Electricity experts point to dangers of grid instability when renewables dominate output
So what happens at night? Is there that much demand reduction? Is industrial demand in Spain low?
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The inability of Spain’s electricity grid to manage an unusually high supply of solar power was a key factor in Monday’s catastrophic blackout, former regulators and some experts have said. About 55 per cent of Spain’s supply was from solar sources when 15 gigawatts of electricity generation disconnected from the grid within five seconds on Monday afternoon, triggering a wide-ranging shutdown of power systems in Spain and Portugal.
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Several European experts said Spain appeared to lack enough firm power — readily available, reliable energy supply from sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear that can be reduced or raised — to kick in when the grid’s frequency dropped sharply at 12.33pm on Monday. Frequency, the rate at which electrical current alternates, must be kept stable for the grid to function. Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica has said it does not know the exact cause of the outage. Chief executive Beatriz Corredor denied renewables “made the system more vulnerable” in an interview with El País on Wednesday. But André Merlin, the founder and former chief executive of France’s grid operator RTE, told the Financial Times: “Two-thirds of [Spain’s electricity] production was made up of non-controllable resources. These non-controllable resources . . . don’t contribute to the stability of the internal electrical system.” Beatriz Corredor Red Eléctrica chief Beatriz Corredor denied renewables ‘made the system more vulnerable’ in an interview with El País on Wednesday a leading former Spanish energy official and International Energy Agency board member, told Spanish television on Wednesday evening that an oversupply of electricity may have initially caused the problem.
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