19 January 2026
What the Berlin blackout tells us about energy resilience
On 3 January, an arson attack damaged high-voltage cables near a combined heat and power plant, triggering a blackout in south-west Berlin that left around 100,000 people without electricity. In some households, disruptions lasted up to five days, affecting not only power but also heating and water supplies. We strongly condemn this attack on critical infrastructure and express our solidarity with the many residents who were impacted.
While investigations into the causes of the blackout are still ongoing, one thing is already clear: events like this expose the vital role of energy resilience.
In response, Berlin’s Senate has set up a working group to examine how the city’s power system can become more resilient. At the same time, the blackout has sparked a broader public debate: across the city, interest has surged in small scale energy solutions [1]: balcony solar, batteries, local storage, and flexible demand. Not as ideology, but as practical tools that help communities cope when central systems fail.
Lessons from the outage
The blackout made visible how deeply modern life depends on electricity. During the outage, only island-capable systems, able to operate independently from the grid, continued to function. Small battery systems and emergency power outlets provided some relief, often enough to keep a fridge running, but little more during a multi-day winter outage.
This experience highlighted both the potential and the limits of today’s electricity systems, and the importance of designing them with resilience and flexibility in mind. Fortunately, many clean solutions are already available to serve this purpose.
Clean flexibility as part of the solution
Clean, resilient energy doesn’t just cut emissions. It reduces the impact of disruptions, gives households more control, and strengthens local resilience when crises hit. Storage, smart grids, distributed renewables such as balcony power plants and mini solar PV systems won’t prevent every blackout, but they can make outages shorter, less disruptive, and less costly. Alongside larger scale decentralised renewable energy projects and clean flexibility solutions; these will help to strengthen and future-proof our electricity systems.
As extreme weather, cyber risks, and geopolitical uncertainty increase, resilience is no longer a niche concern. It is a core public-interest issue. Governments that invest in clean flexibility today are not only strengthening their grids, but also reducing long-term system costs that would otherwise fall on consumers.
The policy choice ahead
Every euro invested in new fossil gas infrastructure, in Germany and elsewhere, exposes consumers to volatile fuel prices, increases system risk, and deepens dependence on fossil imports and often unstable political regimes. If decision-makers genuinely care about people’s security, they should redirect public subsidies, including electricity capacity payments, away from fossil fuels and towards clean flexibility.
This shift is already happening on the ground across Europe. Energy cooperatives, innovative SMEs, and forward-looking municipalities are showing how people and businesses benefit from renewable, flexible energy systems. More and more communities are choosing clean solutions instead of letting fossil fuel dependence define their future.
That is quickly becoming the new normal, and it’s what a safer, more resilient energy system looks like.
[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/lehren-angriff-stromnetz-berlin-100.html