Massive Power Outage - Iberian peninsula

It’s the perfect substrate for conspiracy theories.

well, i guess it is normal, to see fluctuations of 450% on the price of things… in Venezuela or Argentina…but Spain is in Europe :wink:

You need to educate yourself about how power markets work.

I paid electricity invoices monthly in Spain with truly unprecedented costs swings… only matched by the same swings on energy costs in Central Europe a couple of years ago – but there, there was a war going on at the supplier :wink:

It sounded weird to me, too, so I ChatGPT’d it:

Is it “Normal”?

While price fluctuations in energy markets are common, a 450% price increase is definitely exceptional. It’s not something that would typically happen in a stable market environment unless there are extreme supply-demand imbalances or very specific market conditions (e.g., a power outage coupled with a cold snap, a major fuel price surge, or geopolitical factors affecting supply). A 450% increase could suggest a significant disruption or panic in the market, and it might also indicate that the electricity market is poorly insulated from short-term volatility.

This might not be “normal,” but it’s a sign of the vulnerability and fragility of energy markets in certain conditions. It’s also a good example of how interconnected, complex, and sometimes fragile energy systems can be.

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ChatGPT also has no clue.

Perhaps you could elaborate, then?

TBH, El Mundo newspaper does an appalling job to present the info. They talk about the “average price of electricity in wholesale market”. Only redeeming thing is they mention the data source: OMIE.

So, they’re talking about the day-ahead trading prices.

Yesterday, the arithmetic average price in Spain per MWh was 5.79 EUR/MWh and today it’s 31.83 EUR/MWh, so a 450% increase from one day to the next. Which is normal. Look at the data for February 2025. It seems it was a cloudy month because price was above 100 EUR/MWh most of days of the month, or 1600+% higher than yesterday’s price.

Prices have wild oscillations, it’s fine. Only thing I can see in prices is that there’s too much electricity in some places. And the max prices show that some people really needs the electricity but they don’t have the cables to get it delivered.

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Exactly, the headline of “450% price increase” is just clickbait.

Spain has so much renewables that its spot prices regularly move from zero (or below) to above 100 Euros and back - depending on sunshine and wind. If you compare to Switzerland, you will see that here prices are much less volatile because of the more stable input from hydro and nuclear - but also on average prices are much higher.