Re: Causes of the Gran Apagón (Spain), new regulation

On 2025-06-17 21:38, Carlos E.R. wrote:

<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/17/expert-report-rules-out- cyber-attack-for-spain-and-portugal-april-blackout>
      *Spanish minister rules out cyber-attack as cause of April blackout, after expert report*

The Spain's government has written a decree with a long list of things and regulations related to all this. It is long and I only heard of it on the radio, did not take notes, but among many things they are promoting the installation of batteries on solar/wind sites.
Article in Spanish: <https://www.energias-renovables.com/panorama/estas-son-todas-las-claves-del-real-20250624>
Antonio Barrero F.
The Council of Ministers yesterday approved a Royal Decree-Law containing ‘urgent measures to reinforce the electricity system’. But not only. Because, apart from arriving by way of urgency (and hand in hand with the extraordinary blackout of 28A), the RDL presented this Tuesday by the Executive includes a whole battery of measures to accelerate the energy transition. So simple. Among them...? Well, measures to promote self-consumption (extending the radius from 2 to 5 kilometres), measures for the deployment of the heat pump (tax relief on IBI and ICIO), storage (speeding up procedures), energy communities (the RDL includes the figure of the collective self-consumption manager) and independent aggregators.
Making a virtue of necessity. Spain went to zero on 28 April and, two months later, on 24 June, the government is putting its foot down on the accelerator of the energy transition to avoid similar events in the future... but not only. This is the feeling that the RDL approved by the Council of Ministers has left for the moment (the small print of the Royal Decree-Law will have to be read slowly when it is published). In any case, that is the feeling: that the government has done with the stroke of a pen what it should have done much earlier. Or what it should have been doing over the last two years. For example? Extending the radius of self-consumption, something that everyone has been agreeing on for a long time. For example? Develop the figure of the independent aggregator, which has long been demanded by the vast majority of the sector's agents. For example? Regulating the figure of the self-consumption manager (we will have to read the RDL slowly).
Be that as it may, it seems that many measures that had long been in the drawer have now finally seen the light of day... at the stroke of a blackout. Because that has been the pretext. Last week, the government presented its report on the energy zero, a report in which it apportioned blame (probably with a small mouth) between the system operator, Red Eléctrica, and the electricity companies (Iberdrola, Endesa and company); and announced at the same time that it would present this week, as it has done, a RDL with a whole battery of measures to prevent (and avoid) future zeroes and, incidentally, to speed up the energy transition.
And that is indeed what the Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, announced on Tuesday: a RDL containing, to begin with
(1) measures to control compliance with the obligations of the different agents (roughly so that what happened on 28 January, according to Red Eléctrica, does not happen again: the electricity companies did not comply with their obligation to control the voltage, despite the fact that they are obliged to do so, and despite the fact that, moreover, they are paid for it);
(2) measures for the inclusion of new tools to reinforce the system; and
(3) measures to boost electrification, storage and flexibility.
All these issues,‘ explains the Ministry, ’are the result of the work of the Committee for the analysis of the circumstances of the electricity crisis of 28 April.
Sara Aagesen, Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge: "the objective of strengthening the resilience of our electricity system takes on special relevance in the current context, a complex and geopolitically very, very complicated context. Promoting the energy transition, promoting the electrification of industrial demand, sustainable mobility, the entry of more innovative technologies and solutions, such as storage and flexibility, allows us to create a more robust, more solvent system, with more stable and predictable bills for citizens, the self-employed, SMEs and our industry. In short, more strategic autonomy in a complex, uncertain and volatile world".
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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Cheers, Carlos.