Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 04/05/2025 01:27, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-05-04 01:53, john larkin wrote:

On Sat, 3 May 2025 23:55:17 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
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On 2025-05-03 17:12, john larkin wrote:

On Sat, 3 May 2025 14:24:07 +0200, "Carlos E.R."
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
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On 2025-05-02 12:03, Martin Brown wrote:

Spain doesn't have a great deal of battery storage or pumped water.

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Network grade batteries, none, I believe. There are plans for water
pump/generators. Some of the islands do have them.
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It seems that solar panels and wind farms mostly have the type of
inverter that follow the shape of the voltage already in the grid, with
detection to bail out if things go nuts. There is the suspicion that
this was at least part of the problem.
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But there is another type of inverters that force the shape, ie,
simulate inertia.

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Where do they get the energy from?

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Where does a gas turbine get the energy from?

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Wait, wait, let me think....
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Inertia, and then burning gas?
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 Well, same thing.
 Batteries, and panels and wind flaps.

But you do have to have serious stored energy available at the drop of a hat if the inverter is to effectively resist frequency being pulled down by the load. It can be done but the engineering will be interesting.
I suspect from the time of day when this happened it was over supply of solar PV leading to too high a frequency and/or over voltage events that led to the cascade failure. Unclear why it didn't pass through a stable state where supply matched demand though if that really was the case.
I suspect poor network stability analysis played a large part and the network was still relying on the intrinsic stability of the old turbine generators that were no longer present. Have to wait for the report.
ISTR the electricity supplier in Spain has been warning about this for a while but the politicians were not listening. I wonder if the Spanish government *will* actually publish the results of the investigation.
--
Martin Brown