Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands. Is this related to the increasing penetration of intermittent generation from wind and solar facilities?
For years, many in the climate skeptic community have warned that expansion of intermittent renewable electricity generation on the grid will, sooner or later, lead to frequent blackouts. The reason for the warning is easy to understand: The grid has some rather exacting operational requirements that the intermittent renewable generation technologies cannot fulfill. Primary among these requirements are, first, minute-by-minute matching of electricity supply with electricity demand and, second, grid-wide synchronization of the frequency of the alternating current. When wind and solar provided relatively small portions of the electricity consumed, other generation sources, particularly thermal (fossil fuel) and hydro, would fulfill these requirements. But as wind and solar come to dominate generation, the problems become much more difficult to solve.
Here at Manhattan Contrarian, I have mostly steered clear of covering this topic. Although I think I understand the main issues, I am certainly not a grid engineer. And there are many smart people who are engineers and who have the job of “balancing” the grid to keep it consistently up and running in the face of the challenges of intermittent wind and solar generation. Maybe they can succeed. I doubt it. But I definitely have wanted to avoid “crying wolf,” predicting over and over that frequent blackouts are imminent, only to find that the engineers have come up with solutions that seem to work reasonably well.
As of this writing, it does not appear that a definitive cause (or causes) of today’s blackouts has been established. However, there is every reason to think that the increasing penetration of wind and solar generation in Spain is the most important part of the problem. Here are links to some articles that have appeared so far today: this one from the Daily Mail at 8:41 AM EDT (which would be 2:41 PM in Spain); this one from Yahoo News at 10:21 AM EDT (4:21 PM in Spain); and this one from Climate Change Dispatch (no time indicated, but based on a paywalled piece from the Telegraph, with a time stamp of 3:21 BST).
According to the piece in the Daily Mail, Spain’s state electricity network operator, known as Red Electric, reported that today’s problem began with “‘a very strong oscillation’ in the electrical network [that] caused Spain’s power system to ‘disconnect from the European system.’” On the question of the initial cause of the “oscillation,” there is only speculation. Proposed causes range from “extreme temperature variations along very high-voltage power lines in Spain,” to a hacking attack.
But whatever the initial cause of the “oscillation,” what is clear is that the Spanish system then lacked the ability to respond sufficiently to keep the power on. Why? The Daily Mail puts forth a very plausible explanation of grid instability resulting from heavy reliance on wind and solar generation. The Mail attributes the theory to “some analysts” (unnamed):
[S]ome analysts have suggested that the Spanish grid operator’s reliance on renewable energy sources to supply the majority of the nation’s electricity could have led to the blackout. Traditional generators, like coal and hydroelectric plants or gas turbines, are connected directly to the grid via heavy spinning machines. When turned on, these massive machines are in constant motion and the inertia created by their weight and momentum acts like a shock absorber, helping to insulate the grid against a sudden disturbance – for example, in the event of a transmission failure. Solar and wind power do not provide the natural inertia generated by these so-called ‘spinning machines’, leaving the grid more vulnerable to disruptions and subsequent oscillations in the electrical frequency.
Just before the blackout hit, it seems that solar facilities were generating over 60% of Spain’s electricity:
At 12:30pm local time today – five minutes before the widespread blackouts occurred – solar power was generating some 60% of Spain’s electricity. . . .
But how about wind generation? This is from the Yahoo News piece:
Spain has one of Europe’s highest proportions of renewable energy, providing about 56pc of the nation’s electricity. More than half of its renewables comes from wind with the rest from solar and other sources. That means Spain’s electricity supplies are increasingly reliant on the weather delivering enough wind to balance its grid. For much of the last 24 hours, that wind has been largely missing. The website Windy.com, for example, shows wind speeds of 2-3mph, leaving the country reliant on solar energy and old gas-fired power stations.
So when the “oscillation” occurred, what is going to keep the grid steady on its 50 Hz frequency? From Michael Schellenberger today on X:
[A]ll of Europe appears to have been seconds away a continent-wide blackout. The grid frequency across continental Europe plunged to 49.85 hertz — just a hair above the red-line collapse threshold. The normal operating frequency for Europe’s power grid is 50.00 Hz, kept with an extremely tight margin of ±0.1 Hz. Anything outside ±0.2 Hz triggers major emergency actions. If the frequency had fallen just another 0.3 Hz — below 49.5 Hz — Europe could have suffered a system-wide cascading blackout.
The bottom line is that there were multi-hour blackouts in many places today. A random “oscillation” of some sort, which could have been easily handled in a world of fossil fuel power plants, became a huge problem when wind and solar generators could not respond to it appropriately. And so people were stuck for hours in elevators or subway trains; traffic lights went dark; banking and cell phone networks stopped working; and so forth. But within a few hours all of those were back in business.
So was this really a big deal? As Schellenberger points out, with just “a hair” more frequency variation it could have been far worse. Will that happen some time soon? I’m not going to pretend I know. But I do know that the electricity system in most of Europe and many U.S. states is in the hands of crazed fanatics who have no idea what they are doing. My own bet would be that there are many far worse blackouts to come, until this idiotic “net zero” thing is abandoned.
Yep, what the hell do sociologists know about running an electrical grid?
They’re experts at running an electrical grid…into the ground.
You nailed it 😁
“But I definitely have wanted to avoid “crying wolf,” predicting over and over that frequent blackouts are imminent, only to find that the engineers have come up with solutions that seem to work reasonably well.”
A worthy intention, which others should emulate. But why lapse now?
The blackout did not extend to Belgium and the Netherlands.
Again, not understanding that a connected grid will collapse in places where it becomes unstable, and these can easily cascade to other regions.
And yes it did extend to Belgium
In Europe, blackout — Spain, Portugal, Belgium and France were left without electricity and communications – Pravda Belgium
Pravda again, and in Russian.
This is not the first (nor do I expect it to be the last) instance where you have dismissed something based solely on the source, showing a lack of concern for whether or not it was true. You just assume that it can’t be trusted if it isn’t in English — despite the Belgium source providing a translation. Being in Russian makes it less convenient, but most browsers offer translations.
Do you trust Pravda?
I don’t trust any news outlet. If the words used are pejorative, or claims are made that are not in agreement with the facts as I believe them to be, then by BS detector goes off and I look elsewhere for “the rest of the story.” As with science, the facts should decide the case, not where they came from.
Aye, if only you followed your own advice!
Physician, heal thyself!
The blackout did not extend to Belgium and the Netherlands.
No, Francis is in error on that. But what about the rest of the piece?
The climate activist agenda seems to be: move transport and heating to electric, while at the same time moving generation to wind and solar.
Do you think its possible? And if so, just give a rough estimate of what you think would be needed for some specific location. The UK would be a good choice because it has readily available all the data anyone could need, particularly on actual performance of the different technologies in that particular location, with its actual weather. Just write the numbers down. How much generating capacity in GW:
Wind
Solar
CCGT
Nuclear
Hydro
Storage (in GWh)
The task will be to supply about twice current electricity demand, or peak demand of about 90GW. The reply should take account of intermittency and inertia. That is, it should provide enough dispatchable capacity to cover the length of winter wind calms that we find in the historical record. And it should also provide enough inertia to prevent cascading blackouts due to frequency drops.
Look forward to seeing it. The UK at the moment seems to be rushing blindly towards what it thinks will be the goal summarized above, without having figured out either how to deal with intermittency or how to provide inertia, so even a rough estimate would be of great service. We can forward it to Ed Miliband, copy Starmer.
We know some of what they are planning. Its 90GW of wind and 45GW of solar. But there is no explanation of how this is going to cover 90GW peak demand on a cold calm late afternoon in January 2030 or 2035. Nuclear, CCGT and storage are not specified at the moment, and the first two of these have existing end of life plant that will be going offline if not replaced. For which there are as yet no definite plans.
So it will be interesting to compare the reply to this.
In fact, on this occasion it was fuelled generators, including nuclear’ which shut down. W&S soldiered on.
The issue seems to be frequency stabilisation. Fuelled generators with flywheels accomplish this, but so can synchronous condensers or solid state backed by batteries. It may be that they didn’t provide enough. They can do better.
Nick, you have no knowledge or training about operating a high voltage transmission and distribution network.
Tell us why frequency is so important. Do you know what happens to voltage when standing waves are generated. How about when you have two inputs to a substation begin to compete and “oscillate”.
Tell us why frequency SYNCHRONIZATION is important. Not just keeping it at 50 or 60 Hz, but keeping everything in phase. What happens when generators stay at 50 Hz but drift to 30° out of phase? Can synchronous condensers fix this?
“you have no knowledge or training”
I well remember your contribution on the discussion of synchronous condensers:
“What happens when the synchronous capacitors lose charge and there are hundreds of small generators all looking for a common frequency and phase?”
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Gorman’s contribution, right or wrong, doesn’t pertain to your knowledge or training, does it? Why did you evade that, is it because you so often display that lack when you comment on electric grid topics?
It is SOP for Nick Sophist.
What does happen? It is a valid question. Can synchronous capacitors establish frequency synchronization when thousands of small generators, i.e., wind and solar units, all are drifting around with phases out of sync?
You didn’t address at all the problem with out of phase frequencies. Why is that? What happens when this occurs? You are a mathematician, what kind of waveform occurs in this situation? Does the voltage amplitude remain the same?
If you can’t address this issues, then how do you know what the problems actually are?
Depending on whether the generator (assuming the generator is a rotating field synchronous machine) is leading or lagging the rest of the power system, that generator will likely be either putting out close to rated power to the grid or trying to deliver close to rated power to its prime mover.
The simplistic model of a 3 phase synchronous machine is three voltage sources connected to the terminals through inductances. In typical operation, the voltage sources would be leading their respective terminals by zero to maybe 45 degrees. Reactive power flow would be determined in part by the magnitude of the internal voltage source versus the magnitude of the terminal voltage. This is also true for synchronous condensers.
That is true, but the issue is what occurs when you have two high voltage transmission lines feeding a substation and their frequencies are not synchronized. Standing waves are not really an issue due to the low frequency. However, oscillations in generators can occur and increase over time. Otherwise, why is it necessary to trip generators off line?
If you have two voltage sources of different frequency and phase, won’t you have constructive/destructive interference that results in greater variance in the voltage created by transient spikes?
Yes.
Do you know anything about power flow in a power transmission line? The single line flow is given by ((E1*E2)/Xline)*sin(delta) where E1 and E2 are the potentials at each end of the line, Xline is the inductive reactance of the line and delta is the phase difference between the terminations of the line. A significant difference in frequency will cause power flow to vary from all out in one direction to all out in the orther direction. This can only happen if the capacity of the line is well under the power flowing through the line.
This is basic electric power systems engineering.
You keep talking frequency, try talking phase differences which is what occurs with inverters. Traditional generators, like the video I referenced, tend to stay in phase once synced, as the video shows. Inverters have no way to do this. They just chuck along putting out their designed frequency and expect the grid to absorb it. The problem is that when you have a sufficient number of them, that free running phase differences can cause problems. A way to fix it is to design and implement a timing network that all inverters must use to maintain the phase of their outputs.
Why don’t you discuss what happens at a substation with multiple feeds of out of phase high voltage feeds.
BTW, I do have my EE degree. I am old enough that many of my courses were in motors, generators, and traditional steam power plants.
Inverters such as household rooftop solar inverters dont do that. They add their energy to the grid not “in sync with”, but “as defined by” the frequency of the grid. They simply cant be out of phase.
You’re video is irrelevant to how the vast majority of inverters work.
Really?
They’ve been at this now for 30-40 years and $trillions of taxpayers’ money.
Where is the point at which reality / rationality prevails?
Sounds like you are describing a “black start” condition. Unless the W&S have grid forming inverter capability, W&S is not going to be able to provide power when the rotating machines have yet to be brought online.
The “oscillations” sound like some pretty hefty frequency swings going on, which implies a lack of damping which then implies insufficient rotating generation. This likely compounded by what used to be directly connected motor loads now being inverter fed thus reducing inertia.
I’m looking forward to my popcorn when it comes to the technical diagnoses.
FWIW, I have taken classes and labs on electric power systems and electric machinery. There’s nothing watching a small 3 phase alternator wobble when subject to a simulated line fault to give a visceral feel to what happens in a power system during some sort of fault.
Answer the question.
I guess what you are saying here is that you can make the UK type of net zero generation work as long as you put in enough storage and equipment to provide inertia.
How much battery? How much frequency stabilization equipment? At what costs?
Again, for a specimen grid, and I continue to suggest the UK, because so much data is so readily available.
By way of a hint, the Royal Society, after looking at the weather record, estimated the UK would need one third of total annual power consumption in batteries or some kind of storage. They proposed hydrogen which is a pipe dream, but lets focus for now on the amount.
Do you agree with the one third estimate? Let’s see some numbers for once!
As for the remark that “W&S soldiered on”? So what? The operation was succeeding while the patient died.
Informed opinion seems to be that the cause was an initial loss of frequency control followed by a collapse of a grid due to lack of inertia, and the reason it did not have inertia was the amount of wind and solar generation. Whether said turbines and panels carried on working is immaterial.
Your reply is: they just didn’t have enough storage and inertia for the amount of wind and solar they have. OK, how much is enough?
Nick is self-parodying. Only a fanatic would make a comment as absurd as ‘wind and solar soldiered on’.
Mr. Davis: Agreed, IMO the remark was gaslighting that didn’t catch fire.
You can do better, Nick. Well, on second thought, probably not.
Sorry Nick, pretty sure all of the generation “soldiered on”. The problem is that the circuit breakers tripped. The grid breakers that I have installed have 30 millisecond trip delay. It is apparent to me that the conventional generation with rotational inertia was maintaining the frequency, the out of phase overcurrent from inverter sources tripped them out. Once heavily loaded breakers trip out It starts a cascade through the system. 30 milliseconds is not a long time.
Here’s really all you need to know about wind from an Australian study. The basis is a 1000 MW wind farm with a 35% CF= 350 net MW. Cost $45 billion with 2 weeks storage, $1.35/KWh..Too expensive, forget about it and move on.
What will be the cost in USD of electricity from a wind farm in western Victoria able to supply dispatchable power during a 2 week wind drought with overbuild to minimise battery cost with battery life of ten years; annual maintenance and operating cost of 2% of capital; a 300km transmission line and 10% discount rate.
The reply:
To calculate the cost of electricity from a wind farm in western Victoria with the given specifications, we’ll use the most recent data available and make some assumptions where necessary. All costs will be converted to USD using an exchange rate of 1 AUD = 0.66 USD.
1. Wind farm costs:
– Capital cost: $1,749/kW AUD (medium-cost scenario)[1]
– O&M fixed: $25/kW/year AUD[1]
– Lifetime: 25 years[1]
2. Battery storage costs:
– Current prices: $300-$437/kWh AUD for large-scale projects[2]
– We’ll use $350/kWh AUD for our calculation
3. Transmission costs:
– Overhead transmission: $3,860/MW-km AUD[1]
– 300km line: $3,860 * 300 = $1,158,000/MW AUD
4. Overbuild factor:
– Assume 50% overbuild to minimize battery costs
5. Calculation for 2-week storage:
– Assume 1,000 MW wind farm with 35% capacity factor
– Energy needed for 2 weeks: 1,000 MW * 24 hours * 14 days * 0.35 = 117,600 MWh
– Battery cost: 117,600 MWh * $350,000/MWh = $41.16 billion AUD
6. Total capital cost estimate:
– Wind farm (1,500 MW due to overbuild): 1,500,000 kW * $1,749/kW = $2.62 billion AUD
– Battery: $41.16 billion AUD
– Transmission: $1.158 billion AUD
– Total: $44.938 billion AUD
7. Annual costs:
– O&M: 2% of capital = $898.76 million AUD
– Battery replacement (every 10 years): $4.116 billion AUD annualized = $411.6 million AUD
8. Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) calculation:
– Annual energy production: 1,000 MW * 8760 hours * 0.35 = 3,066,000 MWh
– Capital recovery factor (10% discount rate, 25 years): 0.11017
– Annual capital cost: $44.938 billion * 0.11017 = $4.951 billion AUD
– Total annual cost: $4.951 billion + $898.76 million + $411.6 million = $6.261 billion AUD
LCOE = $6.261 billion / 3,066,000 MWh = $2,042/MWh AUD
Converting to USD:
LCOE ≈ $1,348/MWh USD or $1.35/kWh USD
This estimate is significantly higher than conventional power sources due to the large battery storage requirement for a 2-week wind drought and the overbuild factor. It’s important to note that this is a simplified calculation and actual costs could vary based on specific project details, technological advancements, and economies of scale.
It didn’t extend to Russia, China or Australia either. So, what’s your point? A blackout in Spain doesn’t count because it’s only Spain?
I was wondering where Nick was trying to go with that remark.
He picks a nit to distract from the substance of the commentary. Seems to be standard operating procedure.
Nick-picking? Am I already to late? If not I am coining the phrase Nick-Picking
Francis Menton said in his first sentence:
“Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands“
“The blackout affected the Spanish cities of Madrid and Barcelona, Portugal, France, Andorra, the Netherlands and Belgium. All nuclear power plants in Spain had to be shut down and put into “cold” mode due to the massive shutdown, which only added to the problems. Hundreds of people have been trapped in the subway and elevators, and some cities are still without electricity.”
https://netherlands.news-pravda.com/en/netherlands/2025/04/29/2610.html
It must have been nuclear’s fault. 😉
So your source is Pravda?
So you only have biased news to support your claim? Potato – potahto. 😉
So your proof that Pravda is wrong is..?
Yes, probably one of your favourite sources. !
Only if it supports his position. His priority is support for his belief system, with little regard for truth.
Nuclear plants normally depend on the grid to power their nuclear safety-related loads (pumps, instrumentation and controls). When the grid drops below (or goes above) a tight band, the plants automatically detach from the grid and start up the emergency diesel generators to serve the loads if an accident happens.
And on restart from a blackout, the rest of the grid has to be stable to allow the nukes to restart and connect to the grid.
Oh dear, Nick. Eat your words, or try it yourself!
It also appears that small areas of France Germany and Andorra were also somewhat affected
Europe blackout: List of countries affected « Euro Weekly News
Like others I am lost at what you mean with last line?
What because it didn’t take down the entire European grid it wasn’t a problem?
I will also inform you that you peeps in NSW and Victoria also have a nasty oscillation in your power grid the power engineers are struggling with. In February 12, 2025 it reached a new peak ever measured and has prompted an investigation team. Now if your lights go out don’t say you it was a surprise they are well aware the grid is skating on the edge.
“Like others I am lost “
Like others you didn’t read even the first sentence of Francis’ post
“Today there have been widespread electricity blackouts across Europe, beginning in Spain and Portugal in the early afternoon (local time), and then spreading to other countries including France, Andorra, Belgium and the Netherlands“
Not Netherlands..
Most of Spain and Portugal, but ALSO parts of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Andorra.
See above.
You corrected the Netherland part by failed to add the other areas affected.
Why do that ??
FM said there were blackouts in NL and BE. There weren’t.
Yes, there were blackouts in part of Belgium.
As well as in parts of France, Germany Italy and Angorra..
Europe blackout: List of countries affected « Euro Weekly News
A difference that makes no difference.
Nick thinks that as long as he can ‘nickpick’ some minor trivial inaccuracy, it invalidates the whole argument. Actually he is well aware of his dishonest sophistry. I don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.
Yes, like a dog with a Frisbee, oblivious to all else. He doesn’t see the car coming.
I am with Thomas in context of the garbage published that is your knit-pick. One wonders if you knit-picked the lefty crazies claiming it was due to strange climate changed induced weather?
You could have just said it didn’t include those countries and your post would have made more sense.
“You could have just said it didn’t include those countries”
That is exactly what I said.
Give Nick a point for finding an error.
Subtract 10 points for being a nit picker and only driving this one-horse cart.
FYI, although there are no reports, it is likely Netherlands detected the black out and may have had a minor disturbance, but definitely did not have lights go out.
We’re relying on people who have a tried and true electricity distribution system to be the crash test dummies for renewables. The government isn’t interested in providing reliable power. It’s interested in forcing renewables even with the known problems. Here we are in the 21st century, with vast amounts of technology available, and it’s OK to have country wide blackouts?
Crash test dummies, I love that analogy! There will be more, Germany, England, California…
Grid inertia seems to be a plausible cause, or actually the lack of it. Had the power been provided by thermal or hydro sources, varying the frequency would be resisted by multi-ton rotors spinning at high speed.
The software mimicking a conventional
grid frequency control was apparently inadequate. A sudden loss of power, as with dense cloud over a solar array, might have been enough to crash the system.
The wind was nearly nill across most of the Iberian peninsula at the time. That’s the cause they don’t want to acknowledge.
There were plenty of cascading failures and grid outages when the grid was heavily dominated by inertial based generators. But over time lessons were learned and improvements meant the grids became more stable, often by keeping disturbances localised.
It’s almost certainly true that the grids today are less stable with the addition of non dispatchable renewable energy sources but that means we now need to focus on adding more stabilising functionality and batteries are good for that for many reasons. They can soak up excess energy and cover peak loads. They can provide synthetic inertia.
Unless you’re quite familiar with the industry you almost certainly won’t appreciate the value of the ability to cover the peak loads. It’s by far the most expensive energy to provide and the existing batteries around the world make a lot of legitimate money doing exactly that.
Other storage technologies are great too such as pumped hydro but they’re not available for most places.
It is not just covering peak loads, it is covering peak loads and maintaining grid frequency at the same time. And yes, it is the most expensive generation regardless of fuel, especially if you have to bring seldom used units on line.
Which is why the seldom-used units are there.
As per starzrnom reply you are clearly clueless about grid operation and it is you who is not familiar with the industry.
The problem is not remotely about peak loads it is about grid oscillations which is the electrical equivalent of mechanical vibration. In the same way mechanical vibration can become catastrophic to a mechanical device, electrical oscillations can become catastrophic to electrical circuits. Like mechanical vibration they ARE NOT simple things to fix.
You didn’t understand either my comment or starzmom’s reply. She was agreeing with the fact the batteries can provide synthetic inertia. I’ve got about 25 years experience in the industry. How about you?
Sorry you clearly are not in grid operation regardless of your claim or you would know that synthetic inertia with a battery storage system is a poor relative of real grid inertia. They can only cover small changes in grid that can be measured at the storage point. Synthetic inertia will never stop a real grid inertia problem not ever because you would need real-time whole grid calculations to work out what to do.
If you want it in laymans terms search
“Will synthetic inertia ever replace traditional grid inertia”
This is incorrect. In principle an inverter could exactly model a large rotating mass but it can do better. Its not at all an easy problem to optimise and its very new technology but at the end of the day the grids will be more stable than they are with large rotating masses. Practical experience will only help.
I am afraid you are the only one who believes that show me any electrical engineer who agrees with you 🙂
It’s a bit like trying to imagine controlling a car in a world with inertia and friction but it’s okay you can synthetically create those … it’s a nice dream 🙂
How about you show me why a battery backed inverter couldn’t exactly model a large rotating mass as a start.
Everyone has their own agenda. I dont trust “climate scientists” and their proclamations of impending existential disasters. You can pretty much find anyone to agree with you if you look hard enough.
Lets start with you are never talking about a single unit you are talking about multiple units same situation with generators there are multiple sites on the grid.
The problem is synthetic inertia can only work by predicting what should happen next and comparing it to what it is measuring. Natural inertia requires no prediction it is built in. That is the key to the problem.
So now you put you multiple synthetic inertia units online and they notice the grid power or frequency drifting so by default they ALL jump in to correct the problem and you get an over correction.
So you find that doesn’t work so now you try to organize thresholds so certain ones come in first then you find that doesn’t work because you need hysteresis between coming in and exiting. That still doesn’t work so now you try connecting all the units on a network and run a central brain to work out what needs to happen. You then find you don’t have enough measuring points so now you deploy sensor across the network so your brain program can work it all out. By that stage you are billions of dollars down the tube and fired from power management as an idiot.
This is the simplistic view of the problem and the trick will be to emulate the correction with the right amount of damping just like what rotating masses provide. Fortunately the response and that damping can be dynamically altered in the case of synthetic inertia to provide optimal results.
Part of the problem today apparently is that all the synthetic inertia algorithms are brand new, largely untested in the real world and are proprietary so responses cant easily be predicted and coordinated.
No its not impossible but its very early days for the technology and there are already successes for grid forming inverters.
Is this something you’re familiar with?
So lacking the maturity of those upcoming technological wonders means we have to accelerate implementation of SV and WTG power plants.
A battery inverter. ONE??
I have no doubt if you live off grid and have one source of energy in daytime and maybe some hydro backup, you might be able to keep frequency stable to within a few percent either side of 50hz.
Scale it up to 100s of substations with loads of wire, maybe 200km long+Solar CMEs or unstable portentials caused by things as simple as magnetic fluctuations caused by the solar wind+as well as adding goodness knows how many henries of inductance everywhere inc reluctance in motors and transformers+digital loads which chop off the peaks of sine waves…
Then add your unreliables as power supplies..
I defy you to model any of that and not crash the entire system by adding your miracle wonder solid state crap invertors..
Battery voltage turn-on delay for starters.
Battery voltage versus load is another.
The the battery voltage decreases with increasing load current can be addressed, it does so at the expense of available energy to the load.
25 years of experience with batteries?
I have 50. Decades ago by company listed me as their national subject matter expert.
I’ve kept up.
Is “synthetic inertia” the same as Virtual Reality?
No it’s real enough. Simplistically, large rotating masses are small stores of energy that resist changes to frequency.
Electronics producing synthetic inertia from a battery has, for all intents and purposes, unlimited energy (not power) and the ability to produce any frequency required.
In principle that makes synthetic inertia better than large rotating masses for grid stabilisation but trying to manage optimal frequency control is far from trivial and can itself lead to oscillaitons under some circumstances. But then again so can a lot of things seen on grids.
These are the things that need to be experienced, learned from and improved over time.
I can reliably state your nonsense based on hope and propaganda will fail.
Anybody with any knowledge of electronics – particular high power stuff has to test in all cases inc to destruction.
Only by REAL WORLD testing to well over the normal limitations inc cases you can imagine will never happen do you get reliability and redundancy.
That was EXACTLY what happened at Fukushima.
Everyone said like you, impossible to get a 9+ earthquake. Everyone said the sea walls would resist any tsunami that was theorised to happen…
Nobody imagine putting generators where they did could be a problem. IT WAS.
Except it didn’t and in the real world sh..t happened and DOES regularly.
PANIC followed just like it did in Spain (and has happened in the UK and Texas.)
There are incredible amounts of energy in the tons of rotating turbines and generators. And the generator controls immediately open the steam valves to restore any departure from the setpoints.
And steam turbines are much too slow to react to maintain grid stability, reacting in times of the order of 10s of seconds. Gas turbines are better and Hydro is better again but batteries are best and can react nearly instantaneously.
Of course if you have enough generators in comparison to the size of the load change, they can manage.
You have never measured voltage turn on delays for 10 year old batteries. I have.
Based on your comments, that is.
Not how it works when the batteries are providing FCAS services.
A battery has unlimited power? We are saved!
/s
Any of those electronic ideas are reactive, they respond to changes. As such they are not as reliable as rotating mass. In fact, they might overreact and cause a system cascading failure.
The real problem is not just frequency but synchronization of the frequencies. That is a symptom that people call oscillations.
Spinning large generators used frequency as a feedback to control the speed. A frequency drop meant more driving power needed to be supplied to the turbine so an increased load could be supplied.
With a limited number of generators, frequency could be both matched and synchronized.
Remember, out of phase voltages and currents are the real problem. Anyone who has played with capacitors and inductors can tell you that huge out of phase power, and we are talking huge power values, can cause heat and insulation failures. That is why breakers are used to stop the condition before destruction occurs and why blackouts quickly spread.
Until every inverter in a grid have a foolproof synchronization signal input this will continue to occur.
Most inverters on the grid (eg inverters for solar panels on homes) do frequency following and that means they play no part in setting frequency. I believe they drop off the grid if grid frequency is lost (ie the grid goes down)
Haven’t you just described the problem Spain had?
It sounds like Spain’s frequency oscillated to the point where it went out of spec and the large generators tripped out. Frequency following inverters dont cause oscillations but they dont damp them either.
I’ll be very interested to hear where the problem originated and how it all unfolded.
It is not just frequency oscillation. It is the synchronization that causes the problem. Here is a video with just two generators. Imagine hundreds of windmill and solar inverters all out of sync. The video creates the unsynced condition by speed, i.e., but the same thing occurs with out of phase conditions at the correct frequency.
Jim, with two generators or one generator and the grid, are always in phase if they are connected.
If the generator is connected to the grid, it is in phase. If it is delivering power to the grid then its phase will lead the grid phase by a fraction of a degree causing current to flow onto the grid. If too much current flows, the overload trip opens the breaker, protecting the generator.
If the generator is trying to run slower, which it can never do while connected, then the generator will consume reverse power and trip the breaker before damage is done.
At all times, a connected generator is and remains in phase.
The prime mover of a connected generator can suffer catastrophic damage if the prime mover loses power.
At all times ALL connected generators remain in phase or in sync.
You are describing generators with inertia. Inverters on many unreliable have no way to control the phase of their outputs. The frequency yes, but not phase.
Telephone companies experienced this as they added digital carrier systems. Unsynced terminals on each end would experience “slips” and had to resync, thus losing information. For voice, that was generally unnoticed. When data began to use the systems with direct digital signals, you can imagine the problems. They solved the problem by building a massive separate sync network that insured constant synchronization.
Not only do they control the output to be in phase, they do so by definition. Look up phase locked loops to see how.
They can synchronize when there is a strong grid driven by a reliable generator with inertia. The phase locks loops have problems when isolated into islands with a number of inverters. In addition faults can generate conditions that reduce the ability to synchronize. That does result in lots phase differences between the inverters and consequent problems. That is why 70 – 100% unreliable on a grid can blow up.
You don’t get it. They don’t synchronise, they follow. They monitor the grid frequency and output their energy at the same frequency and therefore always in phase.
Only the grid forming inverters have their own frequency and can potentially go out of phase just like rotating masses but that’s by design so they can provide synthetic inertia.
There are vary few grid forming inverters on the grid today but that number will increase.
Correct.
Define great.
Detailed discussion of the inertia problem by Roger Pielke Jr. who should be familiar to WWUT regulars:
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-iberian-blackout
There will always be extenuating circumstances for grid failure. The point is that Ruinables make the grid more vulnerable to such failures, and in some cases catastrophic failures.
It is still springtime. The demands on grids from air conditioning haven’t really hit yet. There were price spikes in the US as well. No indications that any grids were close to failure, but when you see price and demand spikes in the late afternoon, you know that there is a stress. Summer isn’t here yet.
‘According to the piece in the Daily Mail, Spain’s state electricity network operator, known as Red Electric…’
What an appropriate name for a state-owned company!
Heavily invested by China.
Very nice Francis.
“But I do know that the electricity system in most of Europe and many U.S. states is in the hands of crazed fanatics who have no idea what they are doing.”
Incorrect. They know exactly what they are doing.
The maxim of the law is that men intend the natural and probable consequences of their actions.
And they give a shit about it, since they personally can’t be held accountable…
Observing the characterisics of my own PV system: output ramps up slowly and drops down abruptly if interrupted by clouds f.e. .If it weren’t for the huge battery that buffers the inverter would shut down.
Now my system is an indpendent island and fairly small. Huge solar farms act in a similar way but without battery. A grid with affluent inertia is certainly able to compensate for spikes caused by intermittend power sources BUT depending on their intensity. The 5%-10%-15% rule of thumb applies.
So whatever grid boast with 50% or 100% “renewable” crap is recklessly desgined and destined to fail. Spain just showed the world how long it takes to get back to normal after a blackout. Sadly this one was “fairly” mild to serve as a wake up call, 48 hours with the expected mayham might have done the trick, or if the blackout area would have been in the centre of Europe (Germany f.e.)..effectivly shutting down everything.
Well time will tell, not if but when the next blackout will occur. I put my money on this year’s summer 😉.
I’ve no idea whether this is true or not but what I’ve read.
The Spain-France interconnector is AC and was taken down to prevent the problems in Spain spreading further into France and elsewhere. Once the Spainish grid was in a position to restart the interconnector was used as part of the restart the French Grid being nuclear and hydro is nearly 100% turbine driven. Currently supplying 2.5GW to Spain.
The UK has only got DC interconnectors and wouldn’t be in such a fortunate position should the same thing happen here.
That is correct. Luckily Spain is the tail end of Europe’s grid and due to the fairly “small” amount of energy transfer between France and Spain and low interconnector capacity the shockwave could be quickly contained in southern France, but Portugal was dragged down.
Imagine a similar blackout in Germany, which sits right in the middle of the european grid. France f.e. would be more severily affected due to the significantly higher amount of Energy transfer. France might cut the interconnectors in time to save it’s grid but is left with the problem how to absorb it’s own temporary overproduction.
A german blackout would send shockwaves throughout all Europe and probably drag down it’s neighbouring countries like Spain did with Portugal.
Norway, Sweden and Finland certainly would be spared and hardly notice anything, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, France Switzerland, Austria, Chzeck Republic and Poland not so much.
Actually the idiotic UE did Russia a huge favour by disconnecting it from the electric grid. Guess who is laughing now? Yes me too…but it’s only because of “Schadenfreude” and “I told you so”.
“How to absorb its own temporary overproduction”.
There can be a dummy resistive load for some systems, a way to channel production that suddenly has nowhere to go.
IIRC, these are usually mechanical devices on some systems, like switching to undercharged batteries.
Sarcastically, the current dummy load in some places has become the people on the grid, who get hotter about the blackouts.
Geoff S
Perhaps the problem was with having hundreds of thousands of roof top pv installations. Each with there own inverter looking for a drop in mains voltage. Any ordinary glitch in a traditional grid system will cause a few breakers to open, try to close again, a few times each. Hard faults causes a loss of power to a small part of the grid.
In Spains case, thousands of inverters switching off and on repeated with fractionally different times is bou d to cause havoc.
For individual European countries I have previously bookmarked the “Energy Monitor” website on my computer.
URL : https://www.energymonitor.ai/sectors/power/live-eu-electricity-generation-map/
A selected set of components, which notably excludes options that tend to have negative values — e.g. “Exports” and “Pumped Storage” — but generally a good overview.
The attached (large !) image file shows a composite for Spain and Portugal from midnight on the 27th (last Sunday) to “now” (~13:00.CEST, Friday the 2nd of May).
Notes
– The Spanish “Nuclear” component was “tripped out” hard by its safety features. It’s only being reconnected very, very slowly.
– The “Solar” component for Spain clearly includes some “Solar – Thermal”.
– It looks like the “Solar – PV” fraction was allowed to “over-contribute” on the 28th, but it’s been “limited” (by the grid operator ?) since then.
– The entire Portugal grid “only” has about 5 GW of demand. Their grid operator, however, got a chance to check out the weaknesses of their “black start” procedures.
NB : Their “black start” seemed to go quite well … using mostly “Hydro” — with some “Gas (CCGT)” — turbines to keep the grid stable as it ramped back up before allowing “Wind” and (eventually) “Solar” to be included in the mix again.
The following image is from Paul Homewood’s “Spanish Blackouts” article (direct link), after a “divide height by two” compression operation has been performed on it.
The negative (teal) bars are for “Pumped Storage”.
It looks like the Spanish were using the “excess” solar production to run their pumped storage hydroelectric plants in “pumping” mode … which is what they should be doing rather than just “curtailing” all of that “free” electrical energy ! … when instability induced elsewhere on (/ around ?) the grid led to the whole thing falling over in a heap.
When the definitive analysis is done- will they tell the truth?
Only if it suits the EU and ecotards agenda, so to put it in a short and simple form: NO !!
For those nations which are attempting to move to a wind and solar powered future, managing the transition requires a thorough engineering analysis and a follow-on plan of action.
The plan of action must include costs, schedules, and a risk analysis. Moreover, the engineering analysis and the follow-on plan of action must cover every other nation whose presence on the grid will be impacted in some way by the transition.
OK, why haven’t we seen these kinds of engineering analyses and follow-on plans of action being produced for every state, for every region, and for every nation which is attempting a transition to wind and solar?
The plainly obvious reason is that those who so aggressively promote wind and solar backed by batteries simply don’t want to see the answers.
I really wish ASML would relocate to the U.S.A., next to a nice reliable nuclear power SMR cluster. I’m sure the 100% expensing of construction costs and other tax advantages would also be a welcome change from EU laws. As it is, they are severely constrained for space and energy.
We call them first world problems nowadays-
Bali plunged into mass island-wide blackouts as holidaymakers are issued a frightening warning
Possible causes n0ted in new reports.
1. Atmospheric anomalies? Well, wind moving the high tension wires will not have an effect unless there is a significant EM field to induce current into the wires (assuming no shielding). There are no reports of downed power lines.
2. Fire at the Spain – France interconnector.
3. Drop out of 2 SV power plants.
4. Cyber attacks (eliminated)
Any significant grid oscillations be they frequency, phase, or both would cause a cascading failure.
It is obvious that the system was at best marginally stable.
In control theory, introducing a step function causes oscillations. Those dampen depending on the system In a marginally stable system they persist.
Disconnecting Spain from France introduces step functions on both sides.
SV power plants going off line introduces a step function in Spain.
Given the current state of the art of inverters is seems likely that one after another in quick sequencing went off or out of synch, amplifying the problem.
We do not know. We may never be told.
I do not see any other possibilities.
We have all been, for a long time, calling for a demonstrator project. I submit for consideration that we have just witnessed it.