Blackouts in Vilanova de Bellpuig have led the town council to take on Endesa. The small municipality in Pla d’Urgell has summoned the heads of the power company to demand solutions to the repeated supply cuts residents have suffered during June and July. This is no isolated incident: the situation was especially severe in the final days of July, the council acknowledges. While Catalonia’s political agenda burns through debates on the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors or the media frenzy over an eclipse, there is a problem that is literally burning in inland Catalonia. An entire town left without power in the middle of a heatwave, with thermometers soaring and fridges emptying out. This is the real Spain that never makes the headlines.
Blackouts in Vilanova de Bellpuig: a summer in the dark
The meeting took place on 31 July. The Vilanova de Bellpuig town council sat down with executives and technicians from Endesa, the electricity distribution company operating in the area, to raise a complaint that brooks no delay: residents have been enduring recurring power cuts for two months.
These are not micro-outages lasting seconds that go barely noticed. They are interruptions that have repeated for weeks at the height of summer, when electricity demand surges due to air conditioning and fans. When temperatures give no respite, losing power is not an inconvenience: it is a health risk, especially for the elderly, people with chronic conditions and households with young children.
The council has not specified the exact number of incidents or the accumulated hours without service, but the severity of the situation has pushed the local authority to take a step that should be unnecessary: formally asking the power company to do its job, to guarantee a basic service that residents pay for every month.
Extreme heat in the Plana d’Urgell: a vulnerable town
The context could not be more adverse. The heatwave that has battered Catalonia in recent weeks has pushed temperatures to suffocating levels in the Plana d’Urgell, an agricultural region where the mercury regularly tops 35 degrees. In such conditions, a power cut does not just leave residents without a fan or air conditioning: it also compromises food preservation, the running of small businesses and the safety of homes.
Vilanova de Bellpuig is a small municipality, with an ageing population and an economy based on agriculture and local services. Exactly the kind of town that suffers most from infrastructure shortcomings that bigger cities do not experience.
The question is inevitable: how many more blackouts must these people endure before someone in Barcelona or Madrid deigns to look at the energy map of inland Catalonia?
Endesa: two months of cuts and no explanation
The power company, majority-owned by Italian group Enel, manages the distribution network across much of Catalonia. Its role in this episode is central: it is responsible for keeping the grid in optimal condition and responding swiftly when incidents occur. But the 31 July meeting has not yielded concrete commitments from the company, at least according to the council’s official information.
Endesa has not publicly explained the causes of the cuts. Are they isolated faults? Grid overloads? A lack of investment in maintenance? The residents of Vilanova de Bellpuig deserve answers and have not received them. The company has limited itself to listening to the complaints, without the council announcing any concrete emergency plan or schedule of works.
That silence is telling. When an essential services company does not communicate the causes of a problem affecting an entire population for two months, citizens paying some of the highest electricity bills in Europe have every right to demand far more than promises.
The Catalan government, busy with other debates
Meanwhile, the Catalan government has powers over energy and the quality of public services. But its attention in recent weeks has been focused elsewhere: the distribution of migrant minors among regions, a debate that has caused friction with the central government, and the media coverage of phenomena such as the solar eclipse that has captured the spotlight.
Nobody disputes the importance of those issues. But energy management in inland Catalonia is a structural problem that will not be solved with institutional statements. The Catalan government has the capacity to supervise Endesa, to demand investment plans for the distribution network and to penalise non-compliance. Is it doing so? The residents of Vilanova de Bellpuig cannot tell.
The government, led by Salvador Illa, has shown particular sensitivity to the problems of rural Catalonia in its first months in office. But good intentions do not turn the lights on. What is needed is inspections, investment and, above all, political will to hold power companies to account.
The real cost for residents
Behind every power cut there is a specific story. A pharmacy losing temperature-sensitive medicines. A bar forced to close because it cannot keep its cold storage running. An elderly person spending the night without a fan in the middle of August. A farmer unable to water his crops because the irrigation pumps are down.
Vilanova de Bellpuig is not an exception. It is a symbol of an inland Catalonia suffering the consequences of a centralised energy model and infrastructure stuck in the past. While coastal cities enjoy modern, redundant networks, small towns depend on power lines that have not seen the necessary investment for decades.
The 31 July meeting is a first step, but it cannot be the last. The town council has done its job: it has put the problem on the table and demanded solutions. Now it is up to Endesa to prove it is a serious company, and up to the Catalan government to play its role as guarantor of a public service.
The price of being invisible
Empty Spain is not just a demographic problem. It is also a problem of services. When a small town suffers repeated blackouts in the middle of a heatwave, the question is not only technical but political: how much is the life of a Vilanova de Bellpuig resident worth compared with that of a citizen of Barcelona?
If the answer is that it is worth less, that their power cuts are a lesser evil, that their complaints can wait, then we are witnessing a silent discrimination that no talk of the “demographic challenge” can disguise. The residents of this Pla d’Urgell town are not asking for privileges: they are asking for what they already pay for. A decent, reliable, safe electricity supply.
Summer is not over. Temperatures will remain high for weeks. And the blackouts, if Endesa does not act urgently, could return. The town council has done its part. Now it is up to the company, and to the Catalan government, to prove that inland Catalonia is not the poor relation of this country. The residents of Vilanova de Bellpuig, with their empty fridges and sleepless nights, deserve nothing less.