Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

On 6/9/2025 1:13 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

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.

Or, you can decide that any "hard constant" need not be "hard" at all!
Aside from mechanisms, there is nothing magical about these frequencies
(within some delta to accommodate the network's characteristics) that
mandates their use.
I suspect, going forward, we will start seeing independent power
providers (likely highly localized) that adopt their own set of
rules and ignore the existing utilities:  "We're just not going
to play with you!"
[We're looking into solar refrigeration, currently.  And, almost
definitely nothing that relies on the local grid for "storage"
(if we have surplus energy, we'll light a giant light bulb in
the front yard just to flaunt it -- NOT!)
But that ship has sailed.  The folks who made the initial assumptions
(and specifications) for renewables (especially residential plants)
ASSumed the grid would provide the stability.
Back-porting new requirements now is costly -- something the consumer
has to ultimately pay.
AZ made a similar f*ckup when it was an early adopter of alternate
technologies in vehicles.  Large subsidies that ended up being
over-subscribed, geopardizing the state budget.  (We had our first
public charger in 2010)
The same is happening now with charter schools.  It will be amusing
to see the republicans argue to raise taxes to pay for the charter
school "subsidies"!
Making assumptions on guesswork is always risky.