Spain suffered several power glitches and industry officials sounded repeated warnings about the instability of its power grid in the build up to its catastrophic blackout on Monday.
The government has ordered several investigations into the blackout. Industry experts say that whatever the cause, the mass outage and earlier smaller incidents indicate the Spanish power grid faces challenges amid the boom of renewables.
A surplus of energy supply can disrupt power grids in the same way as a deficit, and grid operators must maintain balance.
It can certainly help
Those imbalances are usually localised (and so are power cuts, usually). Having multiple paths for power to get from generation to load will increase stability.
Better connections between Spain and France is certain to help. But EDF don’t want cheap Iberian electricity flooding their export markets.