The Iberian blackout was a consequence of grid management, not any power source.
The blackout that took down the Iberian grid serving Spain and Portugal in April was the result of a number of smaller interacting problems, according to an investigation by the Spanish government. The report concludes that several steps meant to address a small instability made matters worse, eventually leading to a self-reinforcing cascade where high voltages caused power plants to drop off the grid, thereby increasing the voltage further. Critically, the report suggests that the Spanish grid operator had an unusually low number of plants on call to stabilize matters, and some of the ones it did have responded poorly. //
It may be tempting to view the cascading failures as a sign of incompetence on the part of the grid operators. But these are the same operators who managed the process of black-starting the grid to normal operations within a matter of hours. There should (and undoubtedly will) be questions about the low number of plants dedicated to grid stabilization, but that can be handled with a simple policy fix. An equally focused correction can likely address any problems at the problematic facility that triggered the whole chain of events.
The real issue is why so much hardware on the grid didn't follow its operating specifications, either disconnecting early or failing to respond properly to the calls for stabilization.
Notably missing in all of this is any mention of renewable power. Spain has a lot of it, and it tends to be used to meet a higher fraction of demand during the spring and fall, when heating and cooling demand is lowest. Opponents of renewable energy were quick to point to the Iberian blackout as evidence of the unreliability of wind and solar (accusations that The New York Times was willing to echo). The investigation indicates that all these accusations were completely without merit.
