<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/we-need-more-batteries-spain-turns-to-new-technologies-after-thermal-plants-fail-in-blackout/>
"The Spanish government has conceded it needs to install more battery inverters
on its grid, after blaming the dramatic country-wide blackout in April on some
bad decisions by the grid operator, and the failure of some thermal plants to
do what they were paid to do.
The blackout on April 28 was immediately seized upon by renewable naysayers and
the nuclear and coal lobbies as proof that grids with high shares of renewables
are inherently vulnerable.
But the initial report points to the lack of grid management technologies –
asynchronous installations that can apply power electronic solutions to manage
voltage fluctuations.
In other words, as we wrote at the time – No batteries, no flexibility: Spain
could have avoided blackout with lessons learned in South Australia – the
government now accepts it needs more grid smarts and battery inverters. The
Spanish grid had only a tiny amount of these at the time of the system
collapse.
Sara Aagesen, Spain’s minister for ecological transition, who is responsible
for energy and climate policies, blamed the partly state-owned grid operator,
Red Eléctrica, for miscalculating the power capacity needs for that day.
In particular, she cited a decision not to call on another thermal plant after
the operator of one had advised them a day earlier that a plants would be
unavailable.
“The system did not have enough dynamic voltage capacity,” she said. The
regulator should have switched on another thermal plant, but “they made their
calculations and decided that it was not necessary”.
But the ability to control wild fluctuations in voltage – the exact cause of
which is still being investigated – was compromised by the fact that thermal
generators that had been paid to respond had failed to do so, and actually made
the situation worse.
“Generation firms which were supposed to control voltage and which, in
addition, were paid to do just that did not absorb all the voltage they were
supposed to when tension was high,” Aagesen said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics