European blackout investigators announce they will not name those responsible: "We are not police officers."

"Our role is not to assign responsibility to any party. We are not a police or judicial body ." Entso-e, the association of electricity transmission companies leading the European investigation into the April 28 blackout , has made it clear that it will not point fingers at those responsible for the continent's most serious electrical incident in the last 20 years.

Today, Entso-e released the report on the events that led to the total blackout in Spain and Portugal, after five months of collecting data from the governments and companies involved in the blackout . It is not the final document, which will be published in the first quarter of 2026, but rather a list of events that, in general terms, coincides with the one presented by the Government in June. The main conclusion is that the blackout was due to a cascade of power surges that began in the south of Spain , which spread throughout Spain and Portugal within minutes.

"The problem here isn't that there aren't renewables, but that we need generation with voltage control ," explained Damián Cortinas , president of Entso-E, when asked about the responsibility of green generation sources. This is a classic cause of blackouts, related to a strong imbalance between supply and demand.

" A voltage problem must be resolved locally , close to where it occurred. This means you need the ability to regulate it within the system. It's a very old technology; it's nothing new. We have to see if the level of control voltage required by most countries is sufficient today," Cortinas added.

Factors that played a role, they say, included the sudden disconnection of several renewable energy facilities , a sharp rise in voltage, previous local fluctuations, interruptions in interconnections with Morocco and France, and a rise in voltage, as well as limitations on automatic defense mechanisms.

As the government report already noted, the Entso-E document indicates that some of the decisions made by Red Eléctrica contributed to the continued rise in voltage. It also focuses on the performance of renewable energy plants and some conventional power plants, as well as elements of the distribution grid managed by major Spanish utilities, such as Iberdrola, Endesa, and Naturgy.

The investigation concludes that the morning of April 28, 2025, was characterized by increasing renewable energy generation, which led to a decrease in prices on the daily market and an increase in Spain's exports. It notes, however, that from approximately 9:00 a.m. that morning, "voltage variability in Spain began to increase, although without significant variations, until shortly after 10:30 a.m.," as EL MUNDO reported . Already then, two hours before the blackout , voltage in one part of the grid came dangerously close to the established limits, although without exceeding them.

The report is the result of an investigation involving a panel of 45 experts from transmission system operators, including Spain's Red Eléctrica. "This is new. That's why we also need time to analyze what's happening and what could happen. This cascading effect of a surge that causes a total blackout is something never seen before in Europe ," Cortinas argued, almost as a justification.

During the presentation, they highlighted the "significant difficulties" in collecting all the data , given that private electricity companies were reluctant to continue sending information given Entso-e's ties to the company chaired by Beatriz Corredor .