Spain races renewables to curb bills
- Spain, France and Portugal are pushing faster renewable-energy rollouts as war-driven oil and gas shocks lift European power costs and squeeze household bills. - Spain says its solar and wind buildout helped keep wholesale electricity near €14 per megawatt-hour this month while France and Germany topped €100. - The push comes as Spain still investigates its April 28, 2025 blackout and grid resilience gaps. (euronews.com)
Spain, France and Portugal are speeding up renewable-energy plans as oil and gas shocks from the Iran war push up power costs across Europe. (euronews.com) Euronews reported April 28 that French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said countries dependent on oil and gas will keep “paying the price of other people’s wars.” The article tied the new urgency to attacks on Middle East energy infrastructure and disruption around the Strait of Hormuz. (euronews.com) Spain is holding itself up as the clearest example. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in March that Spanish wholesale electricity was €14 per megawatt-hour on one recent Saturday, while Italy, Germany and France were above €100. (politico.eu) That price gap rests on years of new wind and solar capacity. Politico reported renewables generate nearly 60 percent of Spain’s power, and Spain has doubled wind and solar capacity since 2019, trailing only Germany in new additions. (politico.eu) (euronews.com) But Spain’s model comes with a warning from last year’s grid failure. Spain’s government said on June 17, 2025 that the April 28, 2025 blackout was caused by a “multifactorial” surge, and the European grid group ENTSO-E published its final blackout report on March 20, 2026. (lamoncloa.gob.es) (entsoe.eu) Spain’s energy regulator is still assigning responsibility. Reuters reported on April 17, 2026 that the National Commission on Markets and Competition opened formal probes into major power companies and grid operator Red Eléctrica over possible rule breaches linked to the blackout. (uk.finance.yahoo.com) The industry response has shifted from arguing about whether to build more renewables to arguing about what else must be built with them. Endesa’s Marina Serrano wrote that 2026 is now focused on grid resilience, storage, flexibility and faster connections for new industrial demand. (endesa.com) That is the tradeoff hanging over Iberia’s energy strategy in late April 2026: cheaper electricity from more wind and solar, but only if networks, storage and operating rules keep pace. (endesa.com) (entsoe.eu)
