Spanish grid blackout risks remain, Endesa CEO says (updated)
12/02/2026 14:59
Endesa CEO blames REE's energy mix planning for April 28 blackout
Blackout could happen again in similar conditions, he said
Outage had a net impact of around 200 million euros on the company
Adds detail, quotes and background throughout
By Pietro Lombardi
MADRID, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Spain and Portugal's widespread blackout last year was at risk of being repeated if similar conditions arose, the CEO of utility Endesa ELE.MC said on Thursday, blaming the energy mix planning of Spanish power grid operator REE for the outage.
Europe's most significant blackout in more than two decades paralysed cities and left people stranded on trains across Portugal and Spain on April 28 last year.
Following the outage, the grid operator boosted the use of steady power generation like gas plants, which help better control voltage but increase costs. REE is owned by Redeia REDE.MC in which the government holds a 20% stake.
Endesa CEO Jose Bogas told a senate committee hearing on Thursday that without the additional steady power generation another blackout was possible because the grid could be unable to cope with a surge in voltage.
Spain has a good energy policy but its implementation should be improved, Bogas said.
A government investigation last summer concluded that REE's failure to calculate the correct mix of energy was one of the factors that could have caused the blackout. It also blamed some conventional power plants using coal, gas and nuclear for failing to help maintain an appropriate voltage level in the power system that day.
A spokesperson for Redeia declined to comment on Thursday.
In its own report on the blackout published in June, REE said that it disagreed it had miscalculated the energy mix but agreed that some privately owned thermal power plants failed to help maintain an appropriate voltage in the run-up to the outage.
It also said it detected anomalies in the disconnection of power plants in the run-up to the outage, without naming those plants.
Bogas told the committee that Endesa's power plants complied with rules and did not disconnect improperly that day. He added there were signs the system was unstable in the months and hours before the blackout.
"Our opinion is that so many power stations cannot fail at the same time," he told senators, adding REE had a duty to guarantee the system's stability.
He said the outage had a net impact of around 200 million euros on the company, due to fixed-price contracts that prevented Endesa from passing the increased costs on to customers.
The Spanish government and the European network of electricity transmission system operators have launched their own investigations into what happened, as has the country's competition watchdog. The latter is due to report its findings later this year.
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(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi; Writing by David Latona; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Elaine Hardcastle)
((david.latona@thomsonreuters.com; +34 918 35 68 13;))