Spain-Portugal blackouts: what happened

This article starts by saying &quot;we dont know what actually happened here, or why&quot; and then goes on to make various insinuations and suppositions, and then proposes policy based on that.<p>This not useful. More data is required.

&gt; At that time the price of electricity on the official market was in the negative at around -1€&#x2F;MWh.<p>&gt; Current evidence therefore points to a problem in the synchronisation of the grid. All sources feeding power into the grid must be synchronised at the same frequency, 50 Hertz. To facilitate this synchronisation, stable base-load power is required, which is normally provided by nuclear and other large gas and hydroelectric facilities. These sources act as a natural buffer against disturbances<p>So:<p>- price is negative, so solar automatically disconnects not to pay for providing electricity<p>- nuclear is overloaded at unexpected time, it also disconnect due to safety.<p>Seems like a bug in accounting software for solar power plants. It disconnected too many power plants too quickly! I bet like 40% of solar plants are using the same software for managing connectivity.

I&#x27;ve seen a few articles of The Conversation&#x2F;Europe on HN, and it seems an interesting news source. Wikipedia also gives some insight. I&#x27;ve just subscribed.<p>Does HN know about their agenda&#x27;s, biases, blind spots. Not necessarily to shoot them down, just to be aware of them.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Conversation_(website)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;The_Conversation_(website)</a>

&gt; However, variable renewable sources, such as solar photovoltaic, do not have this capability. They generate direct current which is converted to alternating current at 50 Hertz, but they cannot react automatically to frequency variations.<p>This part didn&#x27;t make sense to me.<p>The rotating machinery of hydroelectric, or nuclear&#x27;s steam generators, produce the frequency of AC in synchronization with their mechanical rotation, but the inverters converting solar&#x27;s DC into AC are making a purely synthesized waveform under control of high speed digital electronics.<p>I would think they should be the most able to modify the AC sine wave they are generating.<p>Maybe someone can comment and correct my logic...

I&#x27;m having a hard time understanding how we can move the bulk of our energy to renewables without some kind of massive storage system. The wind can die for long periods. It can get abnormally cloudy for long periods. There&#x27;s nighttime and winter.<p>I&#x27;m no expert, but is there any storage system that is practical that can store the amount of energy we&#x27;d need to have most (all) electricity come from renewables?

&gt; To facilitate this synchronisation, stable base-load power is required, which is normally provided by nuclear and other large gas and hydroelectric facilities. These sources act as a natural buffer against disturbances, helping to keep the frequency stable in the face of sudden changes in generation or demand.<p>In theory, it seems like you could instrument a photovoltaic array to carry some &quot;inertia&quot; with the right control system.<p>If you need to feed power, you run some power point tracking algorithm, and if you need to consume power, you just overbias the cells and heat them up.

&gt; much of the available energy was being used to pump water from low lying river basins into reservoirs – the only practical way to store energy on a large scale. However, this capacity has a limit and, with the reservoirs almost full, it cannot continue to be stored indefinitely.<p>There has been unusually heavy rain in Spain for an unusual length of time now, and reservoirs are well beyond average capacity.[1]<p>I wonder if this anomalous situation has anything to do with the blackout. Maybe the inability to continue pumping water led to the shutdown of the solar, maybe for economic reasons as is suggested in some other comment?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.embalses.net&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.embalses.net&#x2F;</a>

Fu....g <i>Ghost Riders in the Sky</i> happened.<p>Yippie Yah Hoo, Yippie Yah Yay!<p>Try <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0TPOj4CTGKs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0TPOj4CTGKs</a> if you don&#x27;t get it ;-)

Systemic failures, too much power generation and not enough stability.

Sure more data is required, but the article is not useless. This shouldn&#x27;t have been flagged.

I stopped reading after this, sorry you totally lost me, im blocking this website:<p>&quot;However, variable renewable sources, such as solar photovoltaic, do not have this capability. They generate direct current which is converted to alternating current at 50 Hertz, but they cannot react automatically to frequency variations. &quot;<p>Nonsense. Go to any solar installer and ask him about this capability. or go to your roofs PV inverters manual and look up section about inputting &quot;grid parameters&quot;.<p>Writer is either total ignorant or bad actor.

I asked O3 for an analysis on how much battery power would have been needed to prevent this from happening again. The TLDR is: 1. The grid went dark because 15 GW of generation vanished in five seconds. 2. Need to bridge for 10mins -&gt; 2.5GWh needed, with margin 3-4GWh 3. Need a 6C system, 15 GW &#x2F; 3 GWh 4. Cost ≈€3 B all‑in, or €55 per Iberian resident<p>However the lead time is going to be an issue: Need 7500 Tesla Megapacks and thats 4‑5 months of combined annual capacity for Tesla. Currently there is a 18 to 24 month backlog. Then there is 6-9 month installation time.<p>So 3 years to fix this, min.<p>It&#x27;s a shame that these renewable energy transitions are managed so poorly. This was a predictable outcome and it&#x27;s negligence that they went ahead with switching so much of the grid to renewable without accounting for the needed for stability. It hurts the mission of switching to renewable energy.