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After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

theguardian.com

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Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#11

Post by jacquesm »

whatever1 wrote: post #6
KaiserPro wrote: post #5

You should read the report, its a good description of a complex system failing complexly. (well the reasons leading up to it failing were complex) The interesting thing about spain's grid is that it doesn't have that much battery compared to say the UK (the uk has about 11 gwhr which is about enough to power the entire uk for around 20mins) The Iberian grid has There is currently a large lucrative market in grid scal…

Spain is a leader in Hydro. Why they don’t use their dams for storage ?

Because you'd have to have engineered the whole thing for that purpose right from the get go. In theory you can run the generators in reverse and push water up the hill into the basin. In practice this may not work for a multitude of reasons (priming, encasement, rotation reversal, cavitation, impeller and impeller housing design).

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#12

Post by bobthepanda »

kalessin wrote: post #9
bobthepanda wrote: post #4

The big thing with renewables is that they don't really require ongoing fuel shipments. Spain is not a large producer of any of the major fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal. While there are certainly issues with the supply chain of certain components of renewables, those effectively cease after installation. And even hydro is not totally immune from supply issues given increasing drought frequencies across the world…

When you consider the intermittency of renewables, and you should, fuel suddenly becomes an issue again.

But you need less than if you were to go fully fueled. One hedges the other.

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#13

Post by merb »

krona wrote: post #8

The proximal cause of the blackout was a single faulty solar inverter in a PV plant. The distal cause, however, was inappropriate disconnection of wind/solar generation and widespread cascading failure of reactive power support across the grid. Add to that a whole bunch of noncompliant transformers which tripped inappropriately, and Spanish grid operators inability to react appropriately.

It looks like you know way more than the entso report. Which mostly blamed it on governance. Mostly because a small change in a complex system can lead to cascading failures. They also included data to prevent it in the future. And yes solar and wind power makes these failures more complex but they are certainly not to blame. (Just read the article…)

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#14

Post by gib444 »

The rate of new solar capacity is falling though, according to that graph.

And:

"With annual additions now around 1 GW, UNEF is calling for stronger momentum to maintain progress towards 2030 targets"

"Growth, however, has slowed, with only around one gigawatt added last year. To reach the national target of 19 gigawatts by 2030, deployment will need to accelerate, the association" [0]

[0] https://www.pveurope.eu/markets/spains-solar-market-hits-93-...

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#15

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

bobthepanda wrote: post #12
kalessin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you consider the intermittency of renewables, and you should, fuel suddenly becomes an issue again.

But you need less than if you were to go fully fueled. One hedges the other.

Nope, it is not perfect, so should never install any renewables ever.

/s

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#16

Post by Ylpertnodi »

caminante wrote: post #10

So renewables didn't cause the blackout per the author, but according to the neutral report [0], solar and wind exacerbated the blackout. As these renewables and grid change to a different configuration/inverter technology, this problem shouldn't happen again? [0] https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-ib...

> So renewables didn't cause the blackout per the author, but according to the neutral report [0], solar and wind exacerbated the blackout.

So, what caused the blackput?

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#18

Post by krona »

merb wrote: post #13
krona wrote: post #8

The proximal cause of the blackout was a single faulty solar inverter in a PV plant. The distal cause, however, was inappropriate disconnection of wind/solar generation and widespread cascading failure of reactive power support across the grid. Add to that a whole bunch of noncompliant transformers which tripped inappropriately, and Spanish grid operators inability to react appropriately.

It looks like you know way more than the entso report. Which mostly blamed it on governance. Mostly because a small change in a complex system can lead to cascading failures. They also included data to prevent it in the future. And yes solar and wind power makes these failures more complex but they are certainly not to blame. (Just read the article…)

I already said REE (the operator) was partly to blame, but they were reacting to something their grid was ill equipped to deal with.

Perhaps you should understand the difference between distal and proximal causes of events? Both are important. Voltage oscillation was the proximal cause. Where did this come from? It's explained in the operators own report:

> During the incident analysis, it was determined that the oscillation was not natural to the system but rather forced. This oscillation is observed with significant amplitude at a Photovoltaic Plant located in province of Badajoz (PV Plant A). At the time of the oscillations, the plant was generating approximately 250 MW. Since the oscillation was forced, it ceased once the plant stabilizes it.

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#19

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

gib444 wrote: post #14

The rate of new solar capacity is falling though, according to that graph. And: "With annual additions now around 1 GW, UNEF is calling for stronger momentum to maintain progress towards 2030 targets" "Growth, however, has slowed, with only around one gigawatt added last year. To reach the national target of 19 gigawatts by 2030, deployment will need to accelerate, the association" [0] [0] https://www.pveurope.eu/mar…

The 2026 Ember report said that 99% of new global electricity demand was met by solar+wind (solar 75% alone). Solar broke its previous records on relative and absolute installed numbers. Fossil fuel usage shrank. There might be regional changes, but there is no stopping solar.

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-...

Re: After Spain's blackout, its shift to renewables and grid evolution power on

#20

Post by _aavaa_ »

gib444 wrote: post #14

The rate of new solar capacity is falling though, according to that graph. And: "With annual additions now around 1 GW, UNEF is calling for stronger momentum to maintain progress towards 2030 targets" "Growth, however, has slowed, with only around one gigawatt added last year. To reach the national target of 19 gigawatts by 2030, deployment will need to accelerate, the association" [0] [0] https://www.pveurope.eu/mar…

Data from last year may show a slowdown, but I’d bet that the Iran situation may be pushing demand up
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