We all remember when Spain went black for 24 hours in some areas nearly a year ago; it was the biggest blackout in decades. Now, more news is emerging on what happened.
Voltage problems on the national grid had been occurring up to three months before the blackout. This came to light thanks to a Senate Commission of Inquiry and after examining phone conversations betweenRed Eléctrica operators and distribution companies.Red Eléctrica is the entity charged with looking after the nation’s electricity grid.
The conversations contain telling comments like the following: “It was a very, very large oscillation. So, I don’t know, they’ll have to… They will analyse all this with the companies and see what happens. What can’t happen is that they let power generation drop on us. Solar isn’t like wind; wind has inertia, but with solar, someone comes along and pushes a button and, if they don’t scale it for you a bit, they mess things up for you. And that’s what’s happening.”
They were saying that these pronounced fluctuations within the grid had happened many times before, although the one on the 31st of January was much bigger. Red Eléctrica technicians were already suggesting that “a report or something” would have to be made.
The fact that the grid showed anomalies before the major blackout and that the Red Eléctrica was aware of them is far from trivial, as the main investigations (both national and EU ones) conclude that the incident was due to a multifactorial and “unpredictable” failure.
Red Eléctrica sources play down what they consider to be “repeated and biased conversation-leak excerpts” and stress that, “from a technical point of view, these conversation quotes do not constitute prior indications of a possible incident.”
In fact, the operators point to the lack of stable generation in southwest Spain and suggest that it is the large generation plants (nuclear, combined-cycle gas, or hydraulic) that stabilise the grid; but since the problem is that solar takes over everything else, the other generation plants don’t come online. “So the sun, well, it’s great for the summer and for the beach, but for this, no matter what they say, with these swings, there will come a time when…”, they concluded.
In conclusion, things were starting to go south three months before the major blackout and Red Eléctrica operators consider that the over-reliance on solar energy will bring about more problems. They are also pointing out that if Spain closes down its nuclear plants, as is intended, things can only get worse.
(News: Spain)
keywords: Signs of Impending Blackout, Red Electrica, National Grid, Solar, Gas, Nuclear, Senate Commission of Inquiry, Operators
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