MADRID, April 30 (Reuters) – Spain’s grid operator denied on Wednesday dependence on solar power was to blame for the country’s worst blackout, while Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez came under increasing pressure to explain what went wrong.
With life returning to normal after a power outage that halted trains, shut airports and trapped people in lifts, Sanchez’s opponents pointed the finger at low investment in a system that increasingly relies on intermittent solar and wind power.
Sanchez has announced a government investigation and said he was seeking answers from private energy companies that feed power into the grid. He also said he has not ruled out a cyber attack, although this has been dismissed by part-state-owned grid operator REE(REDE.MC), opens new tab .
Spanish authorities are still dealing with the political fall-out from deadly floods in the east and south of the country that killed more than 220 people.
REE, which is headed by former Socialist minister Beatriz Corredor, has narrowed down the source of the outage to two separate incidents of loss of generation in substations in southwestern Spain, but says it has yet to identify their exact location and that it is too early to explain what caused them.