—submitted earlier this year to the State Corporation Commission, the regulatory authority overseeing utilities.
The 1,000-kilowatt hour monthly bill was about $116 just before VCEA was implemented. Haner expects pending price increases to take this amount to about $170 in 2027, with VCEA compliance costs the biggest component of this increase.
From here, the news gets even worse as Haner envisions a scenario where Virginia experiences power blackouts. PJM, the regional trading entity, issued a statement in its “Summer Outlook 2025” document of particular concern to energy policy analysts. The current season marks the first time that available generation capacity may fall short of required reserves in an extreme planning scenario that would result in an all-time PJM peak load of more than 166,000 MW, according to the PJM statement. Put another way, the VCEA mandates on wind and solar could further strain a power grid that is already under stress.
Nuclear power could be part of the solution. Virginia already has the Surry Nuclear Power Station located in southeastern Virginia, on the south bank of the James River across from Jamestown, and the North Anna Power Station in Louisa County.
Youngkin is set to leave office in January, since the Virginia governor is limited to just one consecutive term under state law. He has been a consistent opponent of the VCEA and is pursuing court action to keep Virginia out of RGGI.
With the Democrat-controlled House of Delegates continuing to refuse to take action, the approaching gubernatorial race could decide the fate of the power grid in Virginia.
Attentive readers of the “Climate News” already knew it beforehand: The Whitsun weekend is a stress test for our power grid: The sun is very high, provides a lot of energy and the demand for electricity is very low due to the holiday. Back in May 2025, you could read here:
“The Pentecost weekend is not far away, you should hope for clouds.”
n-tv asked the head of the transmission system operator “TransnetBW”, Werner Götz, about the problems. His answers are interesting and disturbing at the same time.
“As a grid operator, we have to balance consumption and supply every second. This is not easy with this volatility. Consumers probably also want a more even distribution.”
In any case, the interview at n.tv with Werner Götz is a reading recommendation.
What did it look like on Pentecost Sunday? A look at the shares in production:
Up to 74% of the power generated was provided by renewable energies (RE, wind + PV). This also implies the use of power electronics to generate the 50Hz alternating current “set in stone” in the European grid. The risks here became visible during the “Iberout”, we reported in detail, including here. At the end of April, however, only about 65% RE was ultimately the cause of the blackout on the Iberian Peninsula.
In addition, an unknown proportion of photovoltaics (PV) cannot be centrally controlled, that was once the intention. Perhaps the old saying: “Small animals make crap out of dung” had simply been ignored. Hundreds of thousands of rooftop solar systems add up to a huge generator. Unfortunately, they almost all deliver at the same time and controllability was dispensed with at the time. Cheap Chinese imports contribute to the situation that about 35 GW of capacity is unmanageable. An article on this blog from January 2025 explains the numbers. In the meantime, the numbers are likely to have risen further. The main thing is a lot, this is called “barrel ideology” in planned economies like in the GDR. The main thing was a lot of kWh of generation, they hardly thought about sense and nonsense.
Nor about the “negative prices” that occur on broad days, in truth this is a levy so that an oversupply can be disposed of in neighboring countries. There are no negative prices in functional markets. A producer would simply stop producing if he had to add money to the products. It’s different with electricity. On Whit Sunday, this added up to around 1.8 million euros between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., the data comes from “Agora.” Without this “export”, the share of RE would have been over 85% at its peak. That would hardly have been controllable in terms of rules.
It could have been even worse, as we know after the “Iberout” at the latest. Why didn’t it happen that way? Fortunate circumstances, as a look at “Kachelmannwetter” shows:
At the maximum of electricity generation from PV, the sky was heavily overcast in large parts of Germany.
The wind blew quite strongly, especially in the afternoon. Then cloudless skies: That could have been really eye-catching!
All experts should have their hair standing on end. And what was given to us as a goal? Climate protection! This can never have been real, even on Whit Sunday Germany produced an average of 151 g CO2/kWh. That is about a factor of 8 of what France is doing in this respect. The “energy transition” also ensures that we are one of the few “dirty children” in Europe when it comes to CO2 emissions from electricity production.
When will there be an end to “barrel ideology” in a new guise? Does it have to “bang” in the power grid when pious wishes like ours in May for clouds at Pentecost are drowned out in the noise of the weather?
We had reported here on the facts that were the cause of this: Increasing oscillations of a control system that contained too few integrative components that had previously prevented such a thing. The increasing number of inverters that enter photovoltaics (PV) there are particularly suitable for this.
We had reported here on the facts that were the cause of this: Increasing oscillations of a control system that contained too few integrative components that had previously prevented such a thing. The increasing number of inverters that enter photovoltaics (PV) there are particularly suitable for this.
They have practically no inert elements, as was the case before the many PV with rotating masses of large turbines. This is the obvious and, from a control point of view, completely clear indication of “too many” inverters synchronized only to the 50 Hz of the power grid. There are also technical solutions that avoid such a thing: An external frequency standard as a “target frequency”, coupled in phase at all feed-in points (no matter how the generation takes place) and “disciplined” with GPS. Such an arrangement is described here. Of course, retrofitting is not cheap and takes time. On the other hand, the power grid would be more resilient, and a possible “black start” after a blackout would also be much easier to manage and much faster.
To this day, one hears many opinions and “quick shots” about the cause and the future avoidance of such incidents. We had reported here that Spain is politically focusing on more electricity storage. Something like this also takes decades (if the required quantities should ever become sufficient) and until then a bomb is ticking.
Now, political decisions are political and do not help the power grid at all. This is where the control technology strikes and it has no convictions and party books.
So, what would a technician do if it is clear that too much PV (with the associated inverters) contributed to the blackout? That’s right, it would reduce the share of electricity production in it. Anything else would be illogical. What was actually done? The daily data from here will help. A look at the share of PV and nuclear power in the daily electricity production in Spain around the time of the blackout on April 28:
In the case of PV (solar), the average share was 27% until April 27, after which it was only 20%. The downward trend is highly significant.
In contrast, the share of nuclear power increased slightly, but has an upper limit: the installed capacity. Almost everything that was available in terms of integrating parts (= inert masses) was activated. The “fast” inverters have been reduced. The total PV output fell from an average of 182 GWh/day to 127 GWh/day. So after the blackout in Spain, PV was reduced by about 30%. This is logical and speaks a clear language. All (political/ideological) attempts to blame something else for the failure in Spain must be shattered by these clear realities. So, no matter what soup is trying to be cooked, the technology can neither be persuaded nor deceived.
Whereas authorities currently remain unclear regarding the cause or causes of a major power disruption turning off lights and paralyzing the lives of approximately 55 million people across Spain, Portugal, and southern France, they might serve as prescient lessons regarding the importance of securing power grids from combined green energy vulnerabilities and cyber-terrorist threats.
Whereas authorities currently remain unclear regarding the cause or causes of a major power disruption turning off lights and paralyzing the lives of approximately 55 million people across Spain, Portugal, and southern France, they might serve as prescient lessons regarding the importance of securing power grids from combined green energy vulnerabilities and cyber-terrorist threats.
It began suddenly on a sunny day when within a few seconds, 15 gigawatts of energy suddenly dropped from Spain’s supply — equivalent to 60% of the electricity being consumed at the time — collapsing the southern France throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
Electrical outages left many people trapped in underground metro tunnels and on trains for hours, with others forced to walk along the tracks to access comfortable locations or vehicular transit to planned destinations.
Flights were canceled to and from dozens of major Iberian cities, including Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Seville, and Valencia.
As countless cashless people were stranded far from home, those seeking hotels, taxis, and restaurants found that ATMs were down along with digital payment systems that rendered credit cards useless.
Similarly, neighborhood pharmacies and supermarkets went dark or shut down, and those that remained open couldn’t even process paper currency payments.
Hospital backup generators rationed electricity for critical areas such as surgical facilities, leaving doctors and nurses without access to patient data, also rendering support staff unable to carry out many duties due to telephone and email communication interruptions.
Many medical operations were forced to be cancelled altogether due to out-of-order elevators between floors.
Whereas no one seems to know with certainty what triggered the cascading blackout consequences, the interruption might have been caused by the failure of a complex network of interconnected lines known as “meshes” that distribute electrical flows across the grid to prevent overloads.
Perhaps it also involved disruptions of interconnections with neighboring countries’ grids which balance exported and imported generation and demand.
Maybe it had much to do with excessive dependence on intermittent wind power and overreliance on massive synchronous fossil energy-driven turbines that must constantly speed up or slow down as “spinning reserve” shock absorbers to accommodate fluctuations and prevent grid overloads.
University of León professor Miguel de Simón Martín observes that the Spanish peninsular power grid has historically been robust and reliable thanks to its high degree of meshing as well as its large synchronous generation capacity, with its weakest international point conditioned by the Pyrenees Mountain barrier.
Meanwhile, the electrical back and forth energy exchange capacity between Spain and the rest of Europe is quite small, representing a mere three percent of the country’s installed capacity compared with the E.U.’s 15% target member state 2030 goal.
However, as noted by Wired.com, “The increasing integration of renewable energy into the Spanish system may have exacerbated the disconnection issues and subsequent need to balance the grid.”
Wired notes that renewables already account for 66% of Spain’s installed capacity— mostly wind, solar, and hydro — and have generated about 60% of the country’s electricity.
Given that the blackout occurred on a sunny day and that hydro doesn’t fluctuate with weather, any attribution leaves wind as the only likely contributing culprit.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has reportedly created a commission to investigate the blackout and while believing that renewable energy production was not to be blamed, has confirmed that his government’s authorities are looking into the possibility that it was a cyberattack on critical infrastructure.
There are many previous precedents to such suspicions.
The day before Christmas in 2015, less than two years after Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and declared it would once again become part of Mother Russia, his hackers systematically disconnected circuits, deleted backup systems, and shut down substations connected to Ukraine’s Kyiv Oblenergo master power control center.
These actions caused everything dependent on electricity to fail including communications, computers, ATMs, fuel pumps, and radiation safety monitors at the old Chernobyl nuclear plant.
Stealthily disguised to appear as a financial shakedown, banks and other critical power users were told that blocked computer data could be unlocked by paying a $300 ransom in hard-to-trace Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Instead, as discussed in my 2020 book Cyberwarfare, the masquerade was entirely a ruse to offer the Russian government deniability cover.
And that wasn’t the first such Putin cyber sabotage ploy.
In 2008, hackers took control of government websites of the Republic of Georgia, another former Russian territory.
In addition to infiltrating President Mikheil Saakashvili’s server and defacing his picture to look like Adolf Hitler, they seized routers connecting Georgia to the internet through Russia and Turkey and shut down inbound traffic including international banking systems.
Although Russian government sources again blamed the assault on organized crime, American authorities believe it to be the work of a previously named Sixteenth Directorate, part of the infamous intelligence apparatus formerly known as the KGB, later called FAPSI.
FAPSI, or more fully titled “Service of Special Communications and Information,” runs among the largest and most effective hacker schools in the world.
Fmr. U.S. Asst. Atty. Gen. for National Security John Carlin has warned of blinking red lights when it comes to the potential for a major security-driven cyberattack on our critical infrastructure.
Adding risks and vulnerabilities are alternately blinking green energy traffic signals at very dangerous global intersections.
On April 28th Spain, Portugal and parts of France suffered a major grid outage. A formal evaluation will likely be released at a later date cataloging many of the contributing factors and system deficiencies. Unfortunately, such reports often provide more confusion than clarity, as they tend to prioritize the triggers for system outages over the underlying causes.
On April 28th Spain, Portugal and parts of France suffered a major grid outage. A formal evaluation will likely be released at a later date cataloging many of the contributing factors and system deficiencies. Unfortunately, such reports often provide more confusion than clarity, as they tend to prioritize the triggers for system outages over the underlying causes. Post hoc it is easy to look at the vast data available and construct favored narratives about how the outage might have been avoided. This piece will look at “advance” warnings that point to the true cause of the blackout in Spain, Portugal and parts of France.
Core Insight: It has long been predicted that replacing conventional synchronous generators, which rotate together with the grid, with asynchronous inverter-based resources like wind, solar, and batteries will increase the risk of blackouts. Grid planners recognize that unanticipated adverse events—such as line outages, generator trips, substation failures, and major faults—will continue to impact power grids. Their challenge is to ensure the grid is robust enough to withstand and recover from such disturbances without major consequences. Proponents of wind, solar, and batteries may attempt to attribute blackouts to the adverse events that triggered the outage, rather than to flaws in the underlying system. This is akin to blaming an automobile’s brake failure on the conditions that necessitated sudden braking, rather than on the failure of the braking system itself. While lessons learned may help mitigate risks from adverse events, such occurrences cannot be entirely eliminated from grid operations. Reducing the risk of blackouts depends on enhancing grid robustness.
The grid is built upon and supported by heavy rotating machinery. Synchronous spinning generators combine with power lines and loads to make up complex electro-mechanical machine that must maintains stability. Stability refers to the ability of the system to stay in synchronism, balance loads and generation and maintain voltages following system disturbances. Intermittent generation (wind/PV solar) does not rotate in synchronism with the grid. As such they do not have performance characteristics that support the grid as well as synchronously rotating generators (hydro, coal, gas, nuclear plants) do. The system must be able to ride out power imbalances caused by faults and outages. Greater penetrations of non-synchronous generators (inverters used for PV Solar and Wind) tend to make the system, all else equal, less stable….
The power grid does not always operate as planned. Extreme weather, unanticipated outages and a host of other factors can result in the system operating somewhere outside of planned conditions. Generally, the system is robust enough to handle most departures without problems. For more severe departures from planned conditions the re-dispatch of generating resources is a major tool for the system operators. As the amount of intermittent generation increases, this tool will become blunted from a lack of qualifying capable dispatchable resources…. …. There are suggestions that intermittents could better mimic conventional generation, but it would incur significant costs. …. Building a surplus of renewable resources to sit idle waiting to back each other up and respond as needed is economically implausible at this time.
Greater penetration of renewable resources will limit the options available to operators while at the same time increasing uncertainty around expected generation patterns. To accommodate such uncertainty the choices are to: 1) increase grid costs and infrastructure, 2) limit the operational flexibility of the grid, 3) increase generation costs through backup generation resources or 4) live with increased risks and degraded reliability. Likely all four are and will continue to occur to some extent as the penetration of intermittent resources increases.…
(W)hen intermittent resources only make up a small percentage of total system generation, the adverse impacts are masked by the margin and robustness built into the system… As penetration levels rise and renewables replace non-intermittent conventional units, they will have major impacts upon grid costs and reliability.
The next year in January of 2016 I elaborated on those points in a piece entitled Renewables and grid reliability. It’s worth a full read, but I will reference the key points here:
There has been a high value placed on having an extremely reliable bulk grid as the costs and consequences of bulk grid outages are severe
The bulk grid supports and is supported by conventional rotating generators (Coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, biomass) which provide “Essential Reliability Services” (ERSs)
Wind and solar provide increased reliability risks because they are new changing technologies, they are intermittent and they do not as readily provide ERSs
Current high levels of reliability depend upon experience gained over time through the gradual adoption of new technologies
Wind and solar can be made to provide approximations of ERSs, but that requires significant increased costs and reduced generation output
Because of the complexity of impacting factors and the high level of reliability maintained for the US grids, systemic degradation of the reliability of the grid is hard to detect and measure
The amount of renewable penetration that can be accommodated will vary from area to area and power system to power system – There is not a single answer
Because conventional resources produce an abundance of ERSs, accommodation of low levels of renewables may be accomplished with negligible risks
Because current renewables do not provide adequate ERSs high penetration levels provide significant risks
Between the above two levels there is a gap of (wicked?) uncertainty.
For assessing grid reliability, the maximum penetration of wind and solar during times of stress is the key number not the “average” contribution of wind and solar
Increased penetration of such asynchronous resources, all else equal, will likely adversely impact bulk grid reliability
As the penetration level of asynchronous generation increases this will either increase cost, limit operational flexibility, degrade reliability or most likely result in a combination of all three factor
A decade ago, major power systems were still sufficiently robust, so the risks from emerging problems were minimal at the time. The above statements warned that such concerns would eventually arise if trends continued. At low levels of penetration, the additional risks were small, but as penetration increased, the risks grew exponentially. By the time of this posting, Wind and Solar Can’t support the Grid in December of 2024 the existing risks had become clear:
On February 19 of this year in this post Unraveling the Narrative Supporting a Green Energy Transition, I outlined the major issues by addressing the misleading and false claims of the “green energy narrative” through bullet-point rebuttals. The points about inverter-based generation are particularly worth reviewing for those seeking more detail. After considering these factors and analyzing reviews of grid outages, it became clear that wind and solar were significantly degrading grid reliability in many areas, and much was being done to conceal this fact. I felt confident that upcoming grid outages would be linked to high penetration of wind and solar.
When an outage occurs, you can always choose to point a finger at any of the multiple things that went wrong. (#44, #26) Some traditional fossil fuel technology will always be included in the set of things that were not right. (Loss of just renewables doesn’t usually cause big problems because apart from energy, they don’t support the system while in service.) For various reasons, advocates insist the finger should be pointed away from renewables (and the gap in needed system support) and at the conventional technology that was not perfect when the outage occurred. It’s critical to note that conventional technology is never perfect across a large system, however we were able to make reliable robust systems that could easily accommodate such imperfections. But now the presence of less dependable resources and inverter-based energy makes systems far less robust, even during times when those problematic resources are working well. It’s a near sure bet the next large grid outage will be largely caused by problems associated with high levels of wind and solar penetration, whether those resources are available during the outage or not.
Major Outages Following my Posting
Since my February 19, 2025 prediction was published, two major blackouts have occurred. The first, six days later, left 98% of Chile without power. Limited reliable information is available about the Chilean outage, which was caused by a 500 kV line outage. Although Chile has significant hydro resources, many were offline, and the system relied heavily on wind and solar at the time. The system collapsed due to “unwanted activations” of electronic and special protection systems. At best, the issue likely stemmed from the learning curve associated with the complex protection schemes required for wind and solar generation. Our experience with conventional technology has developed over decades, so glitches with newer systems are expected. However, with accelerated efforts to integrate large amounts of newer technology, more such glitches are likely. A more serious concern is whether the complexity and challenges of high levels of asynchronous inverter-based generation are, as warned, inherently overwhelming.
More information is available about the blackout impacting Spain and Portugal. Two large solar installations tripped offline, followed by the loss of an interconnection to France. This created a generation shortfall that caused the system frequency to drop dangerously. Large amounts of asynchronous resources (wind and solar) disconnected from the system in response to the frequency drop, leading to the system’s collapse.
Frequency control is an essential reliability service supported by rotating machines with inertia. Such machines would have limited the frequency drop and helped the system recover from the excursion. More load shedding based on automatic underfrequency protection could have delayed the collapse and possibly saved the core grid. Inverter-based generation exacerbated the collapse and did little to prevent it. This collapse resembles one in South Australia caused by a lack of inertia.
What Are They Saying About This Outage?
Remarkably, many are focusing on the problems caused by a lack of inertia and the challenges of inverter-based generation. The core issues driving this blackout are clearer than in most cases.
Predictably, others are deflecting blame from wind and solar. The Spanish Prime Minister blamed Induced Atmospheric Vibration (IAV) for introducing frequency oscillations, claiming extreme weather caused corona discharge, which created electrohydrodynamic (EHD) forces. These forces allegedly caused low-frequency oscillations that worsened the situation. IAV may have triggered outages or aggravated the situation, but as noted, there will always be triggers stressing the system. The system should have been robust enough to withstand this disturbance, but it wasn’t due to lower levels of inertia.
Reuter’s advises, Don’t blame renewables. Blame “management of renewables”. They suggest more conventional generation or devices like synchronous condensers should have been online to support the system—effectively admitting that Wind and Solar Can’t Support the Grid. Undoubtedly, other system components were also malfunctioning. As I mentioned earlier, a thorough review will provide data that can be shaped into narratives to deflect attention from the root causes.
An expert from Madrid argues that the triggering event wasn’t an N-1 event (where the system loses its single most impactful element) but an N-2 event (a double contingency). He does not blame inertia, as the system isn’t required to have enough inertia to survive an N-2 event. He suspects one of the events was caused by RoCoF relays, which interrupt generation when frequency changes rapidly. Note that frequency problems tied to low inertia caused the loss of solar facilities and the system collapse.
I may not have heard his best arguments fully and correctly and they may be refined further. He likely knows more about the technical specifics of the occurrence than I do, but I suspect our differences are more philosophical then technical. He seems to be saying that: 1) the system performed outside the bounds of study protocols, 2) the causes of the two events leading to the double contingency are unclear (though RoCoF variations may have caused one), and 3) since the event was outside study criteria, low inertia isn’t to blame.
I counter that system planning was insufficient. Systems should remain stable across many N-2 events, as many double contingencies have less severe consequences than the worst N-1 event. This N-2 event doesn’t seem particularly severe compared to potential N-1 events. Moreover, both RoCoF issues and large frequency deviations are worsened by low inertia and mitigated by higher inertia. This blackout has the fingerprints of low inertia everywhere.
How Should We Define the Cause of Blackouts?
Consider the Suzuki Samurai, a popular automobile in the 1980s with a stability problem: it frequently tipped over. Proponents of these vehicles pointed out that rollovers were often accompanied by sharp turns, adverse conditions, road grading, unanticipated obstacles, or the behavior of other vehicles. Despite these complicating factors, Samurais were much more likely to tip over than other cars due to their tall, narrow body, high center of gravity, and short wheelbase. These characteristics made the car nimbler in off-road situations, particularly at slower speeds. Proponents could argue that if other cars drove more slowly and were equally nimble, Samurais wouldn’t need to swerve as much, reducing rollovers. Sweeping changes to perfect the world—such as ensuring all roads are well-graded, lowering speed limits, or preventing dogs and children from running into the road—could theoretically eliminate the Samurai’s problems. Similarly, calls to “modernize the grid and its operations” so wind and solar can perform without causing problems are overly idealistic. The Samurai needed to be safe in less-than-optimal conditions that drivers might encounter. Likewise, the grid must be robust enough to survive many issues claimed to “cause” blackouts. Trying to improve the world while making the Samurai’s base narrower and raising its center of gravity is a fool’s errand, as are efforts to eliminate grid problems so wind and solar can function without conventional generation.
I will share a planning secret. We don’t really think that the specific outage and the specific conditions which were identified in the study will actually occur and the system will be “saved” by that particular fix. We have learned over time that planning that way results in a system that is sufficiently robust so that system operators can sufficiently recover when unanticipated events happen across variety of circumstances. Planners will model the new technology as best they can, but if adoption of new technology is rapid, they will not have the needed experience behind them to justify confidence in the models.
Low inertia and the fact that many inverter-based generation resources tripped offline during the frequency excursion caused the blackout. While it’s true that without the triggering event, no outage would have occurred, systems cannot be designed to avoid all serious unanticipated events. Power systems should however survive most rare, once-in-fifty-year events, whether anticipated or not.
If low inertia (among other issues with asynchronous inverter-based generation) makes N-2 outages and cascading events more likely, planning criteria must change. If the many models for dispersed inverter-based generation are collectively less accurate than considerably fewer models for large central generating stations, planning must change. If the protection schemes are grossly more complicated and prone to failure, planning must change. All this will increase costs and complexity and incur more failures in meantime directly attributable to wind, solar, and batteries. Proponents might ask, “We never had to plan for N-2 events before; why now?” The answer is simple: these changes are necessary to maintain reliability. RoCoF, mentioned earlier, is a newer metric developed solely due to high penetration of inverter-based generation, as detailed in ENTSO-E’s Inertia and Rate of Change of Frequency. RoCoF “protection” contributed to this blackout. It cannot be overemphasized that adapting to increased inverter-based generation will complicate planning, raise costs, and create more opportunities for failures.
The Evidence of Increasing Risk has been here a Long Time
The January 2014 posting, Renewables and grid reliability, included a graphic from NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation). This figure showed the system response to a 2,750 MW generation trip in actual and forecast years, based on additions of asynchronous resources. The chart clearly illustrates that the system responds less favorably each year as the amount of inverter-based resources (shown in parentheses) increases.
This same trend emerged in Spain and Portugal. It’s no surprise that the risk of blackouts grew as inverter penetration increased. In fact, a similar outage occurred in the Spanish system in2021, but higher inertia levels at the time prevented a disaster.
Increased penetration of asynchronous inverter-based generation degrades several metrics critical for system reliability. Grid experts have long been aware of these issues but have struggled to effectively reach and convince key audiences. The charts, data, and explanations may be clear, but most people won’t heed the message until they face a harsh wake-up call.
Conclusions
Proponents have long dismissed predictions that increased wind and solar use will raise costs and reduce reliability. Despite calculations on paper suggesting that large-scale integration of wind and solar is cheaper, real-world evidence shows they increase costs. Despite claims about reliability, previous outages have demonstrated the potential for wind and solar to heighten blackout risks. Pressure has been applied to frequently to distract from the real issues and real-world impacts.
It cannot be emphasized enough: the grid must be robust enough to survive major contingencies in an imperfect world. We must stop listening to those who, after an outage or blackout, insist the problem was unexpected events on the grid rather than the fact that grid reliability has been degraded by increased penetration of inverter-based generation.
Similarly, those who claim that wind, solar, and batteries can be made to support the grid more effectively must be challenged to acknowledge their current real-world capabilities and set reasonable expectations for future performance. Making inverter-based generation perform well enough to support a grid is a complex and extremely challenging problem.
Reuters’ suggestion to “not blame renewables, but rather the management of renewables” is particularly infuriating. Grid managers, tasked with maintaining stability, have been ignored for far too long. Grid and generation decisions are often driven by political rather than engineering considerations. The challenges of using and managing inverter-based generation have been acknowledged for years. Blaming those struggling to manage what’s been thrust upon them, while excusing renewables, is blatantly unfair.
Wind and solar have a place, but their appropriate levels vary by region based on current and foreseeable capabilities, not unrealistic hopes. Hopes for the future are admirable, but there’s a vast gap between what might one day be possible and what is practical and proven today. Reliable electricity is too critical to depend on unproven technology.
The recent blackout should serve as a wake-up call for policy makers. If it doesn’t, more events will follow, with increasingly severe consequences.
Note: Thanks to Chris Morris for edits, ideas and discussions around this topic.
The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and S.T. Karnick will be joined by H. Sterling Burnett to discuss this, as well as the firebombing of the PA governor’s mansion and the incredible media spin, China’s response to Trump’s tariffs, and the death of yet another climate program, this time from the USDA. All of this and more on Episode #491 of the In The Tank Podcast!
Today In The Tank crosses over with the Climate Realism Show, to take a look at what it means that EPA director Lee Zeldin is proposing to jettison the greenhouse gas “Endangerment Finding,” which the EPA has used to levy piles of regulations on American businesses, the power grid, and individuals. Would this be a death blow to the green movement?
The Heartland Institute’s Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and S.T. Karnick will be joined by H. Sterling Burnett to discuss this, as well as the firebombing of the PA governor’s mansion and the incredible media spin, China’s response to Trump’s tariffs, and the death of yet another climate program, this time from the USDA. All of this and more on Episode #491 of the In The Tank Podcast!
Hundreds of millions of Americans risk experiencing power shortages this winter if weather conditions are harsh, according to a new report published by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a power grid watchdog.
Hundreds of millions of Americans risk experiencing power shortages this winter if weather conditions are harsh, according to a new report published by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a power grid watchdog.
Nearly all residents of the Northeast, Texas and Midwest could face energy shortfalls in the event of a colder-than-usual winter, the NERC report states. The lack of grid reliability is driven largely by growing electricity demand as well as the replacement of coal-fired and older natural gas-fired generators with energy-limited resources such as solar power. (RELATED: ‘Animal Protein Overconsumption’: UN Climate Confab Attendees Urge Countries To Implement Tax On Meat)
“Foreseeable extreme cold temperatures have the potential to push the existing natural gas supply infrastructure to maximum capacity,” the report warns. “Serving winter load is becoming more challenging and complex as coal-fired and older natural gas-fired generators retire and are replaced by variable and energy-limited resources.”
NERC’s 2024–2025 WRA finds much of North America at an elevated risk of #energy shortfalls in extreme conditions. No areas are identified as having a high risk and all areas are expected to have adequate resources under normal #winter peak load conditions. https://t.co/TOPhkCZumtpic.twitter.com/kANLz4dasl
The expansion of power-hungry data centers has led to a surge in electricity demand, according to the NERC study, with consulting firm Bain projecting utilities could have to increase their annual power generation by as much as 26% by 2028. Meanwhile, the Biden-Harris administration has sought to reduce natural gas and coal-fired power generation, finalizing a rule in April requiring that existing coal plants use carbon capture and storage to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they want to stay running past 2039, and that certain new natural gas plants cut their emissions 90% by 2032, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Grid operators have requested the EPA nix the power plant rule in order to protect long-term energy dependability, with four major regional operators filing an amicus brief in support of red states’ legal challenge against the rule, stating it would jeopardize the grid’s ability to reliably meet American energy needs.
Mark Christie — a top power grid regulator — wrote a letter to lawmakers in August claiming the EPA rule could be “catastrophic.”
“If the EPA’s new power plant rule survives court challenge, it will force the retirements of nearly all remaining coal generation plants and will prevent the construction of vitally needed new combined-cycle baseload gas generation,” Christie wrote. “This loss of vitally needed dispatchable generation resources will be catastrophic.”
The EPA and Federal Electric Reliability Corporation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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