Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

On 10/06/2025 07:01, Bill Sloman wrote:

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:

>
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.

Technically and economically, dealing with nuclear waste is many orders of magnitude easier than dealing with the consequences of burning carbon.  Politically, ignoring or denying the consequences of burning carbon is many orders of magnitude easier than doing anything at all.

>
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.
 

It's the same as pretty much any other problem with hardware - add some big capacitors, and it will all be much more stable.

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
 

Grid storage is a major part of the way forward in electricity distribution (the other component is high voltage DC lines).  But lithium batteries like that one are no more than a stop-gap.  Lithium is expensive, dangerous, a limited resource, and mining it is an environmental disaster (albeit much more localised than the disaster of burning carbon).  The main battery type for grid storage should be sodium ion batteries.