Finance
Spain's watchdog reviews grid voltage control rules
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 19, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 19, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Spain updates voltage control rules to include renewables, following a blackout. New rules aim for equal treatment of all energy facilities.
MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish competition and energy watchdog said on Thursday it has updated the rules establishing power grid voltage control obligations for power plants to expand the role played by renewables plants.
The review has long been in the making and its approval is one of the measures the Spanish government recommended in its report on the causes of the massive blackout across Spain and Portugal on April 28.
The government probe said that a surge in voltage was the immediate cause of the outage.
The updated rules, most of which are 25 years old, introduce new requirements for renewable plants like solar and wind when it comes to voltage control mechanisms. That means that these plants will be able to offer voltage control services that until now only conventional power plants - thermal power plants using coal, gas and nuclear - and hydraulic generation could offer.
Until now, when grid operator REE calculated the power mix for the following day, it could only call on conventional power plants to offer the bulk of voltage control capabilities.
The new framework gives "homogeneous treatment to the service provided by both renewable energy facilities and the rest of the generation facilities," the authority said in a statement.
The review was approved last week, it said, and comes as the blame game over the blackout has intensified after discrepancies in probes carried out by the Spanish government and the country's grid operator.
While the former point to both the grid operator - for miscalculating the correct mix of energy that day - and power generators - for some conventional power plants failing to help maintain an appropriate voltage level in the power system, the latter put the fault squarely on power plants.
The update was developed following a proposal by the grid operator in 2021.
(Reporting by Pietro Lombardi, Editing by Louise Heavens)
The review was prompted by the Spanish government's report on the causes of a massive blackout across Spain and Portugal in April, which identified a surge in voltage as the immediate cause.
The updated rules introduce new requirements for renewable plants like solar and wind regarding voltage control mechanisms, allowing them to contribute more effectively to grid stability.
The new framework ensures that both renewable energy facilities and conventional power plants receive homogeneous treatment in terms of the voltage control services they provide.
The grid operator REE was criticized for miscalculating the correct mix of energy on the day of the blackout, which contributed to the voltage surge.
The review was approved last week and is part of ongoing efforts to address the issues highlighted by the blackout incident.
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