This is a nice summary of the Spanish grid operator's reports on the May Iberian blackout. As with any big event like this, there were many interdependent causes, but the TL;DR is that 3 nuclear and 7 gas plants failed to provide the voltage control that the grid operator contracted them to provide. - ThreadSky

kevinjkircher.com • 2 days ago

This is a nice summary of the Spanish grid operator's reports on the May Iberian blackout. As with any big event like this, there were many interdependent causes, but the TL;DR is that 3 nuclear and 7 gas plants failed to provide the voltage control that the grid operator contracted them to provide.

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apti2d.bsky.social•2 days ago

This further illustrates the increasingly greater need for a consistent #BaseloadPower, to graduate fossil fuels, that should've been substantiated in the 70's, and reached advanced stages by now.

Guess what tech that was/is ("is", for #DevelopingCountries)?

stockfttp.bsky.social•2 days ago

baseload power was not the issue so no it doesn't.

apti2d.bsky.social•2 days ago

Look!.. magical 0%-or-100% propositions!.. ... ...

Now malleable root cause analysis, is gone!..

What a dull surprise.

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

The plants that were contracted for voltage control "absorbed less reactive power than expected by the system operator, not providing sufficient voltage control or, in some cases, generating reactive energy instead of absorbing it (thus contributing to worsening the overvoltage)."

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

In other words, a subset of the synchronous/spinning power plants that the grid operator contracted to help with voltage control actually made voltage issues worse. Presumably the plant operators had implemented feedback control systems that were badly designed or tuned and failed in this setting.

stockfttp.bsky.social•2 days ago

What I've not seen but may be out there somewhere is what annual testing & verification of these is conducted by the regulator. You can have the best paper design but it matters not a jot if you don't check in the real world.

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

Definitely - I wonder about commissioning and M&V procedures for voltage control systems on the Spanish grid. I also wonder if the grid operator pays voltage regulation participants for performance, or if participating resources get paid whether they perform well or badly.

wiilp.bsky.social•2 days ago

The govt report said that the thermal plant in question had regulated voltage correctly during an earlier event on April 22, but failed to do so on April 28.

IE it would presumably have passed any inspection the week earlier, so an inspection would not have prevented the failure on the 28th.

wiilp.bsky.social•2 days ago

The power price was negative at the time, so according to the merit order, none of the thermal plants should have been running.

The TSO steps in and pays the thermal plants' bid prices (much higher) for them to run.

That is their remuneration - paid just to run -no link to voltage performance.

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

Interesting tidbit that I hadn't heard: several transformers tripped offline, knocking out around 1 GW of downstream generation, when "taps on the low-voltage side of the transformers failed to respond quickly enough to the rapid increases in grid voltage."

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

When those transformers failed, "any type of generation connected via those transformers would have gone offline." In this case, the lost generation was mostly solar, but nuclear or gas plants would have been lost too.

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

This substantially absolves the ride-through performance of solar inverters during voltage excursions. Early analyses pointed to simultaneous solar inverter tripping for overvoltage protection as a likely cause. This may still have contributed, but transformer trips explain much of the lost solar.

kevinjkircher.com•2 days ago

Anyway, this should prompt some frank self-reflection by folks who breathlessly repeated "inertia!" and blamed renewables for weeks after the blackout. Blackouts are always complicated. Reporters, editors and readers should be skeptical of all armchair analyses until technical reports are out.

onedishwasher.bsky.social•2 days ago

Thanks for sharing! This is interesting.

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