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What I've been reading from multiple sources is that the electrical grid was in a brittle state because of the large percentage of solar and wind energy, as the

What I've been reading from multiple sources is that the electrical grid was in a brittle state because of the large percentage of solar and wind energy, as these sources are intermittent and unable to maintain the required AC frequency on their own. Apparently, it would be possible to make a renewable-heavy grid more resilient to these kinds of events, but Spain had not invested enough on the necessary infrastructure. At the moment of the blackout, ~70% of the energy was being produced by solar and wind when sudden events caused a large loss of power and that brittle grid was knocked down as a whole. There is a huge political row at the moment because the government has encouraged investment in solar and wind for a long time, so they are unlikely to admit that they might have contributed to the problem. Furthermore, they have closed down and demolished the remaining coal plants, and they plan to close down all the nuclear power stations.

skykooler 1y ago
My understanding is that coal/nuclear/gas plants provide a certain amount of stability thanks to the rotational inertia in the turbines. It seems like a relatively inexpensive way to retain that capacity would be to keep the old turbines to function essentially as flywheels, to stabilize the grid, after the plants powering them are shut down.
whitehexagon 1y ago
Wow, 70% is pretty impressive. Although everywhere I go I see huge areas of farmland being converted into privately owned giant solar farms. At least the turbines are mostly non-productive land. Of course it would be much more stable if the generation was close to consumption. But the energy companies have fought before to limit homeowner solar installations to maintain profits. The EU broke that corruption, but the local town hall is still saying I need a permission. The electric companies want me to conect to the grid, and pay for that privalage, but wont pay me for excess generation. Do these smart-meters even allow 'islanding' in such a crisis? Anyway, it seems like this incident just exposed a very big single-point-of-failure, technically, and an even bigger general failure of modern politics.

skykooler 1y ago

My understanding is that coal/nuclear/gas plants provide a certain amount of stability thanks to the rotational inertia in the turbines. It seems like a relatively inexpensive way to retain that capacity would be to keep the old turbines to function essentially as flywheels, to stabilize the grid, after the plants powering them are shut down.

whitehexagon 1y ago

Wow, 70% is pretty impressive. Although everywhere I go I see huge areas of farmland being converted into privately owned giant solar farms. At least the turbines are mostly non-productive land. Of course it would be much more stable if the generation was close to consumption. But the energy companies have fought before to limit homeowner solar installations to maintain profits. The EU broke that corruption, but the local town hall is still saying I need a permission. The electric companies want me to conect to the grid, and pay for that privalage, but wont pay me for excess generation. Do these smart-meters even allow 'islanding' in such a crisis? Anyway, it seems like this incident just exposed a very big single-point-of-failure, technically, and an even bigger general failure of modern politics.