Report on Spanish power blackout: comment

"Initial reports on the cause of the Iberian blackout indicate that commentators who blamed renewables jumped the gun and oversimplified the cause. The government's findings seem to suggest that a combination of a miscalculation by the Spanish grid operator, voltage instability and thermal power plants - like gas - not properly operating despite being paid to contributed to the outages.

"The UK's energy system is extremely stable and blackouts are vanishingly rare, with our National Energy System Operator 'confident' in its ability to deliver a clean power grid. Every year, there is more investment into decarbonised backup power like batteries and building out technologies that provide inertia and voltage control. This should mean a more energy independent UK, that's less vulnerable to volatility and price spikes on international gas markets which have been costly to both households and industry, and the taxpayer."