The lack of explanations for the blackout increases the opposition's misgivings about the government's renewable energy strategy.

The government 's lack, for now, of an explanation regarding the reasons that led to Spain suffering a total blackout of its electricity grid last Monday is fueling an opposition that has been criticizing the government's renewable energy transition strategy for years and, above all, demanding a halt to the closure of nuclear power plants. Since Monday, both the PP and Vox have fueled doubts about the role played in the power failure by the high proportion of renewable generation that was in the mix at the time of the blackout, although the government has firmly maintained that "there was no problem of excess renewables " and that nuclear power , far from helping, actually hindered the reactivation of the system.

The right's pro-nuclear rhetoric is nothing new. For not just months, but years, both the PP and Vox have maintained that the gradual closure of nuclear power plants, scheduled to begin in 2027, is a mistake, and have called for an extension or, outright, for the cancellation of that schedule. But the blackout has left the government reeling and has allowed the opposition to redouble its demands , despite the fact that it is not clear—experts disagree—that a greater presence of renewable energy at the time of the blackout would have prevented it, and despite the fact that some of the nuclear power plants were not operating at the time because the energy they produced was less profitable for the companies than that generated through renewables.

The truth, however, is that today, nuclear power plants (and other conventional stations, such as gas-fired power plants, for example) provide greater balance to the electricity grid than renewables, because they are less sensitive to sudden drops in frequency that destabilize the system. This does not mean that renewables are a source of instability: for several years now, there have been several periods in Spain in which the majority of the energy mix has come from renewable sources, and during these periods the grid has operated normally. But it does mean that, in the face of system disturbances, a greater presence of renewables gives less time to react.

That was the argument used this week by the president of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo , to defend extending the useful life of Spain's nuclear power plants. The blackout, Feijóo argued, "proves the urgent need for backup power," since "we have a lot of renewable energy, and that's good, but it fluctuates," and nuclear energy (like other conventional power plants) would provide added stability. "Our energy system is being used with an enormous ideological burden," the PP leader also denounced.

The Moncloa government, for its part, is defending itself, and sources from the Presidency of the Government point to the "political component" behind the pro-nuclear rhetoric and the doubts sown about the functioning of renewable energy sources. The government, however, does not want to rule out any hypothesis regarding the causes of the system failure that led to the massive blackout, including a failure at a renewable energy facility.

On Wednesday, the Popular Party (PP) doubled down. Taking advantage of the weak position the blackout has left the government in, the People's Party (PP) announced that it will not support next week's ratification in Congress of the government's decree on measures to mitigate the economic effects of the tariffs imposed on Europe by the Donald Trump administration. The main opposition party argued that the government refuses to include its demands in the package of measures, and one of the PP's main proposals is extending the useful life of nuclear power plants .

Last week, the People's Party (PP) asserted that none of the 20 proposals they made to the government—the extension of the nuclear plant closure schedule was just one of them—was a red line for negotiation. But the truth is that the blackout has completely changed the landscape , and right now, energy policy is the issue dominating public debate in Spain, so the PP has a golden opportunity to pressure the government on that front.

Vox speaks of "ideological fanaticism"

Vox, for its part, has also not missed an opportunity to defend nuclear power plants following the blackout, albeit with a much more aggressive tone against the government. On the same day of the power grid failure, the far-right party's economic chief, José María Figaredo, criticized Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his ministers for continuing "insistent on closing nuclear power plants." Later, Vox's secretary general, Ignacio Garriga, described the gradual dismantling of these facilities as a "suicidal measure" and dismissed the government's policy as "absolutely absurd."

Along the same lines, the party's leader, Santiago Abascal , raised his tone even further on Wednesday, asserting that Sánchez is an "autocrat who is leading us from disaster to disaster," despite the fact that the president was legally elected in 2023 by a democratically elected Congress of Deputies. "The direct responsibility lies with 'Mr.' [sic] Pedro Sánchez," Abascal retorted, accusing the president of having "ordered an energy transition out of ideological fanaticism" and "who knows, maybe for future profits."