Lisbon, Feb. 3, 2026 (Lusa) - The president of the Portuguese Renewable Energy Association (APREN) warned on Tuesday that the increase in the number of power stations with autonomous start-up capacity (“black start”) could complicate system restoration and not ensure greater security after blackouts.
At a parliamentary hearing, as part of the Working Group on the blackout of 28 April 2025, when asked about the technical measures adopted after the collapse of the electricity system, Pedro Amaral Jorge argued that “black start” is not necessarily better, since the existence of more power stations with this function “increases the complexity” of the power restoration process.
According to the official, system recovery requires rigorous synchronisation between production units and networks, warning that "it is not certain that more “black start” will solve the system's problem". "I may have a system failure when I am trying to recover" if the process is not carefully coordinated, he warned.
Following the incident, the power stations with autonomous start-up capacity, Castelo de Bode and Tapada do Outeiro, were activated. And the Energy Services Regulatory Authority (ERSE) instructed REN - Redes Energéticas Nacionais to contract two more power stations with this capacity, Baixo Sabor and Alqueva, which have been in operation since the beginning of this year.
The president of APREN also noted that Portugal restored the system in about 16 hours, below the initial forecast of 72 hours. "We were lucky" in the recovery, despite communication difficulties and initial uncertainty about the behaviour of the grid, he added.
In the same context, Pedro Amaral Jorge again dismissed the idea that solutions based on inflexible production increase system security, arguing that flexibility is critical.
In this regard, he stated that nuclear energy "is what is not flexible" and stressed that, although Spain has nuclear capacity, this energy source "did nothing to solve this problem" on the day of the blackout.
According to him, the Iberian experience shows that the resilience of the electricity system depends more on operational flexibility, network management and coordination between operators than on increasing the number of power plants or investing in rigid, operationally inflexible technologies.
The group of experts from the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) pointed to a cascade of voltage increases, observed in southern Spain in the final phase of the incident, followed by sudden shutdowns of production, especially renewable energy, which led to the electrical separation of the Iberian Peninsula from the continental system, with a loss of synchronisation and a collapse in frequency and voltage.
The final report on the power blackout will be published in the first quarter of 2026.
SCR/ADB // ADB.
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