Spain Blocks Key Measures on Electricity System After Blackout

Pedestrians use torches to walk along an unlit street during a power outage in Molins de Rei, Spain, on April 28. Photo by Angel Garcia /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Spain’s Parliament blocked a set of key rules approved by the government following the nationwide blackout in April.

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The rules gave the country’s competition authority, CNMC, more powers to supervise private operators’ management of electricity voltage. They also included resilience measures, with a budget of €750 million ($881 million) and an estimated annual savings of €200 million once implemented.

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Spain’s power network collapsed in less than a minute on April 28, leaving more than 50 million people without electricity across the country and neighboring Portugal. 

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While the new framework entered into force last month, it required a parliamentary endorsement and the conservative opposition as well as some government allies voted to reverse it. The set of rules was presented by Socialist premier Pedro Sanchez’s minority government as essential to reinforce the network and prevent new outages. The government can now revise its proposed legislation and submit a modification to Parliament, hoping to clear the parliamentary groups’ doubts. 

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The rejected text said that CNMC would issue a report on compliance with the “control obligations” after high peaks in voltage led to the blackout. The report would be reviewed every three months.

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The measures also included asking grid operator Red Electrica to propose changes to power oscillations, voltage variation speed or technical scheduling to avoid further disruptions.

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“Determined steps to reinforce the system and prepare it for future challenges are needed to make sure what happened on the 28th of April doesn’t happen again,” Environmental Transition Minister Sara Aagesen said during the debate before the vote.

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The proposed set of measures also aimed to encourage energy storage and prioritized hybridization, namely the integration of newly installed batteries into existing renewable projects. The government plans to boost renewable energy sources as Spain prepares to phase out nuclear power and reduce reliance on oil and gas.

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