Strasburg, France, May 6, 2025 (Lusa) - The European Commissioner for Energy has rejected attributing last week's power cut in the Iberian Peninsula to an excess of renewable energy production, praising the Portuguese and Spanish authorities' response to the "worst blackout in decades."

"There is no reason to believe that this [last week's blackout] was due to renewable energies," EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said at a press conference on the sidelines of the European Parliament plenary session in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday.

On the day that the European Commission proposed a roadmap for the EU to phase out Russian energy imports, Dan Jørgensen said that "We can point to many countries with a very high level of renewables in their energy mix that have far fewer blackout minutes per year than other countries that don't."

The European commissioner took the opportunity to "praise how the authorities in Spain and Portugal dealt with this crisis".

"This is the worst blackout in decades, and a very difficult situation. The European Parliament has also assessed how the situation was managed and has congratulated the two governments in question on their handling of the crisis," said Dan Jørgensen.

According to the European official, it is still "too early" to determine the cause of the incident.

Nevertheless, he said that the European Commission "is following all this very closely and is also ready to help with experts", when internal investigations are being carried out in Portugal and Spain and at the European level.

"We are, of course, waiting for the conclusions, and we also expect some recommendations. If there is anything we can do at the European level to prevent this from happening again, [...] then we are ready to help," Dan Jørgensen concluded at the press conference.

A widespread power cut last week left mainland Portugal, Spain and Andorra virtually without electricity and part of France.

Closed airports, transport and traffic congestion in major cities and fuel shortages were some consequences of the blackout.

The European Network of Transmission System Managers announced the creation of a committee to investigate the causes of the blackout, which it described as "exceptional and serious" and left Portugal and Spain in the dark.

The organisation will investigate the root causes, conduct an exhaustive analysis, and make recommendations in a final report on the incident.

ANE/ADB // ADB.

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