Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

On 10/06/2025 6:44 am, Liz Tuddenham wrote:

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
 

On 2025-06-09 21:54, Don Y wrote:

On 6/9/2025 12:29 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-06-09 21:14, Don Y wrote:

Why were the hydro and nuclear plants IN THE AFFECTED SPANISH REGION so
poor at providing that "inertia" (even if only to allow THAT part of the
country to safely "island"?)  Why were they among the last sources to
come
back online?

>
Hydro was the first to come back online.

>
When did fossil fuel and nukes come back into the mix?

>
fossil somewhere in the middle, nucs last of all. Gas turbines I think
entered second.
>

>

Islanding can happen if there is generation of the needed size in the
region, of the same power as the power usage. And that did not happen,
specially with solar/wind. Nor with nuclear.

>
The coverage seems to suggest the region had an out-sized supply
relative to
it's demands.  I.e., if not for the influence of the rest of the grid, it
likely could have come back as an "independent operation".
>
>
From:
<https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-we-do-and-do-not-know-about-the-
blackout-in-spain-and-portugal/>
>
      “​​The world didn’t walk away from fossil-fuel and
nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in
1977. And it shouldn’t walk away from solar and wind because Spain and
Portugal lost power for a few hours.
>
[Note that there were also blackouts in 1965 and 2003 -- I don't know
about other parts of the country as I wasn't living in those places]
>
      “But we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping
aren’t yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable
sources.”
>
>
OTOH, we're sticking with other technologies (fossil fuels -- coal -- and
nukes) despite obvious and yet to be solved problems INHERENT in their
technology.  Adding "inertia" synthetically to a network is a considerably
more realistic goal than sorting out how to deal with nuclear waste or
the consequences of burning carbon.

>
Solar and wind can be made to impose a gigantic inertia with appropriate
electronics. You can fixate the output at 50Hz, locked no matter what.

 Only if the surplus energy is available to supply the necessary current.

That's why you need pumped hydro storage and grid scale batteries.
That's exactly why South Australia installed the first ever grid scale battery in November 2017, and half of it's capacity was immediately devoted to short term (within cycle) frequency control. They had a lot of solar cell generation, and their quick-start gas-turbine unit had failed to start when it was needed, so they went shopping for a better solution. Search for the Hornsdale Power Reserve.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney