A Gentle Nudge from the Iberian Peninsula
At the end of April, large parts of Spain, Portugal, and southern France went dark. A sudden grid collapse, still under investigation, triggered blackouts that lasted for hours. It wasn’t sabotage or a cyberattack. We do not know for certain yet but it looks like it was just the grid losing its balance.
Spain now gets more than half its electricity from renewables. That’s a good thing. But when solar and wind dominate, and older thermal and nuclear power stations are switched off, something else disappears too: stability – the kind that helps the system ride out disturbances. Without it, the margin for error gets very thin.
This wasn’t the first warning, and it won’t be the last. But what stood out to me was how familiar the pattern is becoming. The renewables transition is speeding up. So too are the questions about how we back it up.
Which brings me to the battery story. LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries are starting to dominate large-scale energy storage projects. They’re cheaper, longer-lasting, and don’t rely on rarer materials like nickel or cobalt. And behind them is lithium—lots of it. Which helps explain why Argentina just approved a $2.5 billion lithium mining project. Not a headline that makes the evening news, but quietly significant.
What connects Spain’s blackout to Argentina’s lithium is the same thing: the energy transition is only as strong as its foundations. And those foundations now include storage on a massive scale.
The good news? The solutions exist. But so far, investment in storage hasn’t kept pace with the growth in renewables. That’s beginning to change. Events like Spain’s outage are gentle nudges—reminders that generation alone doesn’t guarantee security.
Click to find out more about BCM Global Renewables Agency