The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
Reportedly there was a fire at or near a major powerline between France and Spain.I checked the latest news (17h47 CET 15h47 UTC (https://actu.fr/occitanie/capendu_11068/la-panne-d-electricite-geante-en-espagne-a-t-elle-ete-causee-par-un-incendie-en-occitanie_62568985.html)) about any high voltage powerline fire in the South-West of France and there's a forceful denial. For the moment.
This is speculated to have caused a cascading failure of the network.
I have heard nothing about what caused that fire.
No conspiricy theories here I just said the the EU says no cyber attack and that I do not understand how the explanation put foward by the Spannish power company works.
The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
How often do politicians say one thing and do another or deny something just for the opposite to be the case, way to often to count.
So by saying the EU denys a cyber attack but a denial is often as good as an admission I was just saying that I could not put too much faith in that denial. I don't see that I need further explanations so I will leave it here. All that I was doing in the original post was trying to be brief seems that in this case it has backfired.
1 DC line 2 circuitsWhat an interesting map. Also nice free scrolling page with no horrible spammy fixed header toolbars.
Source : https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/ (https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/)
-Heard an expert say that an European restart from 0 could take 1 week at least :oNot really surprising because if nuclear power plants have to be disconnected, you also need rather quicky to shut down their reactors (= stop the nuclear fission) because it is impossible to evacuate so much heat/energy by just bypassing the turbine steam circuit.
From cold start, it needs 3 weeks to heat up a nuclear reactor.
From cold start, it needs 3 weeks to heat up a nuclear reactor.
Er. No.
https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-station/daily-statuses (https://www.edfenergy.com/energy/power-station/daily-statuses)
They take a day or so to reach normal output.
We have 57 of those (72 % of the electricity produced in France in 2023).
The Guardian had this explanation:
The risks posed to electrical systems by big variations in temperatures are well known in the industry, but it is rare for it to cause problems on the scale of the power outage in Spain and Portugal on Monday.
Transmitting power through wires comes with technical challenges. The air around conductors ionises, causing visible and audible electrical discharges known as corona discharges. That energy is lost. Extreme temperature variations cited by Portugal’s Redes Energéticas Nacionais can cause bigger problems by affecting metal wires at a molecular level, changing the frequency of the electrical current.
“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”
Once frequency drops below a certain level, power generators will automatically turn off in order to avoid overloading the grid.
Engelaar said that – if the atmospheric cause is confirmed – it would be a “pretty spectacular” wake-up call for other countries that they need to invest in resilience against climate risks.
“To see it at a national level, across two countries, I’ve never seen it in my career,” he said.
I am missing the braincells to understand this, but maybe someone else can 😀
The Guardian had this explanation:
The Guardian had this explanation:
The Guardian doesn't trouble itself with facts or technical accuracy. I'm surprised they didn't try to explain it using interpretive dance.
On the plus side, their spelling seems to have improved.
Some short term decisions also took place in France a decade ago.We have 57 of those (72 % of the electricity produced in France in 2023).
As it should have been with the UK. This is what you can do, if you don't sell off all your country's critical infrastructure for a quick buck, without asking who will then put in long term investment.
There has been a wide spread power outage in Spain and Portugal and the explanation as to why seems a tad unusual.
They are blaming a rare atmospheric conditions of hot an cold causing "oscillations in 400KV lines" Some reports say vibrations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t?post=asset%3Addda9592-0346-4fe8-a17a-2261efc1ba5b#post (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t?post=asset%3Addda9592-0346-4fe8-a17a-2261efc1ba5b#post)
I have no idea how this could work.
That makes more sense than "vibrations caused by the weather"
But a line should be able to trip out on the network without causing a total blackout, maybe one area will go offline but the network as a whole should survive.Like the uk grid did back in 2019 after a line got hit by lightning?
QuoteBut a line should be able to trip out on the network without causing a total blackout, maybe one area will go offline but the network as a whole should survive.Like the uk grid did back in 2019 after a line got hit by lightning?
The Guardian had this explanation:
Transmitting power through wires comes with technical challenges. The air around conductors ionises, causing visible and audible electrical discharges known as corona discharges. That energy is lost. Extreme temperature variations cited by Portugal’s Redes Energéticas Nacionais can cause bigger problems by affecting metal wires at a molecular level, changing the frequency of the electrical current.
“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”
Once frequency drops below a certain level, power generators will automatically turn off in order to avoid overloading the grid.
Engelaar said that – if the atmospheric cause is confirmed – it would be a “pretty spectacular” wake-up call for other countries that they need to invest in resilience against climate risks.
“To see it at a national level, across two countries, I’ve never seen it in my career,” he said.
I am missing the braincells to understand this, but maybe someone else can 😀
Chinese whispers passed on by people who don't have a technical background.
Classic version was "send reinforcements we're going to advance" => "send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance".
Education* Unless it fell under his Bachelor of Science - BS.
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam)
Master of Business Administration, Strategy and Organization
2012 - 2013
Tecnológico de Monterrey
Business Administration
2010 - 2011
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam)
*Bachelor of Science - BS, International Business Administration (IBA)
2007 - 2010
Université de Montpellier
French Language
2007 - 2007
Attended Institut d'Etudes Francais pour Etrangers
Erasmiaans Gymnasium
Economics and Society/Culture and Society
2001 - 2006
Experience
SVP & Managing DirectorSVP
Neara · Full-time
Nov 2022 - Present · 2 yrs 6 mos
London, England, United Kingdom
Director & Founder
Akero Consultancy Ltd
Mar 2021 - Present · 4 yrs 2 mos
London, England, United Kingdom
Chief Commercial Officer
Voyage Control
Jun 2022 - Nov 2022 · 6 mos
London, England, United Kingdom
Chief Commercial Officer
AI Clearing · Full-timeA
Mar 2021 - Jun 2022 · 1 yr 4 mos
London, England, United Kingdom
Global Head of Business Development
Herbert Smith Freehills
May 2019 - Apr 2021 · 2 yrs
London, United Kingdom
Global BD & Sector Strategy Lead - Energy
Global ESG Co-lead
PwC Middle East
3 yrs 9 mos
Middle East
Senior Client Strategist & Industry Lead
Aug 2017 - Apr 2019 · 1 yr 9 mos
Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Industry Lead Industry Lead
Manager Clients & Markets
Aug 2015 - Aug 2017 · 2 yrs 1 mo
Executive Board Member
Dutch Business Council
Jan 2016 to Dec 2017 · 2 yrs
Doha, Qatar
Business Development & Country Manager
IPS GroupIPS Group
Apr 2014 to Jul 2015 · 1 yr 4 mos
Qatar
Economic Advisor
Embassy of the kingdom of The Netherlands Mexico City
un 2013 to Apr 2014 · 11 mos
Mexico City, Mexico
Professional Services
BinckBank N.V.
Dec 2009 to Jun 2013 · 3 yrs 7 mos
Amsterdam Area, Netherlands
In any case it doesn't matter, the real question is: Are you prepared to live without access to your credit cards, to not having any 240V to charge phones, tables, radios.., not be able to buy fuel for your car... and for how long?
I do believe many US citizens are well prepared for this kind of event wrt to other parts of the world: hostile weather events (hurricanes, blizzards..), large territory, wild nature, better culture of survivalism…
Living in a remote area of Concord, New Hampshire, I could go at least a couple weeks with no contact and no utilities, because that happens regularly in winter anyway. Loss of internet connectivity would be the greatest inconvenience, but I have been thinking of getting Starlink as a backup and for mobile internet access.
I do believe many US citizens are well prepared for this kind of event wrt to other parts of the world: hostile weather events (hurricanes, blizzards..), large territory, wild nature, better culture of survivalism…
Living in a remote area of Concord, New Hampshire, I could go at least a couple weeks with no contact and no utilities, because that happens regularly in winter anyway. Loss of internet connectivity would be the greatest inconvenience, but I have been thinking of getting Starlink as a backup and for mobile internet access.
However you want to put it, it’s going to be worse in Europe for example. Maybe it’s the history of the US, a huge land of wild territory that was occupied in just 400 years, or maybe it’s Hollywood always scaring everyone of impending disasters…
Really?
As a US citizen I have to dispute that. How many of my fat-assed neighbors, who cannot go anywhere without their gigantic gas-guzzling crew-cab pickup, would be prepared for such emergencies?
Not many, I reckon.
Sure, there are many "preppers" hereabouts (I live in a somewhat rural area); some of them might be OK, with generators and stashes of supplies.
But most everyone else, even here in my "red" county, are going to be about as well-prepared as I am. Which is to say, not at all. (Well, I do have a pretty good stash of toilet paper ...)
However you want to put it, it’s going to be worse in Europe for example. Maybe it’s the history of the US, a huge land of wild territory that was occupied in just 400 years, or maybe it’s Hollywood always scaring everyone of impending disasters…
Really?
As a US citizen I have to dispute that. How many of my fat-assed neighbors, who cannot go anywhere without their gigantic gas-guzzling crew-cab pickup, would be prepared for such emergencies?
Not many, I reckon.
Sure, there are many "preppers" hereabouts (I live in a somewhat rural area); some of them might be OK, with generators and stashes of supplies.
But most everyone else, even here in my "red" county, are going to be about as well-prepared as I am. Which is to say, not at all. (Well, I do have a pretty good stash of toilet paper ...)
Apparently the grid is being restarted more or less successfully. Official reports claim 50 % of the grid up now. Here in Madrid wide areas are now powered.
Not yet any convincing explanation of what happened. They say that approximately 60 % of the generation "dissappeared" from the grid in just 5 seconds. Some point to the link with the rest of Europe, thru France,... well, I doubt such link has that capacity
Living in a remote area of Concord, New Hampshire, I could go at least a couple weeks with no contact and no utilities, because that happens regularly in winter anyway. Loss of internet connectivity would be the greatest inconvenience, but I have been thinking of getting Starlink as a backup and for mobile internet access.
I do believe many US citizens are well prepared for this kind of event wrt to other parts of the world: hostile weather events (hurricanes, blizzards..), large territory, wild nature, better culture of survivalism…
In which case the only applicable scenario here is the "Mad Max" one.
Apparently the grid is being restarted more or less successfully. Official reports claim 50 % of the grid up now. Here in Madrid wide areas are now powered.
Not yet any convincing explanation of what happened. They say that approximately 60 % of the generation "dissappeared" from the grid in just 5 seconds. Some point to the link with the rest of Europe, thru France,... well, I doubt such link has that capacity
Raised an eyebrow when I read about the reason being given for the massive grid failure in Spain and Portugal - induced atmospheric vibration, hmmmm.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity)
I can hear Dave in my head sniffing out loud and saying "smells like bulls..t"!
Anyone wanna take this up?
Raised an eyebrow when I read about the reason being given for the massive grid failure in Spain and Portugal - induced atmospheric vibration, hmmmm.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity)
I can hear Dave in my head sniffing out loud and saying "smells like bulls..t"!
Anyone wanna take this up?
I will say what I said in the other discussion thread:
I took it to mean wind induced oscillation causing flashover between conductors, or breaking a line. This would explain the comment about a weather effect, but it has nothing to do with climate change. The frequency (or vibration) part could refer to the galloping occurring at the resonate frequency of the swinging line:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop)
Spoilers, fins, or dampeners may be added to power lines in windy areas to prevent galloping.
The only problems with the weather I have come across is line clashing in the wind and sagging due to ice or expansion in extreme heat. Never heard of frequrncy shifting due to heat or cold, well not at low frequency of 50HZ.
I didn't know DC used like that for very long distances but they don't say how many volts like they do the AC ones.
From what little knowledge I have about causes behind grid blackouts, it's a mismatch between generation and demand.
Apparently Spain recently ran the whole country on renewables on the 16th, maybe related? - https://www.threads.com/@earthlyeducation/post/DI0JNWSRrop/wow-spains-grid-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-the-first-time-on-april-16- (https://www.threads.com/@earthlyeducation/post/DI0JNWSRrop/wow-spains-grid-ran-entirely-on-renewable-energy-for-the-first-time-on-april-16-)
If the grid frequency started oscillating up and down too much, then it was because they couldn't match the generation and load closely enough. If they've had an arcing of 400Kv cables maybe they didn't have enough spare generation online to keep the grid working as it should?
I can't see how coronal discharge could, itself, create an "imbalance in frequency". Frequency is a function of all of the generators on the network.
In any case it doesn't matter, the real question is: Are you prepared to live without access to your credit cards, to not having any 240V to charge phones, tables, radios.., not be able to buy fuel for your car... and for how long?
should have had some mega battery packs online. No spin-up time.
Some speculation that enough solar tripped offline
“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”
If there is no insulation the main parameters are length and resistance.
Corona arcing certainly sounds like its a beefy load.
Like literally making the bulb dim and brighten periodically, like a relaxation oscillator.
There is already another 3 pages topic about the Spain and Portugal power fail:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/ (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/)
The Guardian article is a funny piece of word salad but I guess this caters to some group of "information"-hungry laymen, maybe the lowest 10% of the bell curve.
You don't really need to be a power system specialist to see they just put random words together and none of it makes any technical sense.
Anyway, they can't hide the fact that they have too little inertia in the grid, whatever the factors are that made it unstable.
The Guardian article is a funny piece of word salad but I guess this caters to some group of "information"-hungry laymen, maybe the lowest 10% of the bell curve.
You don't really need to be a power system specialist to see they just put random words together and none of it makes any technical sense.
HV transmission line networks are really complicated.
Raised an eyebrow when I read about the reason being given for the massive grid failure in Spain and Portugal - induced atmospheric vibration, hmmmm.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity)
I can hear Dave in my head sniffing out loud and saying "smells like bulls..t"!
Anyone wanna take this up?
I will say what I said in the other discussion thread:
I took it to mean wind induced oscillation causing flashover between conductors, or breaking a line. This would explain the comment about a weather effect, but it has nothing to do with climate change. The frequency (or vibration) part could refer to the galloping occurring at the resonate frequency of the swinging line:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conductor_gallop)
Spoilers, fins, or dampeners may be added to power lines in windy areas to prevent galloping.
Yesterday they were interviewing someone from the industry on the radio that was speculating about this being the cause, another being temperature variations making the lines sag and come closes to trees, and then cutting the power to prevent corona discharges. But only theories
Then they passed the mike to some renewables VC freak that started rambling about electricity being magic, electricity prices being so low in spain due to renewables :palm: at which point the expert commented that he actually deals with magic, then changed the subject back to the possible causes
The reports of a fire in a substation in France and now another fire in a substation in London is a little odd. Several fires in the UK have been traced to arson commited by persons unknown and at least one to a known person who addmited to being paid by the Russians. Not saying this is the case here.
The lack of inertial stability in the grid produced by hundreds of tons of metal spinning at three thousand revolotions a minuete will have a lot to do with grid problems today.
This is going to be more common in the coming years with higher demand for electric vehicles, heating, cooling and state sponsored hacking...
Effective inertial stability can be provided by both wind turbines and batteries
I also red that the Spain/Portugal grid was disconnected from the European high voltage grid (https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/en-direct-panne-d-electricite-massive-le-trafic-ferroviaire-interrompu-dans-toute-l-espagne-20250428#28-04-2025-15-03-09) from 12h38 to 13h30 CET (10h38-11h30 UTC)
Pour rappel, le réseau ibérique a été automatiquement déconnecté du réseau européen hier de 12h38 à 13h30, heure à laquelle la ligne électrique 400kV entre la Catalogne française et espagnole a été remise en service.According to the latest news, the power outage may have been due to two episodes of solar power disconnection.
Other theories related to cyber-attacks or weather conditions are ruled out.
In spanish: https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-29/ultima-hora-del-apagon-en-directo.html
Ah, but what caused the disconnection.
Clearly it was pixies (or their evil brethren, gremlins) playing with the control panel.
According to the latest news, the power outage may have been due to two episodes of solar power disconnection.
Other theories related to cyber-attacks or weather conditions are ruled out.
Have they ruled out Oracle engineers (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/oracle-engineers-caused-days-long-software-outage-at-us-hospitals.html)?
This is going to be more common in the coming years with higher demand for electric vehicles, heating, cooling and state sponsored hacking...
If only it was you and only you who worked that out. Then nobody would be doing anything about it.
They do. They are.
As usual it just comes down to how well funded and how quickly... for that see a political/economics forum.
Ah, but what caused the disconnection.
Yesterday they were interviewing someone from the industry on the radio that was speculating about this being the cause, another being temperature variations making the lines sag
This is going to be more common in the coming years with higher demand for electric vehicles, heating, cooling and state sponsored hacking...
If only it was you and only you who worked that out. Then nobody would be doing anything about it.
They do. They are.
As usual it just comes down to how well funded and how quickly... for that see a political/economics forum.
I work in a company providing (among other things) decentralized grid solutions. The solutions exist and newer solutions are rapidly being developed. Grids have to be upgraded, but time and money... I think it's partly lack of political will and stupid decisions that have hindered some of the development (stupid decisions like Germany shutting down nuclear and buying coal and gas instead). I think Europe will get it right eventually. The Nordics are in good shape due to our water and nuclear (no problem if Denmark has 100% wind). There are no issues with "renewables" (I don't like the term, it's greenwashing; since when are old solar panels and wind turbines recycled?) if the grid and production is properly designed.
That 'why' is probably the key to the cause. Let's wait and see if we ever get to know the reason why the disconnect happened :popcorn:I also red that the Spain/Portugal grid was disconnected from the European high voltage grid (https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/en-direct-panne-d-electricite-massive-le-trafic-ferroviaire-interrompu-dans-toute-l-espagne-20250428#28-04-2025-15-03-09) from 12h38 to 13h30 CET (10h38-11h30 UTC)
Yes, this is not just in a newspaper article, this was confirmed by RTE: https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/information-presse-incident-electrique-espagne-portugal-situation-est-retablie (https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/information-presse-incident-electrique-espagne-portugal-situation-est-retablie)Code: [Select]Pour rappel, le réseau ibérique a été automatiquement déconnecté du réseau européen hier de 12h38 à 13h30, heure à laquelle la ligne électrique 400kV entre la Catalogne française et espagnole a été remise en service.
They don't say why.
According to the latest news, the power outage may have been due to two episodes of solar power disconnection.English translation : see attached image.
Other theories related to cyber-attacks or weather conditions are ruled out.
In spanish: https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-29/ultima-hora-del-apagon-en-directo.html (https://elpais.com/economia/2025-04-29/ultima-hora-del-apagon-en-directo.html)
LOL they were lyingThanks to both of you for this information.
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1917189078728294546 (https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1917189078728294546)
JUST IN - Spain blackout: All fingers point to solar power. Red Eléctrica warned about the risks associated with renewable energy.
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
That's what was done in Spain (4 plants, as far as I know) and France (1 plant).
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts.
There are plants that can power the cooling from the reactor but they still have to isolate it from the grid and lower power dramatically until they can do load balancing. Even recovering from this takes time, it's mostly a safety measure to be able to keep the cooling running in case there is a problem with the diesel generators.Yes you usually avoid the shut down nuclear power plants because it might need days to recover and reconnect to grid. Same topic was discussed here (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5896674/#msg5896674).
Probably there are several reasons that can lead to a situation where you need to disconnect a region/country.That 'why' is probably the key to the cause. Let's wait and see if we ever get to know the reason why the disconnect happened :popcorn:I also red that the Spain/Portugal grid was disconnected from the European high voltage grid (https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/en-direct-panne-d-electricite-massive-le-trafic-ferroviaire-interrompu-dans-toute-l-espagne-20250428#28-04-2025-15-03-09) from 12h38 to 13h30 CET (10h38-11h30 UTC)
Yes, this is not just in a newspaper article, this was confirmed by RTE: https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/information-presse-incident-electrique-espagne-portugal-situation-est-retablie (https://www.rte-france.com/actualites/information-presse-incident-electrique-espagne-portugal-situation-est-retablie)Code: [Select]Pour rappel, le réseau ibérique a été automatiquement déconnecté du réseau européen hier de 12h38 à 13h30, heure à laquelle la ligne électrique 400kV entre la Catalogne française et espagnole a été remise en service.
They don't say why.
“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.” Once frequency drops below a certain level, power generators will automatically turn off in order to avoid overloading the grid. Engelaar said that – if the atmospheric cause is confirmed – it would be a “pretty spectacular” wake-up call for other countries that they need to invest in resilience against climate risks.
I am missing the braincells to understand this, but maybe someone else can 😀
Why are they relying on a "software provider" to give them the above answers.I found on the I-newspaper today an explanation that seemed more obvious and plausible to me.
Coming from someone who seems to have no education background in this sort of stuff?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tacoengelaar/details/education/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tacoengelaar/details/education/)
University of Bath’s Professor Chenghong Gu said the “anomalous oscillations” phenomenon is “quite a normal effect” and also sceptically treated REN’s hypothesis.Now that sounds a lot better.
“These electricity systems should be designed for these oscillations and these weather conditions, even extreme weather conditions,” he said.
University of Bath
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Oct 2007 - Oct 2010Oct 2007 - Oct 2010
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Master of Philosophy - MPhil, Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Sep 2004 - May 2007
Gu described a “domino effect” whereby if the grid’s frequency is outside the desired 50 Hz, a localised customer base will be cut off from the grid to bring the frequency back to the right level.So something is out of sync between the substations or broke.
If the frequency is still not brought back to around 50 Hz, a larger area will be cut off from the grid, and so on until, potentially, a whole peninsula loses power.
* “The power grids in EU countries are interconnected,” he added. “It means all grids are synchronised. If there are any failures somewhere in one part of the system, the consequence can immediately propagate to other regions.
Gu explained how these disconnections of households to the grid occur “automatically” as soon as the frequency deviates too far from 50 Hz. “You cannot control this disconnection. All the settings were set a long time ago.”
The reports of a fire in a substation in France and now another fire in a substation in London is a little odd. Several fires in the UK have been traced to arson commited by persons unknown and at least one to a known person who addmited to being paid by the Russians. Not saying this is the case here.
The lack of inertial stability in the grid produced by hundreds of tons of metal spinning at three thousand revolotions a minuete will have a lot to do with grid problems today.
So it seems these renewable systems are vulnerable without a some form of storage capacity to buffer one side from the other.
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
Why are they not able to run pumps from their own electrical output?
So it seems these renewable systems are vulnerable without a some form of storage capacity to buffer one side from the other.
Actual storage is helpful for other reasons, but not required at all for grid stability, because it's not like the Sun stops shining across a wide area in a second or two.
Google "virtual inertia", "frequency droop control" etc. for a basic idea what can be easily done within inverters with zero additional hardware cost (let alone the cost of a li-ion battery). Of course, if legislators instead mandate manufacturers to implement modes that do the opposite of what is needed (e.g., turn off the inverter when there is shortage of power in the grid), then that proves that legislators have the power to make the choices and manufacturers the ability to cater to these wishes, but unfortunately it does not result in a working system.
It is easy to daydream about complex solutions to the point of never getting anything done.
So it seems these renewable systems are vulnerable without a some form of storage capacity to buffer one side from the other.
Actual storage is helpful for other reasons, but not required at all for grid stability, because it's not like the Sun stops shining across a wide area in a second or two.
Except during total solar eclipses. Germany had to plan carefully for that a few years.
The other problem is that there is no single central control, and every component has to have local rules about when and how to protect itself.
So it seems these renewable systems are vulnerable without a some form of storage capacity to buffer one side from the other.
Actual storage is helpful for other reasons, but not required at all for grid stability, because it's not like the Sun stops shining across a wide area in a second or two.
Except during total solar eclipses. Germany had to plan carefully for that a few years.
A storage array balances distribution and in a situation like this one would have provided power for several hours at least. I take his point about it not preventing the issue that happened, but certainly storage would lessen the downtime.
Inventing a scenario:
Grid operator requires that a private solar generator disconnects when grid frequency exceeds a certain limit, e.g. 51 Hz for a 50 Hz grid. Maybe they made this rule in the early days of solar generators. Now imagine 65 % of the production from solar generators and due to some incident they all disconnect at the same time.
The operator can't control a grid where all solar generators turn on and off at the same time. But i guess they will learn from this case. Maybe they need to refine the rules for solar generators.
Inventing a scenario:
Grid operator requires that a private solar generator disconnects when grid frequency exceeds a certain limit, e.g. 51 Hz for a 50 Hz grid. Maybe they made this rule in the early days of solar generators. Now imagine 65 % of the production from solar generators and due to some incident they all disconnect at the same time.
The operator can't control a grid where all solar generators turn on and off at the same time. But i guess they will learn from this case. Maybe they need to refine the rules for solar generators.
Delete "solar" and that scenario is equally valid.
Inventing a scenario:
Grid operator requires that a private solar generator disconnects when grid frequency exceeds a certain limit, e.g. 51 Hz for a 50 Hz grid. Maybe they made this rule in the early days of solar generators. Now imagine 65 % of the production from solar generators and due to some incident they all disconnect at the same time.
The operator can't control a grid where all solar generators turn on and off at the same time. But i guess they will learn from this case. Maybe they need to refine the rules for solar generators.
Delete "solar" and that scenario is equally valid.
didn't the UK have some event a few years back where they disconnected part of the grid to shed some load, but because of solar/wind that part of grid was actually a net producer so disconnecting it only made the problem worse?
This was similar to what I saw back then.The other problem is that there is no single central control, and every component has to have local rules about when and how to protect itself.
About 10 years ago seemed we were at the precipice of self generated power with these natural gas power fuel cells for the home, I don't know what happened to it. You can get there with solar now but pricey.
Google "virtual inertia", "frequency droop control" etc. for a basic idea what can be easily done within inverters with zero additional hardware cost (let alone the cost of a li-ion battery). Of course, if legislators instead mandate manufacturers to implement modes that do the opposite of what is needed (e.g., turn off the inverter when there is shortage of power in the grid),I'm not sure it is so simple. Dumping more power in an unstable grid (which went way outside the normal operating boundaries!) without knowing why the grid is unstable sounds like bad idea to me. In such cases it is better to switch off as a precaution. The solar inverters basically have no idea what is going on and no way to make any decission based on anything else than the mains frequency. Things would be different if the inverters had a seperate remote control. But then again, that would open a massive security risk and additional points of failures.
Oh, this is how the Chernobyl plant was blown up! They were testing a modification to the exciter of the big alternator so it could properly regulate when under a load of less than 10 % of capacity. The normal exciters are not designed to regulate the alternator output at less than, maybe 50% capacity. Also, the turbine regulators are not designed to regulate turbine speed when not connected to the grid. The grid is a HUGE stabilizer for turbine-alternator speed. The reason for all this crazy jury-rigging was that the Russians were too cheap to provide fast-start Diesel generators and UPS's for the coolant pumps, as are required in all western plants. Yes, of course, a UPS for several THOUSAND HP of pumps is SURE going to be expensive!
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
Why are they not able to run pumps from their own electrical output?
.Google "virtual inertia", "frequency droop control" etc. for a basic idea what can be easily done within inverters with zero additional hardware cost (let alone the cost of a li-ion battery). Of course, if legislators instead mandate manufacturers to implement modes that do the opposite of what is needed (e.g., turn off the inverter when there is shortage of power in the grid),I'm not sure it is so simple. Dumping more power in an unstable grid (which went way outside the normal operating boundaries!) without knowing why the grid is unstable sounds like bad idea to me. In such cases it is better to switch off as a precaution. The solar inverters basically have no idea what is going on and no way to make any decission based on anything else than the mains frequency. Things would be different if the inverters had a seperate remote control. But then again, that would open a massive security risk and additional points of failures.
https://x.com/ada_lluch/status/1916961580790779924
https://x.com/ada_lluch/status/1916961580790779924
Why would you face away from that and film it as a selfie instead of, I don't know, actually watching it with your own eyes?
FYI, some people might think that's a nuclear plant, but that's a coal plant that was demolished, it was in the Community Notes.
As for the restart situation, when a fission reactor is running, it continuously produces neutron "poisons" (ie. absorbers) such as Iodine and Xenon. The neutron flux continuously destroys these poisons as the reactor runs. When the reactor is abruptly shut down, these poisons build up in seconds due to delayed fission, and it then becomes VERY hard to restart the reactor. If you want to restart immediately after a scram, you have to pull all the control rods all the way out, which is very dangerous. (That's what happened at Chernobyl when they horribly mismanaged a poorly thought-out test.) OR, you have to wait several days for the poisons to decay naturally, then the reactor can be safely restarted at somewhat less than full power. This is called the "Iodine pit".
sometimes I wonder if the fact that you can't run something on low is a good reason not to build it. Is it wise?
...
Maybe it needs to spend a few more years in the development phase lol. "Its remarkably safe, unless this normal sounding thing happens, then you are screwed. " It almost sounds like you are banking on the guy having the problem not to have any common sense when he tries to fix it......
Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
sometimes I wonder if the fact that you can't run something on low is a good reason not to build it. Is it wise?
...
Maybe it needs to spend a few more years in the development phase lol. "Its remarkably safe, unless this normal sounding thing happens, then you are screwed. " It almost sounds like you are banking on the guy having the problem not to have any common sense when he tries to fix it......
The original designers were aware of the issue and operating procedures took it into account. It is not unusual to have large scale energy generators which cannot be safely operated at low power.
My understanding of the test they ran is that they were suppose to shut the reactor off completely, and then test the rundown of the turbine on residual steam pressure while continuing to power the coolant pumps. Instead they created a "cold water accident" trying to bring the reactor power up to a low power level before starting the test. There were some other things going on with their instrumentation which concealed the reactor's state, and there may have been a hardware failure.
Inventing a scenario:
Grid operator requires that a private solar generator disconnects when grid frequency exceeds a certain limit, e.g. 51 Hz for a 50 Hz grid. Maybe they made this rule in the early days of solar generators. Now imagine 65 % of the production from solar generators and due to some incident they all disconnect at the same time.
The operator can't control a grid where all solar generators turn on and off at the same time. But i guess they will learn from this case. Maybe they need to refine the rules for solar generators.
Regards, Dieter
While I am sure its more complicated then I understand it to be, i still think there is a gold standard for engineering design where it tries to agree with common human principles, like less being safer/easier to deal with, etc. Designs that get stuck on some weird 'backwards reasoning' concepts are always going to be more prone to being mishandled / misunderstood, and IMO be less popular and proliferate less. Even non hazardous things are considered to be a unpleasant nuisance by most people when they are controlled in this fashion.
Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
Take the red pill.
Miguel de Simón Martín from the University of León in Spain also told SMC that there were indications that a high-voltage line in France had suddenly failed. The voltage drop could have led to photovoltaic and wind power plants being disconnected, causing the system to collapse.
Yes, but those generators got shut down (decoupled from the grid) too. More or less all of them. At some point you have to pull the plug to prevent further damage. It is not like power grids are run by inept people..Google "virtual inertia", "frequency droop control" etc. for a basic idea what can be easily done within inverters with zero additional hardware cost (let alone the cost of a li-ion battery). Of course, if legislators instead mandate manufacturers to implement modes that do the opposite of what is needed (e.g., turn off the inverter when there is shortage of power in the grid),I'm not sure it is so simple. Dumping more power in an unstable grid (which went way outside the normal operating boundaries!) without knowing why the grid is unstable sounds like bad idea to me. In such cases it is better to switch off as a precaution. The solar inverters basically have no idea what is going on and no way to make any decission based on anything else than the mains frequency. Things would be different if the inverters had a seperate remote control. But then again, that would open a massive security risk and additional points of failures.
Your entire description applies equally to rotating generators with mechanical inertia: they can "dump more power into an unstable grid" and have "no idea what's going on" just as much.
Except of course they do: their phase lead/lag relative to the grid defines the current, you can do the same with solar inverters just as well.
The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
You forgot to mention that MSSMM[sic] can't be trusted, and you should "do you're[sic] own research".
Save paranoid conspiracy theories for other forums, and wait until an explanation has been determined.
Besides, everybody knows it was the pixies (or gremlins) dancing on the HV lines.
Spain declared nation ran on 100% renewable energy on April 16. Maybe they need more hydrogen LMAO.
I kind of suspect energy politics and wondering why it's "10 days" to bring the grid back up? That's just going to cause mass hysteria.
Blackout in Spain and Portugal: At least three dead after power outage (https://www.heise.de/en/news/Blackout-in-Spain-and-Portugal-At-least-three-dead-after-power-outage-10367202.html (https://www.heise.de/en/news/Blackout-in-Spain-and-Portugal-At-least-three-dead-after-power-outage-10367202.html)):You'll find information about that in Reply #87 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5897662/#msg5897662)QuoteMiguel de Simón Martín from the University of León in Spain also told SMC that there were indications that a high-voltage line in France had suddenly failed. The voltage drop could have led to photovoltaic and wind power plants being disconnected, causing the system to collapse.
The RKMB design has a positive void coefficient, meaning that steam in the reactor channels allows more neutrons to pass increasing the reaction rate.
You'll find information about that in [urlhttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5897662/#msg5897662]Reply #87[/url]
Emulating newtons laws with inverters is difficult.You say difficult, while others say trivial....
Pop quiz, hotshot. There's a bomb on a bus. Once the bus goes 50 miles an hour, the bomb is armed. If it drops below 50, it blows up. What do you do? What do you do?
Take the red pill.
This Dutch website written by people in the transmission line field have posted an article.The explanation provided by HoogspanningsNet at least contadicts with the traded energy agreement between France and Spain. What was scheduled for that day at noon (like the whole morning except a 15 minutes slot), is that France was importing electricity from Spain (because it is cheaper there).
https://www.hoogspanningsnet.com/artikel/stroomstoring-spanje-portugal-28-april-2025/ (https://www.hoogspanningsnet.com/artikel/stroomstoring-spanje-portugal-28-april-2025/)
I generally hate fiddling with URLs :)You'll find information about that in [urlhttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5897662/#msg5897662]Reply #87[/url]
Don't you hate it when you mistype a link by one character :-).
While I am sure its more complicated then I understand it to be, i still think there is a gold standard for engineering design where it tries to agree with common human principles, like less being safer/easier to deal with, etc.
As nuclear power plants cannot be shut down (*) nor really modulated, the huge share of solar energy weakens the whole grid.
(*) except for security/safety reasons, of course
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
Why are they not able to run pumps from their own electrical output?
I believe at least some of them can it is probably a matter of always having a backup for the backup and that they have to shutdown regardless to get the output low enough to handle no load
The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
You forgot to mention that MSSMM[sic] can't be trusted, and you should "do you're[sic] own research".
Save paranoid conspiracy theories for other forums, and wait until an explanation has been determined.
Besides, everybody knows it was the pixies (or gremlins) dancing on the HV lines.
White cockatoos in fire proof suits swinging on the lines.
It used to work for the open wire phone lines, near Wyndham Western Australia, but they didn't need the fireproof suits.
...
Due to lack of "rotating reserve" (literal rotating generators with mass) this fault was insufficiently dampened, and the high percentage of PV on the grid then causes a cascade failure.
This sounds more plausible than "atmospheric phenomena".
Emulating newtons laws with inverters is difficult.
I suspect there will be amendments to EN 50549 due to this.
I wonder if they been using GPS to syncronise the equipment clocks wind farms, solar panels , battery banks, when you removed the large base load that provided the sync across the grid, you have to look else where........ or got remotely adjusted, simply IGBT transistors cannot take the surging or damping of a massive steam, spinning turbine control theory 1 on 1.
The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
You forgot to mention that MSSMM[sic] can't be trusted, and you should "do you're[sic] own research".
Save paranoid conspiracy theories for other forums, and wait until an explanation has been determined.
Besides, everybody knows it was the pixies (or gremlins) dancing on the HV lines.
White cockatoos in fire proof suits swinging on the lines.
It used to work for the open wire phone lines, near Wyndham Western Australia, but they didn't need the fireproof suits.
Fried squirrels dancing in on substation interruptors gave Cambridge UK a blackout >40 years ago. Thanks for reminding me :)
The EU officials are denying cyber attak, but a denial from politicians is offten as good as an admmision of guilt.
You forgot to mention that MSSMM[sic] can't be trusted, and you should "do you're[sic] own research".
Save paranoid conspiracy theories for other forums, and wait until an explanation has been determined.
Besides, everybody knows it was the pixies (or gremlins) dancing on the HV lines.
White cockatoos in fire proof suits swinging on the lines.
It used to work for the open wire phone lines, near Wyndham Western Australia, but they didn't need the fireproof suits.
Fried squirrels dancing in on substation interruptors gave Cambridge UK a blackout >40 years ago. Thanks for reminding me :)
Came close to being one of them squirrels in Spain. They do love their overhead lines they do.
The thing about HV lines, they are nearly impossible to see from the air.
Agreed. Solar grid inverters can't do much in case real power is involved. A solar grid inverter can't supply more energy than it is already supplying (a typical solar grid inverter is always maxed out) and it can't absorb (much) real power either. A spinning mass inside a generator however has the ability to convert electric power to and from kinetic energy (accumulator function). Grid connected battery banks can do the same but not much of those have been installed yet....
Due to lack of "rotating reserve" (literal rotating generators with mass) this fault was insufficiently dampened, and the high percentage of PV on the grid then causes a cascade failure.
This sounds more plausible than "atmospheric phenomena".
Emulating newtons laws with inverters is difficult.
I suspect there will be amendments to EN 50549 due to this.
Emulating Newton's laws with inverters is trivial, at least on a small scale. There are two cases:
1. The inverter provides a current into the grid proportional to the voltage. A load draws current inversely proportional to its load resistance. In this case the current is reversed, negative, so the inverter is synthesizing a negative resistance and connecting it to the grid to become a source instead of a load.
2. The inverter provides a current into the grid proportional to the voltage as above, but with phase lag or phase lead. This requires phase locking a local frequency reference to the grid, and using the phase difference between the reference and the grid to adjust the current. This is what a rotating source effectively does. With a time reference, the inverter can now attempt to regulate grid frequency by adjusting the phase of its current compared to the line voltage. With an external time reference, the inverter can attempt to regulate the grid phase.
The difficulty is one of scale. A rotating source has enormous inertia and peak power capability which is either difficult to implement or uneconomical. A 1000 watt grid-tie inverter with a 1000 watts of solar panels is not going to provide much if any overload or reserve capacity. An inverter with a battery bank like the large Tesla systems could however, but at considerably extra cost.
Wrong time of year for suspect no. 4He could of been heading down to the balearics for a well earned break
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
Why are they not able to run pumps from their own electrical output?
The UK is re introducing 1920's technology to help stabilise the grid. Namely Syncronous condensers with massive flywheels.It would be interesting to know how much production-consumption imbalance all these synchronous condenser could compensate, and for how much time (seconds, minutes ?).
https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrook-commissions-first-new-synchronous-condenser-for-the-uk-power-market/#:~:text=LONDON%20%E2%80%93%2015%20February%202022%20%E2%80%93%20Quinbrook,at%20Rassau%2C%20in%20Ebbw%20Vale%2C (https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrook-commissions-first-new-synchronous-condenser-for-the-uk-power-market/#:~:text=LONDON%20%E2%80%93%2015%20February%202022%20%E2%80%93%20Quinbrook,at%20Rassau%2C%20in%20Ebbw%20Vale%2C)
These put real rotating mass back into the system.
[...]
Some notes:I could pay with credit card just fine, however contactless didn't work.
-After blackout only people with cash were able to purchase at some supermarkets which had diesel generators
The UK is re introducing 1920's technology to help stabilise the grid. Namely Syncronous condensers with massive flywheels.It would be interesting to know how much production-consumption imbalance all these synchronous condenser could compensate, and for how much time (seconds, minutes ?).
https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrook-commissions-first-new-synchronous-condenser-for-the-uk-power-market/#:~:text=LONDON%20%E2%80%93%2015%20February%202022%20%E2%80%93%20Quinbrook,at%20Rassau%2C%20in%20Ebbw%20Vale%2C (https://www.quinbrook.com/news-insights/quinbrook-commissions-first-new-synchronous-condenser-for-the-uk-power-market/#:~:text=LONDON%20%E2%80%93%2015%20February%202022%20%E2%80%93%20Quinbrook,at%20Rassau%2C%20in%20Ebbw%20Vale%2C)
These put real rotating mass back into the system.
[...]
Just to compare with the jolt that occured in Spain (15 GW production loss in 5 seconds).
The purpose of these synchronous condensers is probably not to compensate the total amount of loss, but just give additional time (let's say a couple of minutes) to organize shedding, which is actually the sole perennial solution in such dire situations.
As a ballpark comparison, I had a look to the Australian Grid batteries map (https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-battery-storage-map-of-australia/) who provide energy storage and contribute to grid regulation.
The total power that the 28 battery power plants in operation (green icons) can provide is 3.09 GW. This figure assumes that all of these plants were on standby (no power delivery) just before the outage.
This therefore represents approximately the power of three nuclear power plants and about a third of the outage suffered by Spain.
Some notes:
-After blackout only people with cash were able to purchase at some supermarkets which had diesel generators
I could pay with credit card just fine, however contactless didn't work.
Wow, you're back on the same plainly false claims again?Agreed. Solar grid inverters can't do much in case real power is involved. A solar grid inverter can't supply more energy than it is already supplying (a typical solar grid inverter is always maxed out) and it can't absorb (much) real power either. A spinning mass inside a generator however has the ability to convert electric power to and from kinetic energy (accumulator function)....
Due to lack of "rotating reserve" (literal rotating generators with mass) this fault was insufficiently dampened, and the high percentage of PV on the grid then causes a cascade failure.
This sounds more plausible than "atmospheric phenomena".
Emulating newtons laws with inverters is difficult.
I suspect there will be amendments to EN 50549 due to this.
Emulating Newton's laws with inverters is trivial, at least on a small scale. There are two cases:
1. The inverter provides a current into the grid proportional to the voltage. A load draws current inversely proportional to its load resistance. In this case the current is reversed, negative, so the inverter is synthesizing a negative resistance and connecting it to the grid to become a source instead of a load.
2. The inverter provides a current into the grid proportional to the voltage as above, but with phase lag or phase lead. This requires phase locking a local frequency reference to the grid, and using the phase difference between the reference and the grid to adjust the current. This is what a rotating source effectively does. With a time reference, the inverter can now attempt to regulate grid frequency by adjusting the phase of its current compared to the line voltage. With an external time reference, the inverter can attempt to regulate the grid phase.
The difficulty is one of scale. A rotating source has enormous inertia and peak power capability which is either difficult to implement or uneconomical. A 1000 watt grid-tie inverter with a 1000 watts of solar panels is not going to provide much if any overload or reserve capacity. An inverter with a battery bank like the large Tesla systems could however, but at considerably extra cost.
A larger problem was buying fuel. I routinely use cash anyway, however if the station has no power, then they cannot operate their pumps. I understand this has been a problem along the gulf during hurricane evacuations. I have never seen a fueling station with backup power for their pumps, but I assume that they exist.
Agreed. Solar grid inverters can't do much in case real power is involved. A solar grid inverter can't supply more energy than it is already supplying (a typical solar grid inverter is always maxed out) and it can't absorb (much) real power either. A spinning mass inside a generator however has the ability to convert electric power to and from kinetic energy (accumulator function).Wow, you're back on the same plainly false claims again?
Plant (regardless of energy source) cannot run above the input source, that is true of all generators. On the grid some generators are run below their full power output as "reserve" so that if there is a change in demand they can respond. Solar inverters can do this. But of course you know this already and are trying to play semantics rather than provide the full picture.
Slewing down (shedding production) that's the thing that inverters are far better at doing than spinning mass! Other plant doesnt need to absorb power if the generation side is able to curtail quickly enough (or the demand side increase quickly enough).
How much energy storage is needed in different timeframes (capacitors: cycle by cycle to seconds, vs batteries hours) depends on the designed dynamics of the grid. What has been designed around hours of slew from nuclear/coal no longer makes sense both on the demand and supply sides.
One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf (https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf)
There is no gradual control at all. A change of frequency they immediately can adjust, the power factor is awlays 1.0.
Physical stuff doesn't do that. It needs to wait for the engine to throttle up. In the meantime newton provides a buffer.
This is essential and at the same time problematic for the stability of small grids.
You cannot physically synchronize two generators in voltage control mode only. It will never become a stable system.
For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.
It's like you're trying to synchronize square waves, and if they don't exactly match they turn off.
The rotating mass requires energy to come up to speed (just like charging a capacitor up to voltage). Unless you wind the flywheel into reverse (or charge the capacitor negative) then you can only get out the energy you put in. In that second case you then have some energy left over you need to do something with. Inverters are not the limitation here.rotating mass can indeed supply more energy than is provided to them: their inertia, they slow down.Agreed. Solar grid inverters can't do much in case real power is involved. A solar grid inverter can't supply more energy than it is already supplying (a typical solar grid inverter is always maxed out) and it can't absorb (much) real power either. A spinning mass inside a generator however has the ability to convert electric power to and from kinetic energy (accumulator function).Wow, you're back on the same plainly false claims again?
Plant (regardless of energy source) cannot run above the input source, that is true of all generators. On the grid some generators are run below their full power output as "reserve" so that if there is a change in demand they can respond. Solar inverters can do this. But of course you know this already and are trying to play semantics rather than provide the full picture.
Slewing down (shedding production) that's the thing that inverters are far better at doing than spinning mass! Other plant doesnt need to absorb power if the generation side is able to curtail quickly enough (or the demand side increase quickly enough).
How much energy storage is needed in different timeframes (capacitors: cycle by cycle to seconds, vs batteries hours) depends on the designed dynamics of the grid. What has been designed around hours of slew from nuclear/coal no longer makes sense both on the demand and supply sides.
The rate of change of frequency limits will have to be increased to run more of the grid off of inverters which do not have any significant energy storage. -so expect frequency to change more quickly because it doesn't matter as much anymore. a non physical inertia supply/demand system has no need for the frequency to remain the same. Also as a result of the changing demand: in america it used to be that over 50% of the load was induction motors larger than 100hp. This makes for a predictable power grid and when the frequency drops so does the load. increase the voltage, the current falls, it does not increase. (remember, large induction motors do not run saturated as do small motors)
The residential load was primarily resistive for a long time, voltage rises so does current. this offsets some of the industrial demand.
Overall, the rapid response from [inverters] can mimic or even supersede traditional frequency-responsive reserves.
VFD's and modern smps, computers, lightbulbs, etc... voltage rises, current falls. frequency does not matter! The loads no longer drops in response to the frequency falling!That inverters do not change power smoothly with input frequency (just as rooftop solar does not change output smoothly with grid frequency) is because the grid operators have not asked for it (or specifically prohibited it). But the magic point is that inverters can have that behaviour.
which means the frequency can fall faster in responce to generation not equalling the load.
One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. ... the power factor is awlays 1.0.
One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.If they are configured to do that, which they do not have to be.
There is no gradual control at all.
For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.:-DD misleading in the extreme, so we cannot synchronise 2 inverters but somehow millions of them do synchronise?
Low voltage lines are bad enough, e.g. spotting a farmhouse separated from the road, and then trying to spot the LV lines that will almost certainly be leading to it. Etc :(
Maybe there was a bad actor involved after all.
Maybe there was a bad actor involved after all.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/29/grid-operator-investigates-unusual-activity-spain-blackouts/ (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/29/grid-operator-investigates-unusual-activity-spain-blackouts/)
They have to do that anyway, because of physics. See below.One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.If they are configured to do that, which they do not have to be.
There is no gradual control at all.For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.:-DD misleading in the extreme, so we cannot synchronise 2 inverters but somehow millions of them do synchronise?
In that light, it is also absolutely counterproductive to have mechanisms where production drops out at underfrequency - since underfrequency is the signal to increase production. Of course, at some point this needs to happen: you can't run the grid at, say, 30Hz, since many types of equipment (distribution transfomers, motors etc.) saturate, but if this protective turn-off is set too close to normal operational range, it can then amplify the collapse. And this applies to absolutely all types of production, they all are required to disconnect at some low frequency limit.
Maybe there was a bad actor involved after all.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/29/grid-operator-investigates-unusual-activity-spain-blackouts/ (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/04/29/grid-operator-investigates-unusual-activity-spain-blackouts/)
Please don't post paywalled URLs.
Alternatives:
- Mystery of Britain’s unexplained power outages hours before Spain and Portugal blackout, https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/mystery-britains-unexplained-power-outages-spain-portugal-blackout/ (https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/mystery-britains-unexplained-power-outages-spain-portugal-blackout/)
- Mystery as Britain hit by unexplained power outages hours before Spain and Portugal blackout, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14659533/Spain-Portugal-blackout-UK-power-outages.html (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14659533/Spain-Portugal-blackout-UK-power-outages.html)
When thinking about the upper frequency limit again, i mean the case when PV was a big fraction of production and suddenly production becomes more than consumption.
First i don't understand how such a grid can be stable. I mean if all PV inverters read the phase from the grid, then who will determine phase? Don't we need someone/something to enforce a certain phase in the presence of all that power feed? Maybe all inverters should be connected to a common control signal, where they only receive (and don't drive it).
How about automatically throttle PV inverter output in a moderate fashion, e.g. 100 % at f < 50.2 Hz, 50 % at 50.6 Hz and 0 % at 51 Hz? Is this what modern inverters do or do they just disconnect at a certain upper frequency limit?
For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.
:-DD misleading in the extreme, so we cannot synchronise 2 inverters but somehow millions of them do synchronise?
How about automatically throttle PV inverter output in a moderate fashion, e.g. 100 % at f < 50.2 Hz, 50 % at 50.6 Hz and 0 % at 51 Hz? Is this what modern inverters do or do they just disconnect at a certain upper frequency limit?
One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf (https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf)
There is no gradual control at all. A change of frequency they immediately can adjust, the power factor is awlays 1.0.
Physical stuff doesn't do that. It needs to wait for the engine to throttle up. In the meantime newton provides a buffer.
This is essential and at the same time problematic for the stability of small grids.
You cannot physically synchronize two generators in voltage control mode only. It will never become a stable system.
For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.
It's like you're trying to synchronize square waves, and if they don't exactly match they turn off.
Here is a manual from one inverter brand, where on page 11 they give you some examples on how to configure an inverter for cos phi other than 1. It also lists typical values on the frequency and other stuff. All of these settings are custom set to your specific country.
The inverter tries to output cos phi of 1 because that's what you are getting paid for. It doesn't actually always do that, this is more complicated.
I think this shows that HVDC links are good separators between large grids.Electricity exchanges between France an Spain will be improved by 2 GW.
Q3) How can network instability be limited in an energy mix that tends to increasingly favor renewable energies ?
As johansen underscores (see last sentence of Reply #194 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5900384/#msg5900384)), I would say that the grid monitoring system must be able to control (**) and monitor in real time a large part of the decentralized renewable power generation. The basic operating rules implemented in most vanilla solar inverter(***), once duplicated millions of times, likely weaken the grid stability.
It is also likely that raising the interconnexion capacity between regions/countries (= densify the network) improves the grid stability, but this needs heavy investements and all of those are not economically profitable or even possible.
(*) this is the figure for whole Europe, not not only 'Area 1'
(**) control orders like 'force connection' (if the sun shines of course), 'force disconnection' and the ability to modulate the injected power or a solar equivalent of the 'droop speed control (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droop_speed_control)' would certainly help the grid supervision system to better master the grid frequency. Early signalling of clouds (or other situations that suddenly hide the sun (https://images.amcnetworks.com/ifccenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/independence-day.jpg) :)) would also have beneficial consequences.
(***) the (too) basic and autonomous operating rules are : connection-disconnexion if within-outside 50 Hz ± 0.5 Hz and stupidly always fuel the grid with the maximum amount of solar power available.
I do not understand why solar and wind should trip at all, even down to 40Hz. they should be programmed to reduce output power as it approaches 50.5hz in my opinion. -same with solar.At some point it makes no sense to try and stabilise a grid by keeping pumping power into it once it has gone off frequency too far. Something is seriously wrong. Also keep in mind that transformers big and small in all kinds of equipment may saturate at lower frequencies. Especially small transformers run hot at 50Hz already. And ofcourse there can be a failure in the grid itself as well.
Have to what? Physics says what?They have to do that anyway, because of physics. See below.One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.If they are configured to do that, which they do not have to be.
There is no gradual control at all.For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.:-DD misleading in the extreme, so we cannot synchronise 2 inverters but somehow millions of them do synchronise?
Solar arrays if designed, as I've described in the other thread: could be built with inverters designed to simulate a large generator.. but in order to do that you have to have the reserve capacity, as the frequency drops the real power into the grid must increase. if your solar array can't do that, then its not helping. and as the frequency rises, the power must decrease.Payment is the key in all this, solar producers would happily provide reserve (of an incredibly fast kind) if that was compensated. But many grid operators do not allow this!
no one wants to do that for solar arrays, they want to just produce the power and get paid for it.
The Swedish paper NyTeknik writes a few interesting facts (in Swedish):Konti–Skan?
https://www.nyteknik.se/energi/enorma-stromavbrottet-i-spanien-sa-paverkades-svensk-dansk-hvdc-kabel/4356324 (https://www.nyteknik.se/energi/enorma-stromavbrottet-i-spanien-sa-paverkades-svensk-dansk-hvdc-kabel/4356324)
(translated a few points)
"Sweden wasn't affected"
"an emergency operation was automatically activated on an HVDC cable between Denmark and southern Sweden"
"The activation was done because the large power outage caused the frequency to go down on the continent. Using the emergency power procedure, the Swedish electricity system was able to push power to help restore frequency."
I think this shows that HVDC links are good separators between large grids.
I do not understand why solar and wind should trip at all, even down to 40Hz. they should be programmed to reduce output power as it approaches 50.5hz in my opinion. -same with solar.I don't have an answer to this question, but the current behavior of these generators is probably too conservative and may no longer be suitable for the rapidly changing energy mix.
the issue in the 2006 incident was made worse by the inability for the grid to shut off their wind turbines which were helping to push the eastern grid up to 50.4hz when the western grid was too slow, this hindered re-synchronizationYes, looking at the frequency chart shows that operators really struggled to resynchronize the grid because of the wind farms located in the North Sea, that could not be remotely controlled.
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
It took us aprox. 6h to have the only 2 national power stations (capable of black start) running and starting to power the rest of the grid.
The restart phase may not have gone fully smoothly. However, ENTSO-E had some rather complimentary remarks about Red and REN (https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/05/01/iberian-black-out-entso-e-congratulates-red-electrica-and-ren-for-the-rapid-recovery-of-the-electricity-systems-of-portugal-and-spain-and-establishes-an-expert-panel-to-investigate-the-incident/).It took us aprox. 6h to have the only 2 national power stations (capable of black start) running and starting to power the rest of the grid.
Some details are starting to emerge... when you have to take an external generator to one of the two stations that is defined as the national black start stations, things take more time than they should... :palm: :palm: Expensive incompetence...
The restart phase may not have gone fully smoothly.
The restart phase may not have gone fully smoothly.
I heard there were multiple restarts... I don't give much credit to self strokes between entities that should have prevented some of these consequences beforehand...
The main black start station in the country (Castelo de Bode) started providing energy to the nearest populations only at 18:00 UTC. This is my main complaint. Testing culture is not well embedded in Portuguese culture as we are known to be among the world's greatest make-doers.
I see many replies about consumer grade PV inverters, but, have to say, I think most of PV in Spain isn't at rooftops, but in some kind of massive PV gardens. Most of PV is in the south and I know only about the north of spain, but I would say the solar gardens I usually see are at least 1000-5000 sq meters area. To know these are even (much) bigger in the south wouldn't surprise me. I very much doubt these are equipped with consumer grade inverters.It depends on whether these run maxed out. I guess they do to maximise ROI so in case the grid drops due to lack of generation capacity, there is no extra energy to deliver to the grid from the solar panels because these already run at max capacity.
That's true, and I never said it would. I've just pointed out an inaccuracy.One key point in most consumer grade PV inverters is that they do not change their power factor. Their reponse is instant.https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf (https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/application_note_power_control_configuration.pdf)
There is no gradual control at all. A change of frequency they immediately can adjust, the power factor is awlays 1.0.
Physical stuff doesn't do that. It needs to wait for the engine to throttle up. In the meantime newton provides a buffer.
This is essential and at the same time problematic for the stability of small grids.
You cannot physically synchronize two generators in voltage control mode only. It will never become a stable system.
For this same reason you cannot synchronize two grid-tie inverters.
It's like you're trying to synchronize square waves, and if they don't exactly match they turn off.
Here is a manual from one inverter brand, where on page 11 they give you some examples on how to configure an inverter for cos phi other than 1. It also lists typical values on the frequency and other stuff. All of these settings are custom set to your specific country.
The inverter tries to output cos phi of 1 because that's what you are getting paid for. It doesn't actually always do that, this is more complicated.
changing the PV's power factor does not increase or decrease the power grid's frequency, because it will be offset by the power plant synchronous generator's excision to keep their generator producing more or less power as needed.
Since solar rarely runs at 100% power output (clouds) the inverters depending on how they are sized for the solar array, will have significant reserve capacity to provide or retard KVA. but this doesn't affect the frequency of the grid. it affects the voltage of the grid, at that location. the inductance of the transmission lines are significant as is the leakage inductance of the large transformers (5 to 20%)
I have heard that most of the prime mover generators are running at 90% lagging power factor since its cheaper to have static capacitor banks offset the KVARs and the generator runs with less amps on the stator. EDIT: Less rotor amps, more stator amps, ( there's an optimal balance depending on the load and design of the generator. )
Solar arrays if designed, as I've described in the other thread: could be built with inverters designed to simulate a large generator.. but in order to do that you have to have the reserve capacity, as the frequency drops the real power into the grid must increase. if your solar array can't do that, then its not helping. and as the frequency rises, the power must decrease.
no one wants to do that for solar arrays, they want to just produce the power and get paid for it.
basically the solar arrays have to be brought into the whole conversation where the grid operators can control their output, in real time.. seconds... not minutes.
As johansen already wrote: if a wind turbine is spinning, the wings have kinetic energy stored in them which can be used as a flywheel to bridge a few seconds until other generators kick in. So theoretically, wind turbines could deliver a bit more energy by transferring some of the kinetic energy stored in the wings. But ofcourse this depends on how much headroom there is to supply extra energy (especially when the wind turbine runs at maximum power already). Solar OTOH doesn't have any source of extra (latent) energy. The maximum is what the panels can deliver.
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
The connection between a wind generator and the grid is very different than with a turbine of a coal or nuclear power plant.As johansen already wrote: if a wind turbine is spinning, the wings have kinetic energy stored in them which can be used as a flywheel to bridge a few seconds until other generators kick in. So theoretically, wind turbines could deliver a bit more energy by transferring some of the kinetic energy stored in the wings. But ofcourse this depends on how much headroom there is to supply extra energy (especially when the wind turbine runs at maximum power already). Solar OTOH doesn't have any source of extra (latent) energy. The maximum is what the panels can deliver.
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
You are right : having definitive answers before any official press release is actually speculation.The restart phase may not have gone fully smoothly.
I heard there were multiple restarts... I don't give much credit to self strokes between entities that should have prevented some of these consequences beforehand...
The main black start station in the country (Castelo de Bode) started providing energy to the nearest populations only at 18:00 UTC. This is my main complaint. Testing culture is not well embedded in Portuguese culture as we are known to be among the world's greatest make-doers.
Well I've been without power 13h, they start connecting from the north. I believe more in a cyber attack to the power grid than the stupid explanations given so far. But anyway this only shows that we are all too much dependant of others.
I see many replies about consumer grade PV inverters, but, have to say, I think most of PV in Spain isn't at rooftops, but in some kind of massive PV gardens. Most of PV is in the south and I know only about the north of spain, but I would say the solar gardens I usually see are at least 1000-5000 sq meters area. To know these are even (much) bigger in the south wouldn't surprise me. I very much doubt these are equipped with consumer grade inverters.Sure that there must be some big solar farms (https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Estr%C3%A9madure,+Espagne/@36.5177924,-6.1015123,1750m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0xd15ca44ad812d97:0x10463fd8c9fc830!8m2!3d39.4937392!4d-6.0679194!16zL20vMGh2bTE?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQyOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D) in south of Spain to cumulate 31 GW of solar power.
What do you guys think?
Yes, but the public is informed at his level ;D“Due to the variation of the temperature, the parameters of the conductor change slightly,” said Taco Engelaar, managing director at Neara, a software provider to energy utilities. “It creates an imbalance in the frequency.”More nonsense
If there is no insulation the main parameters are length and resistance.
Are these solar panels or fruit trees (https://www.google.fr/maps/place/Estr%C3%A9madure,+Espagne/@36.4941089,-6.0680435,450m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0xd15ca44ad812d97:0x10463fd8c9fc830!8m2!3d39.4937392!4d-6.0679194!16zL20vMGh2bTE?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDQyOS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D) ?
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
What can one do that the other can't, if both are behind inverters?
(Both rhetorical questions but I thought I'd ask)
I don't think there is sufficient mechanical energy that can be stored in this. You can probably store some energy in the DC link, with batteries.
The only hope would be the UE would really get his nose into this. And even that is a small hope IMO.
After the great North America power blackout in 2003 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003) (7 US states and Ontario, around 55M people in the dark- started with a software bug)...
It's NERC standard here for big transmission line-level substations to have sequence-of-event recorders, with GPS time sync.
So you can look at the event/alarm logs and see msec timestamps, across a huge region. This way it's possible to see what happened in what order, causing the collapse.
Spain must have this?
So far the most detailed account of facts I got is from some kind of non-mainstream energy provider CEO, Jorge Morales, which usually appears as a pundit in radio and TV. To make it short, at 12:32 something happens in the SW of Spain. 1.5 seconds later a second incident happens (he didn't tell us where) and France cuts the connection. 5 seconds after that 60% of power generation is missing and there is blackout everywhere.
So,the only hope is some institution over spanish government get his nose into this, and that's a (very) small hope because, you know, it's the same thing everywhere.I found the UCTE/Entsoe final report (https://eepublicdownloads.entsoe.eu/clean-documents/pre2015/publications/ce/otherreports/Final-Report-20070130.pdf) relating the 4th November 2006 grid split incident comprehensive and sincere : responsibilities were pinpointed and important recommendations were provided.
Today, a preliminary report will be delivered to the Portuguese regulatory entity. The final report is due in 20 days after the incident.
Until next Sunday, Portugal will continue disconnected from Spain, as a precautionary measure.
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
What can one do that the other can't, if both are behind inverters?
(Both rhetorical questions but I thought I'd ask)
Two orders of magnitude more energy stores in the mechanical inertia of the turbine blades.
I do not get the fascination with "rotating mass", it's just a shitty, low density, expensive way to store energy. Whatever a rotating mass can do, you can also do with a battery and inverter way more effectively.
And yet grid operators around the world are installing synchronous condensers instead of batteries and inverters?
I do not get the fascination with "rotating mass", it's just a shitty, low density, expensive way to store energy. Whatever a rotating mass can do, you can also do with a battery and inverter way more effectively.
At present, no other major incident about the grid or inteconnection to Spain was reported in SW of France, nothing that might have happened around 12h32 CET.
Citation required. Lots of locations announced they were going to add inertia (possibly with flywheels) and then mysteriously a bunch of them installed battery backed inverters. Providers are expecting inverter based solutions to be cheaper than new synchronous condensers in the near term:I do not get the fascination with "rotating mass", it's just a shitty, low density, expensive way to store energy. Whatever a rotating mass can do, you can also do with a battery and inverter way more effectively.And yet grid operators around the world are installing synchronous condensers instead of batteries and inverters?
None of them able to count and should consult you?
Hint: try pricing 100MVA capable battery-inverter and synchronous condenser
The fascination with rotating mass is the same as the fascination with anything they think might be a limitation or downside compared toYou were talking specifically about power factor, not many seconds of storage. Power factor that is not 1 requires one half of a AC mains waveform to store and release the energy, which is done readily by any existing inverter with a PFC stage (some consumer inverters cannot do that, but the extra cost of such a power stage is very small).Two orders of magnitude more energy stores in the mechanical inertia of the turbine blades.Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
What can one do that the other can't, if both are behind inverters?
(Both rhetorical questions but I thought I'd ask)
Now if you're talking about SECONDS of energy storage, that has absolutely nothing to do with power factor. Battery plans can readily do it much cheaper per MW of power and MWh of capacity than any rotating mass.
A battery sized for an EV can readily fit into a cabinet and provide 1MW for ~minutes depending on cooling. An entire wind turbine's worth of inertial storage will never approach that.
I do not get the fascination with "rotating mass", it's just a shitty, low density, expensive way to store energy. Whatever a rotating mass can do, you can also do with a battery and inverter way more effectively.
6.5 Potential for confusion with the term “virtual inertia”
The ability to supply fast frequency response (FFR) doesn’t necessarily imply grid-forming, as grid following batteries are also capable of responding quickly to a sustained frequency disturbance (certainly much faster than the 6 second frequency control ancillary service). The term “virtual/synthetic inertia” is used inconsistently – sometimes implying a grid forming function, but sometimes as a synonym for FFR.
Rotating mass has very high peak power capability.
It's NERC standard here for big transmission line-level substations to have sequence-of-event recorders, with GPS time sync.It would seem to me that such is required to run a grid larger than your own neighborhood ..
So you can look at the event/alarm logs and see msec timestamps, across a huge region. This way it's possible to see what happened in what order, causing the collapse.
Spain must have this?
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
What can one do that the other can't, if both are behind inverters?
(Both rhetorical questions but I thought I'd ask)
Two orders of magnitude more energy stores in the mechanical inertia of the turbine blades.
You were talking specifically about power factor, not many seconds of storage. Power factor that is not 1 requires one half of a AC mains waveform to store and release the energy, which is done readily by any existing inverter with a PFC stage (some consumer inverters cannot do that, but the extra cost of such a power stage is very small).
(.....)
I do not get the fascination with "rotating mass", it's just a shitty, low density, expensive way to store energy. Whatever a rotating mass can do, you can also do with a battery and inverter way more effectively.
The inertial time constant of the grid is hardly more than a single digit second(s).Correct, the rotating masses that keep being brought up (without any numerical dimensions) are actually just a very short time constant buffer for the generating plant behind them to respond:
Wind turbines could absolutely be programmed to dither power down above, and increase power below 50hz, on a second by second basis.
It will not provide tens of seconds... No such inertia exists nor is practical at this time!!
But declaring batteries are cheaper? No they are not unless the batteries can absorb the generation capacity of the wind turbines and solar that currently: Cannot even be shut off until the frequency rises beyond 50.5, or as hgh as 51!You, as others, keep referring out to some abstract fixed system where inverters and batteries (or capacitor storage!) only come in certain (unmentioned) fixed ratios.
Put the batteries in parallel with the solar panels and give the utility operators control over the solar inverters.
And no, they cannot provide 20 times the nominal full load current to provide fault clearing.
Dumb rotating mass can.
When the pandemic started, people with medical qualifications on a local discussion board had their posts tagged with the Rod of Asclepius to let readers know that they were qualified to offer medical opinions. Perhaps contributors to this thread making absolute pronouncements could indicate things like "I work on power grids for a living" vs. "I like wanking around with my opinions" (to quote Linus).Not how this forum works, by design of the owner. There are a couple of people here in these threads with experience/exposure/connection to the grids and operators but they are drowned out by the same noise every single time.
The inertial time constant of the grid is hardly more than a single digit second(s).Correct, the rotating masses that keep being brought up (without any numerical dimensions) are actually just a very short time constant buffer for the generating plant behind them to respond:
Wind turbines could absolutely be programmed to dither power down above, and increase power below 50hz, on a second by second basis.
It will not provide tens of seconds... No such inertia exists nor is practical at this time!!
https://www.en-former.com/en/mammoth-flywheel-for-irelands-grid-stability/ (https://www.en-former.com/en/mammoth-flywheel-for-irelands-grid-stability/)
200 Ton rotating mass, for a few seconds of energy storage 4,000 megawatt seconds, or approx 1MWh.
--also a dimensionless rebuttal.But declaring batteries are cheaper? No they are not unless the batteries can absorb the generation capacity of the wind turbines and solar that currently: Cannot even be shut off until the frequency rises beyond 50.5, or as hgh as 51!You, as others, keep referring out to some abstract fixed system where inverters and batteries (or capacitor storage !) only come in certain (unmentioned) fixed ratios.
Put the batteries in parallel with the solar panels and give the utility operators control over the solar inverters.
And no, they cannot provide 20 times the nominal full load current to provide fault clearing.
Dumb rotating mass can.
Could a 500MW or 2GW inverter array be connected to 1MWh of storage and be comparable to the above "worlds largest" synchronous condenser, yes it could. Are there examples of that? Not at the moment as other balances of power vs energy are more profitable.because its too much of a risk. could oscillate wildly depending on programing.
Could existing grid connected plant (like the above flywheel project) have some small storage added to them? yes again. Nothing special or unique to flywheels and synchronous condensers. That they can be retrofitted or repurposed from other existing plant makes them cheap. So could adding DC storage to existing inverters as you say.dumb iron has a natural self dampening function. inverters don't and need grid operational control.
If seconds of peak capacity is valuable then inverters can be engineered to that demand (reduced cooling requirements) just as rotating mass is engineered for that.
So we'll put you in the troll category with the poster who says we should not have flood defences because they could be used to make floods worse by trapping water on the flooding side.Could a 500MW or 2GW inverter array be connected to 1MWh of storage and be comparable to the above "worlds largest" synchronous condenser, yes it could. Are there examples of that? Not at the moment as other balances of power vs energy are more profitable.because it's too much of a risk. could oscillate wildly depending on programing.
Spoken as if an inverter couldn't do that, which is the point I keep pushing. You're adding imaginary problems which do not exist and no credible source will support. As I already posted in this thread:Could existing grid connected plant (like the above flywheel project) have some small storage added to them? yes again. Nothing special or unique to flywheels and synchronous condensers. That they can be retrofitted or repurposed from other existing plant makes them cheap. So could adding DC storage to existing inverters as you say.they have a natural self dampening function.
Both a synchronous condenser and grid forming battery can provide enough damping to the sub-synchronous voltage oscillations which were resulting from inadequate system strength. However because of its flexibility, the grid forming battery may be able to be tuned to provide the same damping with a smaller capacity – in the case of this study only half the capacity was required (on a continuous MVA basis – noting that the grid forming battery’s inverter would be required to be capable of certain over current capability on a short term basis – refer to section 6.1).So, again that would be the experts happy to say that inverters are not only able to replace mechanical inertia but inverter solutions are superior in many respects... including your new found "issue" of damping. Also refuting your claims of inverters lacking peak capacity.
the grid operators and political operatives could at least not allow for generation to be added that consists of: "i press the gas pedal whenever i have gas" and quit making the problem worse.The grid operators are the ones with the power to change how inverters are configured. If the gird operator is the one setting them to do that then it is the fault of the grid operator, not some inherent problem with inverters that cannot be overcome.
So we'll put you in the troll category with the poster who says we should not have flood defences because they could be used to make floods worse by trapping water on the flooding side.Could a 500MW or 2GW inverter array be connected to 1MWh of storage and be comparable to the above "worlds largest" synchronous condenser, yes it could. Are there examples of that? Not at the moment as other balances of power vs energy are more profitable.because it's too much of a risk. could oscillate wildly depending on programing.
Almost anything could be operated dangerously/badly but equally could be operated for the benefit of society.Spoken as if an inverter couldn't do that, which is the point I keep pushing. You're adding imaginary problems which do not exist and no credible source will support. As I already posted in this thread:Could existing grid connected plant (like the above flywheel project) have some small storage added to them? yes again. Nothing special or unique to flywheels and synchronous condensers. That they can be retrofitted or repurposed from other existing plant makes them cheap. So could adding DC storage to existing inverters as you say.they have a natural self dampening function.
https://arena.gov.au/assets/2021/07/pscad-assessment-of-the-effectiveness-of-grid-forming-batteries.pdf
which has plain statements like:Quote from: PSCAD assessment of the effectiveness of grid forming batteriesBoth a synchronous condenser and grid forming battery can provide enough damping to the sub-synchronous voltage oscillations which were resulting from inadequate system strength. However because of its flexibility, the grid forming battery may be able to be tuned to provide the same damping with a smaller capacity – in the case of this study only half the capacity was required (on a continuous MVA basis – noting that the grid forming battery’s inverter would be required to be capable of certain over current capability on a short term basis – refer to section 6.1).So, again that would be the experts happy to say that inverters are not only able to replace mechanical inertia but inverter solutions are superior in many respects... including your new found "issue" of damping. Also refuting your claims of inverters lacking peak capacity.the grid operators and political operatives could at least not allow for generation to be added that consists of: "i press the gas pedal whenever i have gas" and quit making the problem worse.The grid operators are the ones with the power to change how inverters are configured. If the gird operator is the one setting them to do that then it is the fault of the grid operator, not some inherent problem with inverters that cannot be overcome.
Only if you trim the quote:--also a dimensionless rebuttal.But declaring batteries are cheaper? No they are not unless the batteries can absorb the generation capacity of the wind turbines and solar that currently: Cannot even be shut off until the frequency rises beyond 50.5, or as hgh as 51!You, as others, keep referring out to some abstract fixed system where inverters and batteries (or capacitor storage !) only come in certain (unmentioned) fixed ratios.
Put the batteries in parallel with the solar panels and give the utility operators control over the solar inverters.
And no, they cannot provide 20 times the nominal full load current to provide fault clearing.
Dumb rotating mass can.
You, as others, keep referring out to some abstract fixed system where inverters and batteries (or capacitor storage!) only come in certain (unmentioned) fixed ratios.So if we go and check some publicly available data:
Could a 500MW or 2GW inverter array be connected to 1MWh of storage and be comparable to the above "worlds largest" synchronous condenser, yes it could. Are there examples of that? Not at the moment as other balances of power vs energy are more profitable.
New SC Approx 125 MVA; including installation and commissioning. Approx. AUD $35-40Mvs some BESS with almost no energy storage
So it's all about the cost of inverters vs synchronous generator.Quote from: Repurposing existing generators as synchronous condensers | 3971-ETR-01New SC Approx 125 MVA; including installation and commissioning. Approx. AUD $35-40Mvs some BESS with almost no energy storage
real example being:
https://www.originenergy.com.au/about/who-we-are/what-we-do/generation/eraring-projects/battery/ (https://www.originenergy.com.au/about/who-we-are/what-we-do/generation/eraring-projects/battery/)
$1B for 700MW + 2800MWh
subtract out the market price of the batteries:
would put the cost of a 125MW inverter with seconds of storage (comparable to a synchronous condenser) somewhere in the realm of $30-45M
OH noes, inverters are coming for your flywheels too.
It seems to me that it is this loss of boiler steam that is missing from an inverter system.Only because that is how they have been asked to operate. Why do people keep pushing this as some overly complicated aggregate?
| Sunshine | -> Photovoltaic Panel | -> DC storage | <-> Inverter | <-> grid |
| Wind | -> Generator | -> DC storage | <-> Inverter | <-> grid |
| Burning fossil fuel | -> Expanding Steam | -> Turbine | <-> Generator | <-> grid |
| Burning fossil fuel | -> Expanding Gas | -> Turbine | <-> Generator | <-> grid |
Not much. Seems that talk about 200 tonne flywheels is not serious, size, speed, maintaining the vacuum, bearings etc etc.200 Ton is from the total spinning reserve in the link:
The problem with wind & solar is that production isn't constant so you can't create a reliable source of grid inertia from those. So it won't make much sense to modify these to never work at full capacity (it is also a waste of energy and people will want to be compensated for the loss / get paid for providing a service to the grid). It is either actual rotating mass and/or batteries to save the day. But in all cases somebody has to pay for this backup feature because it means either installing rotating mass and/or not using batteries to their maximum capacity.Inertia over what time scale?
Replacing conventional generators with inverter-based resources, including wind, solar, and certain types of energy storage has two counterbalancing effects. First, these resources decrease the amount of inertia available. But second, these resources can respond much faster than conventional resources, reducing the amount of inertia actually needed—and thus addressing the first impact. In combination, this represents a paradigm shift in how we think about providing frequency responseNew, different, practical, and for some reason it scares a bunch of people who cant read and listen to politics.
two changes: program the inverters to provide inertia, and command them to run at some fraction of their capacity to leave reserve for unpredicted events.
The problem with wind & solar is that production isn't constant so you can't create a reliable source of grid inertia from those. So it won't make much sense to modify these to never work at full capacity (it is also a waste of energy and people will want to be compensated for the loss / get paid for providing a service to the grid). It is either actual rotating mass and/or batteries to save the day. But in all cases somebody has to pay for this backup feature because it means either installing rotating mass and/or not using batteries to their maximum capacity.
What are they currently programmed to do?two changes: program the inverters to provide inertia, and command them to run at some fraction of their capacity to leave reserve for unpredicted events.You don't need to do this. Modern inverters have 3 autonomous algorithms that help stabilise the grid:
- Volt-Watt: reduces power output if the grid voltage goes too high
- Volt-Var: changes power factor if the grid voltage goes too low/high (absorbing or providing reactive power helps to stabilise voltage)
- Frequency-watt: Decreases power output if the frequency is too high
We're already in a landscape where getting paid for exporting to the grid is evaporating.
The benefit of renewables is that it's SO CHEAP to build more than you need and spill the excess that you still financially benefit from your installation even when it's not used to its full capacity.
two changes: program the inverters to provide inertia, and command them to run at some fraction of their capacity to leave reserve for unpredicted events.
You don't need to do this. Modern inverters have 3 autonomous algorithms that help stabilise the grid:
- Volt-Watt: reduces power output if the grid voltage goes too high
- Volt-Var: changes power factor if the grid voltage goes too low/high (absorbing or providing reactive power helps to stabilise voltage)
- Frequency-watt: Decreases power output if the frequency is too high
Additionally, inverters with a connected battery can increase their output above what the panels are providing if the grid voltage/frequency is low.
The benefit of renewables is that it's SO CHEAP to build more than you need and spill the excess that you still financially benefit from your installation even when it's not used to its full capacity. Overbuilding the network in this way directly replaces your "inertia" - there is excess capacity available to increase output if required.
The problem with wind & solar is that production isn't constant so you can't create a reliable source of grid inertia from those. So it won't make much sense to modify these to never work at full capacity (it is also a waste of energy and people will want to be compensated for the loss / get paid for providing a service to the grid). It is either actual rotating mass and/or batteries to save the day. But in all cases somebody has to pay for this backup feature because it means either installing rotating mass and/or not using batteries to their maximum capacity.
No one is claiming there can be any significant reserve capacity from inverters without you know, reserving some generation capacity. Inverters can and do stabilize the grid, proven in large-scale:There is only excess capacity available if you size the renewables such that they never run at 100%.. AND if the inverters are programmed to automatically and smoothly, decrease or increase power smoothly across the 49.9 to 51.1hz where the grid sits at 99% of the time, and that smooth transition exists all the way down to and up to 48.5 to 51.5hz. IF it is NOT smooth then you will be inducing oscillation.two changes: program the inverters to provide inertia, and command them to run at some fraction of their capacity to leave reserve for unpredicted events.You don't need to do this. Modern inverters have 3 autonomous algorithms that help stabilise the grid:
- Volt-Watt: reduces power output if the grid voltage goes too high
- Volt-Var: changes power factor if the grid voltage goes too low/high (absorbing or providing reactive power helps to stabilise voltage)
- Frequency-watt: Decreases power output if the frequency is too high
Additionally, inverters with a connected battery can increase their output above what the panels are providing if the grid voltage/frequency is low.
Again, so many are confidently wrong: providing KVA's comes at the expense of the generated power (if the inverters are maxed out) and it does not stabilize the grid.
Solar PV resources with these advanced grid-friendly capabilities have unique operating characteristics that can enhance system reliability, like conventional generators, by providing:
o Essential reliability services during periods of oversupply
o Voltage support when the plant’s output is near zero
o Fast frequency response (inertia response time frame)
o Frequency response for low as well as high frequency events.
At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
AND if the inverters are programmed to automatically and smoothly, decrease or increase power smoothly across the 49.9 to 51.1hz where the grid sits at 99% of the time, and that smooth transition exists all the way down to and up to 48.5 to 51.5hz. IF it is NOT smooth then you will be inducing oscillation.
Every centrifugal pump for example, draws 3.03% less power when the frequency drops 1%.
This includes the hydro pumped storage, when its either pushing or pulling. it used to be that 50% of the power grid demand was large induction motors.
a lot of farm and industrial equipment such as material processors, rolling mills, any conveyor belt, etc.. is a linear response, torque is constant.
Not all wind is inverters, some are still DFIG.
Wind farms are all inverters these days but they do have significant inertia, and could be programmed to use up some of the rotational inertia as the frequency drops and let it build up as it rises above 50hz. a plus or minus 5% change in blade rpm might only be a 3% loss on wind energy production.
So what is the exact difference between the rotating wind turbine, and solar DC-link capacitance when it comes to energy storage?
What can one do that the other can't, if both are behind inverters?
(Both rhetorical questions but I thought I'd ask)
It's different for inverters, you have, the software.
So inverters, especially large scale deployments of various types of inverters and small producers are new. (type A and B size)
It's a thing from the last decades. Simulation is complicated because software control loops of varying quality is involved. (yes, looking at you china)
Each brand is different.
Um, actually; traditionally nuclear power plants are shut down during major blackouts. The cooling pumps and other important systems are run from grid power and when that's gone they have to shift to backup generators and shut down the reactors. Once shut down nuclear power plants take the longest to start up.
Why are they not able to run pumps from their own electrical output?
Some can, many cannot.
Under normal operation, the coolant pumps run from external grid power. They need to be able to run when the reactor is shut down to provide cooling for the decay heat and also to cool the spent fuel pools. They can be switched over to diesel backup generators in the case of a power outage. The failure of these generators was a major element in the chain of failures that led to the Fukushima meltdown.
In the case of a blackout you have to disconnect the reactor from the grid. You don't want to be trying to supply infinite power to a grid with no other supplies, and you don't want to over-power a small island. So until you are able to do a controlled restart you want the reactor disconnected. There are some reactors that can switch the cooling loop to internal power in this case. The issue is that with no grid to power, the reactor has to be run at much less than normal power. Some reactors can't do this, some can but it can still take a long time to ramp back up to full power, depending on how long it stays at the low power configuration.
Nuclear reactors probably could be designed and operated to be more proactive in grid stability, and to aid in cold-starts. However, they are not well suited to it, so in most cases that hasn't been a worthwhile design criteria. Generally it's easier to do with almost anything else.
At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
You are looking at wrong panels, some camping-branded stuff (evident from the small power rating). Look at what is meant for grid-tied installs and used by professionals. Those ~400W panels cost around 40-60EUR at distributors when bought in pallets.
Panel cost is nothing and for many years it has been true that mounting hardware already exceeds panel cost, and most of the costs are in labor.
At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
That seems high for 200W panels. Just checking now and the supply price for name-brand 440W bifacial panels is around NZ$250. Less if you can latch onto overstock somewhere.
At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
That seems high for 200W panels. Just checking now and the supply price for name-brand 440W bifacial panels is around NZ$250. Less if you can latch onto overstock somewhere.
Where? The best I can find googling is $350 for 400W panels. Or the $175 I found some 200W on special for. See previous message.
And what would be regarded as a "name brand" in this field?
Ok, I found a place with half-cell bifacial 440W panels for $287. Unclear what brand.
In Europe, it's currently easy to buy 400 to 700W (24V) solar panels for 0.21 EUR/W ($0.237 USD/W) or less.But you have to keep in mind that in countries where people can't do DIY installs due to regulations (AFAIK NZ is one of such countries), it may be much more expensive for an individual to buy solar panels because companies aren't setup for for such sales. Another factor is that NZ is a very small market so overhead costs are quite high and there is little incentive to push prices down due to less competition.
Was about 0.5 EUR/W ($0.567 USD/W) two years ago.
Those prices include VAT (around 20%) and shipping costs (calculated for 10 panels).
However, prices for mounting hardware have recently skyrocketed.
It was not easy to find, but the feature which allows a nuclear power plant to disconnect from the grid while remaining operational by powering itself is called "net load rejection". This is also required for a nuclear power plant to cold start the power grid. I imagine it involves a bypass to allow cooling of the reactor under all conditions while producing varied and low amounts of electrical power. It should also allow for load following.
In the US before deregulation, it was a commonly required feature in US nuclear power plants. After deregulation, new plants were not built with it because nobody was willing to pay for it even though it aids power grid stability. Without it, a nuclear plant requires days to restart and considerable external power.
You also use Google to find suppliers for uranium in small scale to assess cost of nuclear power generation?
David put it fairly clearly, the additional cooling capacity is an additional [construction] cost for the plant. The choice to rely on open loop cooling is an economic one like any other with risks such as drought or in the case of "public" resources; overuse.It was not easy to find, but the feature which allows a nuclear power plant to disconnect from the grid while remaining operational by powering itself is called "net load rejection". This is also required for a nuclear power plant to cold start the power grid. I imagine it involves a bypass to allow cooling of the reactor under all conditions while producing varied and low amounts of electrical power. It should also allow for load following.haven't quite few French nuclear plants been offline during summer in recent years, either because there was not enough water for cooling, or that they would heat the river or lake used for cooling more than allowed?
In the US before deregulation, it was a commonly required feature in US nuclear power plants. After deregulation, new plants were not built with it because nobody was willing to pay for it even though it aids power grid stability. Without it, a nuclear plant requires days to restart and considerable external power.
a) you're not showing your country so no-one can check this.You also use Google to find suppliers for uranium in small scale to assess cost of nuclear power generation?According to official reports, the nuclear power plants in my country generates and sells electricity at approximately 0.013 USD/kWh, which is a sustainable price that covers both operational costs, fuel costs, and a reasonable profit.
a) you're not showing your country so no-one can check this.
b) there is no way nuclear is fully costed at 1.3c/kWh, you're either missing the existing investment and only counting marginal cost of fuel/staffing (at some outdated rate) or there is some massive subsidy coming in for other "services" nuclear provides (not all reactors are power generators, and they can be profitable without generating power). That 1.3c/kWh figure is also conveniently the absolute best case suggested by the world nuclear association:
$13/MWh ? if so then people would be jumping at the chance to build more of it.... oh wait its not realisable.
it appears that links are not working now. But I have saved one document from government portal from Jan 2022 (https://mpe.kmu.gov.ua/minugol/doccatalog/document?id=245428708), the link and web archive don't works now, but I can share it if you want.
It states the price for NPP = 566.70 UAH/MWh.
Current currency exchange is 41.51 USD/UAH.
So the price in USD is 566.70 / 41.51 = 13.6521 USD/MWh
Many costs in Ukraine are quite different to those in the USA. Salaries especially are far lower, for construction, operations, maintenance. Lots of people even today make $300/month compared to $6000/month for the same job in the USA.
Many costs in Ukraine are quite different to those in the USA. Salaries especially are far lower, for construction, operations, maintenance. Lots of people even today make $300/month compared to $6000/month for the same job in the USA.
I wouldn't say there is a significant difference, houses in the provinces can really be much cheaper, but food prices are comparable, a little cheaper in some places, more expensive in others. For example, perishable goods are cheaper. However, clothes and electronics are much more expensive. Prices in restaurants, with the exception of elite ones, are cheaper.
But I have a friend in Odesa who lives in a beautiful new multi-room apartment (three I think) in a new gated complex in basically Arcadia -- Gagarin Plato, I don't need to mention which building or apt -- and pays 8000 UAH a month for rent -- that's less than $200.
Here in a rural area in New Zealand I'm paying around US$1350, and when I was living in San Francisco (ok, Fremont) in 2019 I was paying $2800 because the owner was a friend of my friend (who had lived in that apartment for the previous 10+ years ...
As far as I can remember, it happened on plants along the 'Loire' river, during very hot summers.
It was not easy to find, but the feature which allows a nuclear power plant to disconnect from the grid while remaining operational by powering itself is called "net load rejection". This is also required for a nuclear power plant to cold start the power grid. I imagine it involves a bypass to allow cooling of the reactor under all conditions while producing varied and low amounts of electrical power. It should also allow for load following.
In the US before deregulation, it was a commonly required feature in US nuclear power plants. After deregulation, new plants were not built with it because nobody was willing to pay for it even though it aids power grid stability. Without it, a nuclear plant requires days to restart and considerable external power.
haven't quite few French nuclear plants been offline during summer in recent years, either because there was not enough water for cooling, or that they would heat the river or lake used for cooling more than allowed?
I read today that some scumbags stole copper wire in Spain during the power cuts :-//
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2rogGPV4ZA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2rogGPV4ZA)
Wow....Spain has a lot of Solar!!The most recent figure I found was for end of 2024 : almost 31 GW of installed PV power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain)
How are they tackling the Mains Frequency Instability?
Prayer, apparently.
What a load of BS about these prices. You have no idea how much any of these things cost, do you?At the moment 200W panels here in NZ are around NZ$300 ... most are $300.
You are looking at wrong panels, some camping-branded stuff (evident from the small power rating). Look at what is meant for grid-tied installs and used by professionals. Those ~400W panels cost around 40-60EUR at distributors when bought in pallets.
I mention 200W only because that's 1 m^2 which is a convenient basis for calculations, and because the cheapest retail price I've found was $175 for a 200W panel.
The 400W panels I've found are about the same price per m^2 or W i.e. $350 to $400 each.
$350 https://gridfree.store/collections/solar-panels (https://gridfree.store/collections/solar-panels)
$399 https://store.purepower.nz/categories/solar_panels/143417000000055001 (https://store.purepower.nz/categories/solar_panels/143417000000055001) (login needed to see prices)
$389 https://www.mrpositive.co.nz/trina-24v-400w-monocrystalline-solar-panel (https://www.mrpositive.co.nz/trina-24v-400w-monocrystalline-solar-panel)
$??? https://www.solarcraft.co.nz/services/sunpower-panels-400w-residential/ (https://www.solarcraft.co.nz/services/sunpower-panels-400w-residential/) (you have to email to get a quote)
Please make use of your skills and point me at where I can buy 1600W or 2400W worth of 400W panels at 40-60EUR (NZ$75-115) each in New Zealand, because I will go out and buy them literally tomorrow if I see that kind of price.
I don't need a pallet of them. Just 4 to 6 panels.QuotePanel cost is nothing and for many years it has been true that mounting hardware already exceeds panel cost, and most of the costs are in labor.
The cost of mounting hardware should absolutely be included in the incremental cost of adding panels when you calculate your financial return.
Saying "panels cost $10 and it costs $500 to mount them" means that you have to calculate using $510, not $10. otherwise you're just getting GIGO.
No, he is right. Existing nuclear plants often times bid 2-3 cents per kwh for electricity on the EU market. Bear in mind these are operated for decades already and it was built by another generation, that cared more about getting tings done rather than blocking everything with never ending administration.a) you're not showing your country so no-one can check this.You also use Google to find suppliers for uranium in small scale to assess cost of nuclear power generation?According to official reports, the nuclear power plants in my country generates and sells electricity at approximately 0.013 USD/kWh, which is a sustainable price that covers both operational costs, fuel costs, and a reasonable profit.
b) there is no way nuclear is fully costed at 1.3c/kWh, you're either missing the existing investment and only counting marginal cost of fuel/staffing (at some outdated rate) or there is some massive subsidy coming in for other "services" nuclear provides (not all reactors are power generators, and they can be profitable without generating power). That 1.3c/kWh figure is also conveniently the absolute best case suggested by the world nuclear association:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power (https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power)
$13/MWh ? if so then people would be jumping at the chance to build more of it.... oh wait its not realisable.
Neutral sources put the best case of life extension nuclear in the US at $31/MWh:
https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf (https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf)
Which is not an option for adding new generation.
https://solarsuperstore.com.au/products/6-6kw-440w-ja-solar-high-performance-bifacial-solar-panel?srsltid=AfmBOooIuRbCvjHMa3ve80vqSRIUXwk6vRDTCJXWXiCH82rk4PyuWpiz
(https://solarsuperstore.com.au/products/6-6kw-440w-ja-solar-high-performance-bifacial-solar-panel?srsltid=AfmBOooIuRbCvjHMa3ve80vqSRIUXwk6vRDTCJXWXiCH82rk4PyuWpiz)
So this is what, 10 times better price/KWh than what you said?
I don't know why people feel the need to be so insulting to someone who is trying to find their way around something new to them rather than helping.Maybe if you are less opinionated, and ask questions instead of asserting your limited understanding (this case: solar not worth it) then you will get different replies.
I don't know why people feel the need to be so insulting to someone who is trying to find their way around something new to them rather than helping.Maybe if you are less opinionated, and ask questions instead of asserting your limited understanding (this case: solar not worth it) then you will get different replies.
You could've asked how does a good price/performance ratio solar system look like, if I want to make a 3KW peak system. But instead you started with 200W panels, and stating that "solar will never be worth it".
The benefit of renewables is that it's SO CHEAP to build more than you need and spill the excess that you still financially benefit from your installation even when it's not used to its full capacity.
When I was uneducatedly looking at storing "AC power". I obviously ran into some problems.
How do you "store" a alternating charge?
It took a while for the "Penny" to drop. Or rather, not to "reinvent the wheel". Aka. The Fly wheel.
Spin a fly wheel, put electro-magnets on it. Boom, alternating charge/energy store.
It was only when I tried to calculate the mass required to sustain a +/- 5% frequency delta did I "Nope" all further thoughts in the context that I had.
It's a LOT.
It did form a question though.
Just how much mass would a grid like the UK need to store any meaningful 'generation' capacity within in it.
Even if we made "Meaningful" a single second.
How many megatons of rotating mass do you need to meet frequency requirements grid wide for 1 second? Not including any "thermal bottle effect" in the steam. Just the gen sets. They may have external 'mass stores' if required.
Hey.... put a big old paddle ship paddle on it and get it to spin a lake if you want.
Anyone want to have a stab at calculating that for say a 1% frequency tolerance and a 35GW load?
EDIT: 35GW obviously requires 35GJ to cover 1 second. However, what impact will that have on the RPM. Thats where my maths gets off the bus, it's been far too long since I did simultaneous equations or quadratics.
That blackout is being used right now by that Popular Party and their francoist banking oligarchy to promote again NPPs and to bully "socialist" government. President of government Pedro Sanchez is seeing a so brutal lawfare campaign that the one in the US against the orange bleach injection guy is a joke in comparison.
As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.
... and cooler too.As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.
Nuclear power plants have larger turbines with greater angular momentum for a given power because their steam is lower pressure and wetter.
As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.
Nuclear power plants have larger turbines with greater angular momentum for a given power because their steam is lower pressure and wetter.
As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.
Nuclear power plants have larger turbines with greater angular momentum for a given power because their steam is lower pressure and wetter.
There's absolutely no way wet steam would normally come into contact with a turbine: when that happens the blades are rapidly eroded. I've seen one :)
...One 12 V 200 Ah LiPeFo4 battery has about 12 V * 200 Ah * 3600 seconds/hour = 8 640 000 Joule and costs much less, even if you include the inverter. I think the real difference is the peak output power of a large rotating generator. But the rotating mass probably won't help much to damp 0.26 Hz oscillations like the ones i showed above.
To put that inertia into perspective:
When has a 200 watt solar inverter had 12200 joules stored in it?
-that's a .15F capacitor at 400 volts.
So picking out the bit you can argue about rather than the bigger picture... just like you. If we take the original quote:As usual, this is the eevblog and people intentionally miss the point and distort the purpose of the comments.There's absolutely no way wet steam would normally come into contact with a turbine: when that happens the blades are rapidly eroded. I've seen one :)As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.Nuclear power plants have larger turbines with greater angular momentum for a given power because their steam is lower pressure and wetter.
The turbines are larger and have more inertia because the entire steam cycle is less efficient because the reactor runs at a cooler temperature than a coal or natural gas boiler.
To put that inertia into perspective:
When has a 200 watt solar inverter had 12200 joules stored in it?
-that's a .15F capacitor at 400 volts.
Internet says hydro stations typically have around 4 MJ/MW of inertia stored energy, and thermal power stations 9 MJ/MW. As an outlier Arabelle Solutions 1770 MW nuclear design apparently has a turbine "bigger than an A380" which has 61 MJ/MW of stored energy.The outlier is 5x higher than typical. More realistically if inverters wanted a similar amount of short term storage it would be in capacitors adding 10-20% to the inverter cost (already a fraction of the total cost of a solar/wind plant). Which might be something which is needed for grid stability, rather than the higher cost standalone synchronous flywheels or keeping existing generators online.
As you point out, those have units of "seconds", but a 1% frequency drop will obviously only be able to tap a small fraction of that energy.
They're typically rotating at 3000 or 3600 RPM depending on the line frequency.
Correct in technical/narrow sense, and misleading in the context of the discussion.No, he is right. Existing nuclear plants often times bid 2-3 cents per kwh for electricity on the EU market. Bear in mind these are operated for decades already and it was built by another generation, that cared more about getting tings done rather than blocking everything with never ending administration.a) you're not showing your country so no-one can check this.You also use Google to find suppliers for uranium in small scale to assess cost of nuclear power generation?According to official reports, the nuclear power plants in my country generates and sells electricity at approximately 0.013 USD/kWh, which is a sustainable price that covers both operational costs, fuel costs, and a reasonable profit.
b) there is no way nuclear is fully costed at 1.3c/kWh, you're either missing the existing investment and only counting marginal cost of fuel/staffing (at some outdated rate) or there is some massive subsidy coming in for other "services" nuclear provides (not all reactors are power generators, and they can be profitable without generating power). That 1.3c/kWh figure is also conveniently the absolute best case suggested by the world nuclear association:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power (https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power)
$13/MWh ? if so then people would be jumping at the chance to build more of it.... oh wait its not realisable.
Neutral sources put the best case of life extension nuclear in the US at $31/MWh:
https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf (https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf)
Which is not an option for adding new generation.
The only technical solution is energy storage, which requires extremely expensive infrastructure and remains economically unviable on a large scale.Citation required. All the credible analysis points to current storage technologies and wind + solar being cheaper. You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you like but your chosen examples do not support your claims that adding new/more Nuclear generation is/would be cheaper.
Ohhhhhhhhhh, the Franco's wildcard appeared again in a wild wild website... It's like PI number, you never know where you are going to find it.
Besides that, how do you feel when crying for our belovely president of Spain while insulting the POTUS??
You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you likeOf course nuclear is cheaper, because nuclear industry never payed to build any installation to maintain their waste in a safe place. They instead dumped it into the ocean.
You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you like
Of course nuclear is cheaper, because nuclear industry never payed to build any installation to maintain their waste in a safe place. They instead dumped it into the ocean.
The only technical solution is energy storage, which requires extremely expensive infrastructure and remains economically unviable on a large scale.
Citation required. All the credible analysis points to current storage technologies and wind + solar being cheaper. You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you like but your chosen examples do not support your claims that adding new/more Nuclear generation is/would be cheaper.
Just hydro alone could provide more than enough energy storage, but would need more country to country links/co-operation and energy flow, which is not the best idea in a volatile world. So its back to batteries, thermal storage, and possibly in the future hydrogen (into syngas/synfuel etc).
I do not know about other countries, but in the US nuclear power has been taxed for decades to pay for waste disposal and decommissioning. The money buys treasuries so that Congress can spend it immediately. So it was paid for, but the government stole the money and spent it.
I do not know about other countries, but in the US nuclear power has been taxed for decades to pay for waste disposal and decommissioning. The money buys treasuries so that Congress can spend it immediately. So it was paid for, but the government stole the money and spent it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste
The report plans for most cleanup to be completed in 2086, with additional activities to manage the site, including environmental monitoring, continuing until 2100.
To date $65 billion has been spent since the end of the Cold War on environmental cleanup of the Hanford site.
hanford cleanup costs
average about $8b a year ?
hanford cleanup costs
average about $8b a year ?
That is not nuclear electricity generation, it is historic military production of bomb materials mostly from 1943 until the first eight reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1971, and the last one in 1987, with very different priorities in the first decades.
It is extremely dishonest to imply it is the same thing.
Citation required. All the credible analysis points to current storage technologies and wind + solar being cheaper. You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you like but your chosen examples do not support your claims that adding new/more Nuclear generation is/would be cheaper.
Just hydro alone could provide more than enough energy storage, but would need more country to country links/co-operation and energy flow, which is not the best idea in a volatile world. So its back to batteries, thermal storage, and possibly in the future hydrogen (into syngas/synfuel etc).
Is that a reference to Fukushima's ocean discharge of tritium?You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you likeOf course nuclear is cheaper, because nuclear industry never payed to build any installation to maintain their waste in a safe place. They instead dumped it into the ocean.
Of course nuclear is cheaper, because nuclear industry never payed to build any installation to maintain their waste in a safe place. They instead dumped it into the ocean.
The most convincing argument against nuclear plants is their terrible accidents.
The most convincing argument against nuclear plants is their terrible accidents. When it happened in the Soviet Union people said: They don't know what they are doing. When it happened in Japan, people said: How could they build nuclear plants so close to the sea, with dangerous tsunamis known in history. Until today, 14 years later, the Fukushima plant doesn't have the required containment nor a containment plan.
The real danger with nuclear technology is human greed combined with group think.
.. No one outside the territory of the plant itself was harmed. Same with Three Mile Island.Radiation damage caused by the Fukushima accident will happen during a time span of 1000s of years, until they build a containment. Which doesn't seem to happen. Look up "plutonium poison". Though it may be a bit difficult to understand for you.
.. No one outside the territory of the plant itself was harmed. Same with Three Mile Island.Radiation damage caused by the Fukushima accident will happen during a time span of 1000s of years, until they build a containment. Which doesn't seem to happen. Look up "plutonium poison". Though it may be a bit difficult to understand for you.
The radioactive energy in used nuclear fuel is strictly less than the energy in it before it was dug up and put in the reactor.
.. No one outside the territory of the plant itself was harmed. Same with Three Mile Island.Radiation damage caused by the Fukushima accident will happen during a time span of 1000s of years, until they build a containment. Which doesn't seem to happen. Look up "plutonium poison". Though it may be a bit difficult to understand for you.
Let me try to put this in as small words as I can for you.
The radioactive energy in used nuclear fuel is strictly less than the energy in it before it was dug up and put in the reactor.
Some parts are very radioactive. But not for very long.
Some parts are radioactive for 1000s of years. But they are not very strong.
From 1946 through 1993, thirteen countries used ocean disposal or ocean dumping as a method to dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste with an approximation of 200,000 tons sourcing mainly from the medical, research and nuclear industry.[1]
The waste materials included both liquids and solids housed in various containers, as well as reactor vessels, with and without spent or damaged nuclear fuel
.. No one outside the territory of the plant itself was harmed. Same with Three Mile Island.Radiation damage caused by the Fukushima accident will happen during a time span of 1000s of years, until they build a containment. Which doesn't seem to happen. Look up "plutonium poison". Though it may be a bit difficult to understand for you.
Let me try to put this in as small words as I can for you.
The radioactive energy in used nuclear fuel is strictly less than the energy in it before it was dug up and put in the reactor.
Some parts are very radioactive. But not for very long.
Some parts are radioactive for 1000s of years. But they are not very strong.
... and some parts are toxic, which is again different thing than radioactivity. dietert's comment was spot on: you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but are talking proudly nevertheless.
A 6 year old video suggesting 45 days of storage capacity. That is completely insane. Still nothing clearly comparing the lifetime cost of energy.You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you likeOf course nuclear is cheaper, because nuclear industry never payed to build any installation to maintain their waste in a safe place. They instead dumped it into the ocean.
I do not know about other countries, but in the US nuclear power has been taxed for decades to pay for waste disposal and decommissioning. The money buys treasuries so that Congress can spend it immediately. So it was paid for, but the government stole the money and spent it, like they did with Social Security and the USPS pension funds. If your energy plan relies on anything other than corrupt government, then it has already failed.I was going to link this earlier, but here is just as good. This specific example has 4.7 billion dollars for battery storage (1) to replace the peaking capability of a natural gas power plant, versus 13.8 billion dollars to build a nuclear power plant with 5 times the power, and then the battery has to be charged with 10.2 billion dollars worth of solar farm. Based on California's current energy prices and yearly rolling blackouts, their plan has been a great success.The only technical solution is energy storage, which requires extremely expensive infrastructure and remains economically unviable on a large scale.Citation required. All the credible analysis points to current storage technologies and wind + solar being cheaper. You can say Nuclear is cheaper all you like but your chosen examples do not support your claims that adding new/more Nuclear generation is/would be cheaper.
https://youtu.be/h5cm7HOAqZY?si=t_cdilm3f-DtgeoU
To add further insult to injury:Where is the subsidy? A utility buying energy from the cheapest generator is logical, complaining that Nuclear can't compete on cost and is uneconomic is what I keep saying.
In 2016, PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025, stating that because California's energy regulations give renewables priority over nuclear, the plant would likely only run half-time, making it uneconomical.
That is the subsidy I referred to earlier which makes nuclear power uneconomical. It is not economics. It is politics, just like cap and trade.
ZZZZZzzzzz, pumped hydro is a widely undreutilized resource:Just hydro alone could provide more than enough energy storage, but would need more country to country links/co-operation and energy flow, which is not the best idea in a volatile world. So its back to batteries, thermal storage, and possibly in the future hydrogen (into syngas/synfuel etc).Hydroelectric pumped storage relies on suitable locations, and the Greens do not like it either. Many areas in the US have been tearing down dams.
Taking ionizing energy of natural uranium that would be spread over millions-billions of years, and releasing it in shorter timeframe creates a significant hazard. Your "not very strong" is not comparable to the widely dilute and long half life natural sources.Yes, it's also toxic before it was dug up. May I suggest you don't eat it?... and some parts are toxic, which is again different thing than radioactivity. dietert's comment was spot on: you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, but are talking proudly nevertheless.Let me try to put this in as small words as I can for you... No one outside the territory of the plant itself was harmed. Same with Three Mile Island.Radiation damage caused by the Fukushima accident will happen during a time span of 1000s of years, until they build a containment. Which doesn't seem to happen. Look up "plutonium poison". Though it may be a bit difficult to understand for you.
The radioactive energy in used nuclear fuel is strictly less than the energy in it before it was dug up and put in the reactor.
Some parts are very radioactive. But not for very long.
Some parts are radioactive for 1000s of years. But they are not very strong.
Everything I said is absolutely unassailable fundamental physics, based on the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
It is sad to see people resort to personal abuse when they don't have arguments.
In my country, the situation with energy pricing is heavily shaped by policy. The price at which electricity is purchased from "green" producers is fixed by law and long-term contracts at around 25 cents per kWh (depends on exact contract). The state guarantees to buy any amount of renewable energy at this rate, regardless of demand, which puts a significant financial burden on the system and disadvantages conventional producers.So? That is not free market or rational. What does that have to do with the blackout in Spain ? Or anything at all?
At present, there are no commercially viable technologies capable of storing the vast amounts of electricity required for large-scale daily load shifting. The capacity of hydroelectric power is insufficient to meet this need on its own, which is why gas and coal-fired generation continue to play a critical role in balancing the grid.Hydro and battery storage technology is mature and cost effective today, has been for a while. No commercially viable technology? :-DD Hydro is more than capable of providing the storage for most countries, should they wish to pursue that.
It is important to note that solar and wind generation are often promoted as replacements for coal-fired power plants. However, in practice, they cannot fulfill the same role. Coal plants, while less environmentally favorable, provide a relatively controllable and dispatchable source of power, particularly valuable during periods of peak demand. In contrast, solar and wind generation produce electricity intermittently and unpredictably, making them unsuitable as direct substitutes for dispatchable thermal generation in balancing and stabilizing the grid.Keep holing tightly to your straw man argument of not having any storage in the grid to ride through renewables. Other countries will make do and profit while you can be stuck in the past. With the cost differential between variable renewables and fossils only growing larger, the amount of storage required continues to fall.
Yes, it's also toxic before it was dug up.
May I suggest you don't eat it?
What does that have to do with the blackout in Spain ?Nothing, but pro-nuclear people love a) to hijack threads and b) do not realize any sane person is not going to buy their old, already more-than-debunked, shameful bullshit
Hydro and battery storage technology is mature and cost effective today, has been for a while. No commercially viable technology? :-DD Hydro is more than capable of providing the storage for most countries, should they wish to pursue that.
Keep holing tightly to your straw man argument of not having any storage in the grid to ride through renewables. Other countries will make do and profit while you can be stuck in the past.
With the cost differential between variable renewables and fossils only growing larger, the amount of storage required continues to fall.
You could build nuclear reactors very cheap. There is a deliberate political decision to make that impossible. They estimated, that today in the west, 80-90% of the building costs go to environmental studies, approval processes, taxes and other paperwork. 10% is building a plant. And it's a lengthy process, making it impossible and too volatile.Correct in technical/narrow sense, and misleading in the context of the discussion.No, he is right. Existing nuclear plants often times bid 2-3 cents per kwh for electricity on the EU market. Bear in mind these are operated for decades already and it was built by another generation, that cared more about getting tings done rather than blocking everything with never ending administration.a) you're not showing your country so no-one can check this.You also use Google to find suppliers for uranium in small scale to assess cost of nuclear power generation?According to official reports, the nuclear power plants in my country generates and sells electricity at approximately 0.013 USD/kWh, which is a sustainable price that covers both operational costs, fuel costs, and a reasonable profit.
b) there is no way nuclear is fully costed at 1.3c/kWh, you're either missing the existing investment and only counting marginal cost of fuel/staffing (at some outdated rate) or there is some massive subsidy coming in for other "services" nuclear provides (not all reactors are power generators, and they can be profitable without generating power). That 1.3c/kWh figure is also conveniently the absolute best case suggested by the world nuclear association:
https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power (https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-aspects/economics-of-nuclear-power)
$13/MWh ? if so then people would be jumping at the chance to build more of it.... oh wait its not realisable.
Neutral sources put the best case of life extension nuclear in the US at $31/MWh:
https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf (https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf)
Which is not an option for adding new generation.
I acknowledge over and over that there is electricity from Nuclear plants being sold for those low [marginal] prices. That does in no way mean more plants can be built to sell electricity at that price, because it ignores the investments which have been "paid off"/"subsidised"/hidden etc. Many plants will ride through periods of low prices, but the lifetime cost has to be paid somehow. When those are state resources the money comes from the people, or private operators who are "too big to fail" or friendly with the current side of politics.
Or should we compare to fully amortised solar plants selling power at zero or negative prices?
Just as stupid an argument.
...One 12 V 200 Ah LiPeFo4 battery has about 12 V * 200 Ah * 3600 seconds/hour = 8 640 000 Joules(...)
To put that inertia into perspective:
When has a 200 watt solar inverter had 12200 joules stored in it?
But the rotating mass probably won't help much to damp 0.26 Hz oscillations like the ones i showed above.
Regards, Dieter
So? That is not free market or rational. What does that have to do with the blackout in Spain ? Or anything at all?
To add further insult to injury:
In 2016, PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025, stating that because California's energy regulations give renewables priority over nuclear, the plant would likely only run half-time, making it uneconomical.
That is the subsidy I referred to earlier which makes nuclear power uneconomical. It is not economics. It is politics, just like cap and trade.
Where is the subsidy? A utility buying energy from the cheapest generator is logical, complaining that Nuclear can't compete on cost and is uneconomic is what I keep saying.
You could build nuclear reactors very cheap.Yes I could build anything very cheap. It would be crap, but it would be cheap.
There is a deliberate political decision to make that impossible.Yes, of course. Most of people don't want any NPP. Being the majority, we have the political power to ban NPPs. Particullarly when speaking about NPPs made on the very cheap. Deal with this.
They estimated,Who estimated that? Nuclear industry perhaps?
that today in the west, 80-90% of the building costs go to environmental studies, approval processes, taxes and other paperwork.Of course, if we allow NPPs to be built without any studies, approval processes, etc, nuclear would be very cheap. No shit analisys, Sherlock.
It's also estimated that we have enough Thorium to power everything for tens of thousands of years.Yeah, and it was estimated that superbreeding would allow to reuse uranium and consecutive shit for all the eternity. Man, I think you are being scammed. Again.
Without emissions.200,000 tons of radiactive nuclear waste have been already dumped into the ocean. It won't remain inside these containers forever. I think it constitutes a catastrophe at planetary scale. We will have to clean that sooner rather than later and we will have to pay (very dearly) for that cleansing operation.
NPPs are almost phased out in Spain, Yet we have our electricity cheaper than in most of Europe. Solar and wind will be available for somme billion years in the future. Without risking any radioactive fart. We can use hydro and combined cycle to complete the mix until something better appears. We can mock pro-nuclear fools until that happens. We can go harder if need be.
So a state that has legislated power must come from renewables an not nuclear is enforcing that? On the other side you have noisy people doing a similar don't present the facts but make lots of noise instead:The subsidy is that the power company is required by law to buy power from "green" sources at inflated cost, set by law, before buying from other sources, including nuclear power. This law also makes nuclear power less economical by operating reactors at less than their capacity factor, which was a deliberate objective.To add further insult to injury:Where is the subsidy? A utility buying energy from the cheapest generator is logical, complaining that Nuclear can't compete on cost and is uneconomic is what I keep saying.
In 2016, PG&E announced that it plans to close the two Diablo Canyon reactors in 2024 and 2025, stating that because California's energy regulations give renewables priority over nuclear, the plant would likely only run half-time, making it uneconomical.
That is the subsidy I referred to earlier which makes nuclear power uneconomical. It is not economics. It is politics, just like cap and trade.
As for the cost: when the total system cost including storage, overcapacity, grid upgrades, and backup generation is considered, solar is far from "cheap" at large scales.That is for you to prove and reference, because reliable/credible sources say the complete opposite:
That is for you to prove and reference, because reliable/credible sources say the complete opposite:
This is possibly becoming a language issueHydro and battery storage technology is mature and cost effective today, has been for a while. No commercially viable technology? :-DD Hydro is more than capable of providing the storage for most countries, should they wish to pursue that.It's important to distinguish between technical viability and the scale required to meet real-world grid demands. In my country, for example, hydro (including pumped storage) accounts for only about 5% of total electricity generation. Batteries aren't even listed in the mix, as their contribution is currently negligible at grid scale (< 1%).
No one is claiming that storage is already in place and we only need to change "one thing" (add more whatever). The cheapest way forward is to add storage and renewables together at the same time.Keep holing tightly to your straw man argument of not having any storage in the grid to ride through renewables. Other countries will make do and profit while you can be stuck in the past.Storage is indeed already part of modern grids - pumped hydro, batteries, and some thermal storage are all in use. However, the total installed capacity remains far from sufficient to fully cover daily load fluctuations, especially in grids with a high share of intermittent renewables.
We don’t lack any storage, we lack enough of it.
Moreover, no currently available or commercially scalable storage technology is capable of bridging the gap to allow a full transition from fossil fuels without either massive overcapacity in generation or continued reliance on flexible thermal generation.
Where do I say we need less storage than today? You are stuck in today and I keep pointing to a very different future. The relative costs of storage and generation change where the lowest cost balance is:With the cost differential between variable renewables and fossils only growing larger, the amount of storage required continues to fall.The claim that the required amount of storage is decreasing is false. In fact, as the share of solar and wind generation increases, so does the need for flexible capacity to manage daily and seasonal fluctuations. Intermittent sources introduce variability that must be compensated by either dispatchable generation or large-scale storage.
Why even argue anything other than their numbers? Where is a credible reference or citation or installed example of Nuclear plant construction being 10x over priced?that today in the west, 80-90% of the building costs go to environmental studies, approval processes, taxes and other paperwork.Of course, if we allow NPPs to be built without any studies, approval processes, etc, nuclear would be very cheap.
This is possibly becoming a language issue
Storage in hydro and batteries can scale to the size required for (inter)national grids to be 100% renewable generation. Technically, economically, resource availability, no problems.
Just because there is no example of it today, right now, already built does not prove it cannot be done. Then you come with exactly the same faulty argument over and over
Why even argue anything other than their numbers? Where is a credible reference or citation or installed example of Nuclear plant construction being 10x over priced?
Solar panels will not last "for some billion years" - their practical lifespan is around 10-20 years, after which performance degrades significantly.
Manufacturing them requires high-temperature processes that typically rely on burning fossil fuels or consuming large amounts of electricity - often in countries with lax environmental regulations. This shifts the ecological burden elsewhere, rather than eliminating it.
End-of-life panels also pose a serious recycling and waste challenge, as many components require dedicated landfills or hazardous material handling.
You are claiming it cannot scale, why can it not scale?This is possibly becoming a language issueLet me illustrate the scale of the challenge with real numbers. In my country, the average daily electricity consumption is around 380 GWh, with daily demand fluctuations reaching up to 50% or more. This means that during peak solar production hours, we would need to generate over 400 GWh per day - and be able to store approximately 200-250 GWh of that within a few hours, then dispatch it during the evening and night.
Storage in hydro and batteries can scale to the size required for (inter)national grids to be 100% renewable generation. Technically, economically, resource availability, no problems.
Just because there is no example of it today, right now, already built does not prove it cannot be done. Then you come with exactly the same faulty argument over and over
Can you point to any real-world solar installations capable of generating over 400 GWh per day? Or to energy storage systems - hydro or battery that can accumulate, store and later discharge over 250 GWh within a single day? If the technology truly "scales" there should be at least one example of it implemented at this magnitude. Otherwise, you're making theoretical claims with no practical validation.
Can you point to any real-world solar installations capable of generating over 400 GWh per day? Or to energy storage systems - hydro or battery that can accumulate, store and later discharge over 250 GWh within a single day? If the technology truly "scales" there should be at least one example of it implemented at this magnitude. Otherwise, you're making theoretical claims with no practical validation.China:
Nice try, man. But I didn't write solar panels will last some billion years. Solar power will be available while the Sun exists, however. Wind will also be there while life on Earth exist.
Yeah. Sure. The concrete, steel, uranium mining, etc, needed to build a NPP, doesn't seem to require burning any fossil fuels in your mind. Understood. NPPs didn't had their operating life limited to 40 years because, you know, BOOOM. Also understood.
Says the guy that lives in the country where Chernobyl is. I guess you mean to dispose of NPPs is much easier than disposing of PV panels and windmills, and that plastics, etc, are much more dangerous than say, tritium, cesium and plutonium. Are you high?
Since the remaining parts of your post are nothing but the same kind of bullshit, I won't bother to even take it seriously.
I bet, should you be under the sun at noon in Spain, even on spring, you wouldn't be speaking about intermittency. Instead you would be looking red like a cooked crab in less than an hour.
China:
https://climateenergyfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/MONTHLY-CHINA-ENERGY-UPDATE-Feb-2025.pdf
Solar Power 277GW
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_China
Hydro Power 426GW
So your claim is easily shown to be false. The technology does scale and has real world examples of it.
Since the remaining parts of your post are nothing but the same kind of bullshit, I won't bother to even take it seriously.
Your statements are somewhat laughable, as I am presenting concrete figures from official reports, which I can confirm with official documents and can verify. Meanwhile, you're resorting to stupid propagandistic narratives and dismissing verified data from government sources as "bullshit". It's difficult to engage in a meaningful discussion when one side relies on factual evidence and the other relies on unsupported claims.
You asked for any evidence of a solar installation of that scale as you claimed it is not possible and there is no way to scale up production and capacity.China is a much larger country than mine, with significantly higher electricity demand - as I can see its about 27.6 TWh per day. This means they would require at least stable 28 TWh per day from hydro and solar power, along with approximately 14 TWh capacity per day for storage.Can you point to any real-world solar installations capable of generating over 400 GWh per day? Or to energy storage systems - hydro or battery that can accumulate, store and later discharge over 250 GWh within a single day? If the technology truly "scales" there should be at least one example of it implemented at this magnitude. Otherwise, you're making theoretical claims with no practical validation.China:
https://climateenergyfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/MONTHLY-CHINA-ENERGY-UPDATE-Feb-2025.pdf
Solar Power 277GW
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectricity_in_China
Hydro Power 426GW
So your claim is easily shown to be false. The technology does scale and has real world examples of it.
We don't currently have nuclear in NZ, but public opinion is, rightly, coming around to it being a reasonable option if and when it makes financial sense.Density has a lot to do with it, compare for example the UK or Japan. NZ had been famous for its cheap and plentiful electricity hence the aluminium smelter, a business which will pop up anywhere in the world where electricity is cheap. If countries start having big electricity surpluses then industry will find a use for it.
The technology does scale and has real world examples of it.
You asked for any evidence of a solar installation of that scale as you claimed it is not possible and there is no way to scale up production and capacity.
The mental gymnastics you have to go through is mind boggling.You could build nuclear reactors very cheap.Yes I could build anything very cheap. It would be crap, but it would be cheap.
Let me illustrate the scale of the challenge with real numbers. In my country, the average daily electricity consumption is around 380 GWh, with daily demand fluctuations reaching up to 50% or more. This means that during peak solar production hours, we would need to generate over 400 GWh per day - and be able to store approximately 200-250 GWh of that within a few hours, then dispatch it during the evening and night.
Can you point to any real-world solar installations capable of generating over 400 GWh per day? Or to energy storage systems - hydro or battery that can accumulate, store and later discharge over 250 GWh within a single day? If the technology truly "scales" there should be at least one example of it implemented at this magnitude. Otherwise, you're making theoretical claims with no practical validation.
Let me try to put this in as small words as I can for you.
The radioactive energy in used nuclear fuel is strictly less than the energy in it before it was dug up and put in the reactor.
We don't currently have nuclear in NZ, but public opinion is, rightly, coming around to it being a reasonable option if and when it makes financial sense.
We don't currently have nuclear in NZ, but public opinion is, rightly, coming around to it being a reasonable option if and when it makes financial sense.
Pacific Ring of Fire. Honestly, I think the world would be better off if you didn't.
And? Can you use solar light to power your kitchen refrigerator and stove with no solar panels?
Why even argue anything other than their numbers? Where is a credible reference or citation or installed example of Nuclear plant construction being 10x over priced?that today in the west, 80-90% of the building costs go to environmental studies, approval processes, taxes and other paperwork.Of course, if we allow NPPs to be built without any studies, approval processes, etc, nuclear would be very cheap.
Agreed. People don't seem to understand that burning coal (and to a lesser extend) gas is causing health issues and is killing people. Several orders of magnitudes more compared to nuclear both in absolute and relative numbers. And ofcourse people keep bringing up loss of land due to nuclear dissasters but for fun calculate the amount of land which becomes uninhabitable when the sea level rises a few meters due to use of fossil fuels... It is kind of like boiling a frog slowly. The frog will stay in the pan when the heat is turned up slowly. But it will jump right out when the water is too hot to begin with.The mental gymnastics you have to go through is mind boggling.You could build nuclear reactors very cheap.Yes I could build anything very cheap. It would be crap, but it would be cheap.
For starters, coal power emitted 100 times more radioactive emissions than nuclear, including the disasters. To continue, the environmental studies 99% some bullshit blocking ones, that some frogs live on the same place that the plants need to be built. If they want to build the same plant that they operated safely in France for decades, and they are arguing about land usage, not nuclear safety. It's just NIMBJ bullshit blocking. And then they build it on the border with some neighboring country, like French Spanish border. And then you have plants built next to you anyway, don't have a say in it. And according to you the natural lifecycle of the plant is they always blow up so prepare, buy iodine.
But you know what, actually it's not mind boggling. Decades of propaganda placed this irrational fear into people. There is something in the air, gives you cancer, and you cannot see it. Boo, nuclear.
Sadly I'm experiencing the same thing. Tatel and Siwastaja in particular use personal abuse along with vague qualitative emotional handwaving arguments, not numbers, proportions, facts, references. I'm over it.
Слава Україні!Do you suffer from cramps that force you to rigidly extend your right arm high?
Agreed. People don't seem to understand that burning coal (and to a lesser extend) gas is causing health issues and is killing people. Several orders of magnitudes more compared to nuclear both in absolute and relative numbers. And ofcourse people keep bringing up loss of land due to nuclear dissasters but for fun calculate the amount of land which becomes uninhabitable when the sea level rises a few meters due to use of fossil fuels... It is kind of like boiling a frog slowly. The frog will stay in the pan when the heat is turned up slowly. But it will jump right out when the water is too hot to begin with.The mental gymnastics you have to go through is mind boggling.You could build nuclear reactors very cheap.Yes I could build anything very cheap. It would be crap, but it would be cheap.
For starters, coal power emitted 100 times more radioactive emissions than nuclear, including the disasters. To continue, the environmental studies 99% some bullshit blocking ones, that some frogs live on the same place that the plants need to be built. If they want to build the same plant that they operated safely in France for decades, and they are arguing about land usage, not nuclear safety. It's just NIMBJ bullshit blocking. And then they build it on the border with some neighboring country, like French Spanish border. And then you have plants built next to you anyway, don't have a say in it. And according to you the natural lifecycle of the plant is they always blow up so prepare, buy iodine.
But you know what, actually it's not mind boggling. Decades of propaganda placed this irrational fear into people. There is something in the air, gives you cancer, and you cannot see it. Boo, nuclear.
But you shouldn't be here hijacking this thread, either.perhaps to get back on topic you could talk more on the “not another minute” protest. Did it have any significant support behind it? was there any measurable result in power use?
Sadly I'm experiencing the same thing. Tatel and Siwastaja in particular use personal abuse along with vague qualitative emotional handwaving arguments, not numbers, proportions, facts, references. I'm over it.
It was you who said that after Fukushima people loved nuclear power even more, right?
It amazes me that people whose opinion in matters usual in this forum I very much respect, turned out to be pro-nuclear nuts
QuoteСлава Україні!Do you suffer from cramps that force you to rigidly extend your right arm high?
Then your health may already have been impacted. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants)Agreed. People don't seem to understand that burning coal (and to a lesser extend) gas is causing health issues and is killing people. Several orders of magnitudes more compared to nuclear both in absolute and relative numbers. And ofcourse people keep bringing up loss of land due to nuclear dissasters but for fun calculate the amount of land which becomes uninhabitable when the sea level rises a few meters due to use of fossil fuels... It is kind of like boiling a frog slowly. The frog will stay in the pan when the heat is turned up slowly. But it will jump right out when the water is too hot to begin with.The mental gymnastics you have to go through is mind boggling.You could build nuclear reactors very cheap.Yes I could build anything very cheap. It would be crap, but it would be cheap.
For starters, coal power emitted 100 times more radioactive emissions than nuclear, including the disasters. To continue, the environmental studies 99% some bullshit blocking ones, that some frogs live on the same place that the plants need to be built. If they want to build the same plant that they operated safely in France for decades, and they are arguing about land usage, not nuclear safety. It's just NIMBJ bullshit blocking. And then they build it on the border with some neighboring country, like French Spanish border. And then you have plants built next to you anyway, don't have a say in it. And according to you the natural lifecycle of the plant is they always blow up so prepare, buy iodine.
But you know what, actually it's not mind boggling. Decades of propaganda placed this irrational fear into people. There is something in the air, gives you cancer, and you cannot see it. Boo, nuclear.
Bollocks. I lived at about 2 Kms of a coal power plant most of my life.
200,000 tons of nuclear wasteYou keep repeating this number as some sort of magic, expecting the free energy fairy to appear.
You asked for any evidence of a solar installation of that scale as you claimed it is not possible and there is no way to scale up production and capacity.
I asked for an example of energy storage capable of store/charge/discharge for 250 GWh per day - specifically at the scale of a small country. Such capacity does not exist. As for solar generation, projecting the capabilities of the world’s largest industrial country onto a much smaller country is fundamentally misleading.
Here is one well-known green/lefty influencer example:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima)
I am not pro nuclear. Neither am I anti nuclear. I am pro logic and facts.
Not in the least. I am pro democracy, freedom of association, free markets. Ukraine is not perfect, they suffer greatly from their soviet legacy, but they are trying, and they are literally on the front line of defending western civilisation from mordor.
Then your health may already have been impacted. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh)
200,000 tons of nuclear wasteYou keep repeating this number as some sort of magic, expecting the free energy fairy to appear.
Most, 95% of it was done by two countries:
the UK, which was buried below the seabead, that was deemed safe storage location for the next 1 million years, and not dangerous after way less than that. It's banned to do this now.
Soviet union/Russia: who is a monkey with a grenade, and shouldn't have be trusted with nuclear technology, obviously. Too bad some brainwashed defectors from the west stole the technology, the entire cold war (and many wars since) could've been avoided.
Actually, it is not about radioactivity (I never made that point because it is not very relevant given all the other background radiation sources). My point is about NOx, SO2 and soot / small particles. All the stuff that causes smog and respiratory diseases. And despite common belief, filtering on those power plants isn't adequate. Not by a long shot.
Can you point to any real-world solar installations capable of generating over 400 GWh per day?
Sure, but then you should prove every single thing that you just said.200,000 tons of nuclear wasteYou keep repeating this number as some sort of magic, expecting the free energy fairy to appear.
Most, 95% of it was done by two countries:
the UK, which was buried below the seabead, that was deemed safe storage location for the next 1 million years, and not dangerous after way less than that. It's banned to do this now.
Soviet union/Russia: who is a monkey with a grenade, and shouldn't have be trusted with nuclear technology, obviously. Too bad some brainwashed defectors from the west stole the technology, the entire cold war (and many wars since) could've been avoided.
You can't give any official data about that, because what you are saying is false.
All of West Europe paid the french to get rid of nuclear waste, which they did by dumping it overboard on the Bay of Biscay.
Ask yourself how many safe nuclear disposal sites there are in west Europa, back then (before 1993) and even now. AFAIK, (edit: and, of course, the french) the suomi are the only ones that have (quite recently) built one of these.
That british nuclear waste is not going to remain a million years inside the containers, if you really believe that, I have a bridge for sale you could easily buy.
Do you have any NPP in the Netherlands? Then your nuclear waste got into the Bay of Biscay before 1993 Germany did. Spain did. Any country in West Europe having any NPPs did. We still do, but after 1993 France does put into safe disposal sites. How safe? We will see.
Not surprising coming from a Guardian reader.Also, not only am I going to arbitrarily ignore any of the proof you present, but I'm even going to insult you for the source.
200,000 tons of nuclear wasteYou keep repeating this number as some sort of magic, expecting the free energy fairy to appear.
Most, 95% of it was done by two countries:
the UK, which was buried below the seabead, that was deemed safe storage location for the next 1 million years, and not dangerous after way less than that. It's banned to do this now.
Soviet union/Russia: who is a monkey with a grenade, and shouldn't have be trusted with nuclear technology, obviously. Too bad some brainwashed defectors from the west stole the technology, the entire cold war (and many wars since) could've been avoided.
But you shouldn't be here hijacking this thread, either.perhaps to get back on topic you could talk more on the “not another minute” protest. Did it have any significant support behind it? was there any measurable result in power use?
Man, evidently you don't want to understand
Just an example: you were presented with the fact that 200,000 tons of nuclear waste have been already dumped into the ocean.
Then you said that dumping nuclear waste into the ocean would be the stupidest thing to do, because it would be incredibly harmful, moreover that waste could be recycled into useful, new types of nuclear fuel, etc, etc, and you continue saying it right now.
So you are just in denial. I guess you think that never happened, and is just (another) propagandistic lie against the most wonderful, safe and not harmful in any way, source of energy.
I know for a fact the french were dumping nuclear waste into the Bay of Biscay. I know fishermen that got into some zodiac boat and put themselves in the way of the ship, and under the point were the french crew were getting those containers overboard. No propaganda. Pure cojones.
Now, of course, you say the earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima was a conspiration. Some japanese obviously knew where and when an earthquake and tsunami was going to happen. Then he/they sneaked into a NPP and somehow sabotaged something, perhaps those diesel generators that were already under water. Come on, man. Give us a break.
I have to assume you don't like facts opposed to your ideas, so you decided to ignore them. Instead you continue trying to sell us that old, exhausted, near-to-death donkey. Not realizing we clearly see it's a scam.
Someone is doing a very good job in calling out your "numbers", and I'm grateful to him.
I have to say, in Spain, like in Ukraina, the sun doesn't shine at night, and wind is not always there. But we decided we don't want nuclear power, and we are able to phase it out, and the country wasn't paralized. Another fact you don't want to deal with.
Of course you will use that blackout as "proof" you are right, but the fact is, you really don't know what happened. How many blackouts have happened in Europe since, say, 1975, in the last 50 years? Was it the fault of renewables? Obviously not, there weren't any renewables back then. Only these "really reliable sources" you speak about. Yet these blackouts did happen indeed.
So you can get your "numbers", as debunked by the real facts as they are, and shove them where the sun doesn't shine. We aren't buying your crap. Sorry to be blunt. But, If you insist in being stubborn, to the point to not allow known facts get between your ears, what else could we sane people do?
Agreed. People don't seem to understand that burning coal (and to a lesser extend) gas is causing health issues and is killing people.
BTW, there have been serious incidents with coal as well. The great smog of London in 1952 for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London). Even though the death toll is in the thousands, the incident didn't result in a total ban of coal.
It looks like you understand precisely what I'm saying ;) Still, nuclear is far better in terms of health effects compared to coal. The track record to prove that is there. It is just that coal is boiling the frog slowly so nobody really notices.BTW, there have been serious incidents with coal as well. The great smog of London in 1952 for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London). Even though the death toll is in the thousands, the incident didn't result in a total ban of coal.
... just like none of the nuclear accidents resulted in total ban of nuclear, so I don't really get what you are saying :-//
Incidents like that make people hate coal - for good reasons. Coal power fanboyism is nonexistent.
Nuclear accidents make people hate nuclear - for good reasons. Yet nuclear fanboysism does exist.
Sensible people consider both of them as necessary evils which both have iffy history and track record, but are still needed to some extent.
CO2 is a real issue (even if people still disagree about the magnitude of the problem
but no one is saying it's a good idea to put all that stored carbon into atmosphere).
The whole climate issue isn't even relevant. Facts are that fossil fuels are finite and will run out. Especially with the exponential growth of energy consumption world wide in mind, it is important to switch to alternative (on a human timescale, infinite) sources. Another problem is that using (burning) fossil fuels is very damaging to the environment and health. And no, high CO2 levels aren't good or harmless at all. Think about the increased accidity of oceans which destroys entire habitats (coral reefs for example) which affects our food chain.CO2 is a real issue (even if people still disagree about the magnitude of the problem
Proper scientists disagree on even the sign of any "problem", and on which of temperature and CO2 level is cause and which is effect. People who say this is "settled" have a political agenda.
I suspect entsoe (https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/04/28/grid-incident-in-the-power-systems-of-spain-and-portugal/) wil publish a detailed report eventually. Maybe Grady will even make a video about it.
I did not see this linked here:Sure about that (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5910592/#msg5910592)? :-DD
ENTSO-E expert panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout
I did not see this linked here:Sure about that (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5910592/#msg5910592)? :-DD
ENTSO-E expert panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout
It looks like you understand precisely what I'm saying ;) Still, nuclear is far better in terms of health effects compared to coal.
Co2 is the gas of life, its presence feeds growth of plants which produce O2 and marine species which are at the bottom of the food chain.This is an inaccuracy.
Talking about the topic of this post :
ENTSO-E expert panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout (https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/05/09/entso-e-expert-panel-initiates-the-investigation-into-the-causes-of-iberian-blackout/).
And for the first time, we have a description of the sequence of events timestamped to the nearest second :-+.
Abstract:
Just before the outage, Spain was selling electricty to Portugal, France and Morroco.
During a span of 20 seconds starting at 12:32:57 CET, 2.2 GW of production power was lost, mainly in southern Spain.
Grid frequency dropped to 48 Hz :-BROKE, leading to load shedding and disconnecting the Iberian grid from France and continental Europe.
Three seconds later (12:33:24 CET), the whole Iberian grid collapsed.
From the initial failure to total collapse, only 27 seconds elapsed.
That's roughly how long it took you to read this post.
At the moment of the incident, there were no oscillations and the power system variables were within normal operation range.
1. Starting at 12:32:57 CET and within 20 seconds afterwards, presumably a series of different generation trips were registered in the south of Spain, accounting to an initially estimated total of 2200 MW.
Co2 is the gas of life, its presence feeds growth of plants which produce O2 and marine species which are at the bottom of the food chain.This is an inaccuracy.
Photosynthesis only occurs on the daylight side of the earth (or in grow houses with electric lighting).
In the dark, plants breathe O2 and exhale CO2 just like any other animal or coal power station.
1. Starting at 12:32:57 CET and within 20 seconds afterwards, presumably a series of different generation trips were registered in the south of Spain, accounting to an initially estimated total of 2200 MW.
Quote1. Starting at 12:32:57 CET and within 20 seconds afterwards, presumably a series of different generation trips were registered in the south of Spain, accounting to an initially estimated total of 2200 MW.The word "presumably" makes me think they are still not sure if it was just one failure or a chain of failures.
Indeed, the grid oscillation detected in the morning (see Reply #152 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/power-cut-in-spain-and-portugal/msg5898746/#msg5898746)) and those mentionned in the ENTSO-E press release just after noon that day (28th of April 2025) seem to be independent issues that were tackled sucessfully.Talking about the topic of this post :
ENTSO-E expert panel initiates the investigation into the causes of Iberian blackout (https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2025/05/09/entso-e-expert-panel-initiates-the-investigation-into-the-causes-of-iberian-blackout/).
And for the first time, we have a description of the sequence of events timestamped to the nearest second :-+.
Abstract:
Just before the outage, Spain was selling electricty to Portugal, France and Morroco.
During a span of 20 seconds starting at 12:32:57 CET, 2.2 GW of production power was lost, mainly in southern Spain.
Grid frequency dropped to 48 Hz :-BROKE, leading to load shedding and disconnecting the Iberian grid from France and continental Europe.
Three seconds later (12:33:24 CET), the whole Iberian grid collapsed.
From the initial failure to total collapse, only 27 seconds elapsed.
That's roughly how long it took you to read this post.
That's really interesting, because, I quote:QuoteAt the moment of the incident, there were no oscillations and the power system variables were within normal operation range.Quote1. Starting at 12:32:57 CET and within 20 seconds afterwards, presumably a series of different generation trips were registered in the south of Spain, accounting to an initially estimated total of 2200 MW.
So it seems this rules out the "grid was oscillating due to too little inertia and uncontrolled distributed PV production, oscillations increased and grid collapsed" theory.
It still does not rule out the idea that amount of distributed PV (specifically relying on it) could have contributed and made the situation worse.
I see two big questions:
1) what caused the original disconnects?
2) did some production disconnect at 48.0Hz? If load shedding is programmed to happen at 48.0Hz, of course generation shedding should not happen at the same limit |O. Is it possible the frequency limits are mismanaged by idiots - or more exactly, that no one ever thought about it? Or am I overthinking it?
The latest figures I found for Spain indicate that they have just less than 31 GW of installed PV power at the end of 2024.Quote1. Starting at 12:32:57 CET and within 20 seconds afterwards, presumably a series of different generation trips were registered in the south of Spain, accounting to an initially estimated total of 2200 MW.
If I'm getting it right, 2200 MW would be like the output of a couple nuclear reactors? Is that not a lot in case of PV generation? I wonder how many solar farms would be involved to cause 2200MW to became missing.
The word "presumably" makes me think they are still not sure if it was just one failure or a chain of failures.
Nuclear just has became more and more expensive (we can throw temper tantrums about it like tzaboo, but it doesn't change the fact it really has become more expensive everywhere) to the point that it's not been a nukes-coal-gas comparison anymore for well over a decade.
Ironically nuclear costs more because of the lull in building new reactors in a lot of the west. Reactors are relatively cheap from Russia because they didn't stop making them. The west just don't like Russian designs. They do like Chinese though.
Ironically nuclear costs more because of the lull in building new reactors in a lot of the west. Reactors are relatively cheap from Russia because they didn't stop making them. The west just don't like Russian designs. They do like Chinese though.
...
Russia and China have been copy and pasting reactors by the dozen across Asia.
Compare that to e.g. Finland with 37.6% of nuclear (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Finland ), or 68% (!) in France ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France )I appreciate the exclamation mark :-+. Actually, we are currently in a low. Before the PV boom, in 2005 it was 78.5 % (https://fr.statista.com/statistiques/472545/proportion-nucleaire-production-d-electricite-france/). :-DD
The reason why Europe nearly stopped building nuclear in 1980's-1990's is simply that our markets already saturated with nuclear, and as I have repeatedly said nuclear does not work well for energy markets if you have too much of it. The Chinese understand this and have slowed down building more nuclear (relative to their growing energy use), not accelerated it. What is true is that they have built most of their nuclear power infra in 2000's, but that's all. It is convenient to only show they have recently built the reactors, and to say they have built "many" of them (sure enough, more than one counts as "many"), and conveniently ignore it's less than one tenth what France for example has built relative to their energy use.It's a true drawback if you stop designing new models of nuclear power plants for more than a decade, because of the immense loss of knowledge and skills.
With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
True. In the next decade, natural gas will slowly be replaced by green hydrogen (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/hydrogen-high-street-could-these-homes-change-the-way-we-keep-warm). Video (https://youtu.be/FSP5rPQElzA?t=41).With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
Yup. And the additional advantage of nuclear is that is also produces quite a lot of residual heat. My home is heated from the residual heat from a power plant about 20km away.True. In the next decade, natural gas will slowly be replaced by green hydrogen (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/hydrogen-high-street-could-these-homes-change-the-way-we-keep-warm). Video (https://youtu.be/FSP5rPQElzA?t=41).With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
And the latter will also be more and more be used to manage the summer - winter balance.
Electrolysis will take advantage from PV (day summer) and nuclear (night summer).
Long term storage (for months) for use during winter months is done under earth, in salt cavities.
In a world where zero net carbon dioxide release becomes compulsory (2050, earlier ?), the poor yield of electrolysis is no longer important.
True. In the next decade, natural gas will slowly be replaced by green hydrogen (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/hydrogen-high-street-could-these-homes-change-the-way-we-keep-warm). Video (https://youtu.be/FSP5rPQElzA?t=41).With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
And the latter will also be more and more be used to manage the summer - winter balance.
Electrolysis will take advantage from PV (day summer) and nuclear (night summer).
Long term hydrogen storage (for months) for use during winter months is done under earth, in salt cavities.
In a world where zero net carbon dioxide release becomes compulsory (2050, earlier ?), the poor yield of electrolysis is no longer important.
That withouthotair book is woefully outdated and it doesn't look at resource and cost issues.
To name a few: Lack of Lithium to built all the batteries the author proposes. The land area needed to grow wood for electricity and bio-fuel production (*). You also need to put things in the perspective that the UK is not the only country with these problems so there will be fierce competition (and cost) for any material which can not be mined / produced in extremely large volumes.That withouthotair book is woefully outdated and it doesn't look at resource and cost issues.
Which parts of the physics, chemistry, biology and geography have changed?
What do you mean by "resource issues"?
Yup. And the additional advantage of nuclear is that is also produces quite a lot of residual heat. My home is heated from the residual heat from a power plant about 20km away.True. In the next decade, natural gas will slowly be replaced by green hydrogen (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/hydrogen-high-street-could-these-homes-change-the-way-we-keep-warm). Video (https://youtu.be/FSP5rPQElzA?t=41).With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
And the latter will also be more and more be used to manage the summer - winter balance.
Electrolysis will take advantage from PV (day summer) and nuclear (night summer).
Long term storage (for months) for use during winter months is done under earth, in salt cavities.
In a world where zero net carbon dioxide release becomes compulsory (2050, earlier ?), the poor yield of electrolysis is no longer important.
With nuclear power plants you don't want their output to exceed your base load (including some margin for maintenance shutdowns and other events).That is great, because you can use their output to feed electrolysers to produce hydrogen during the night when solar isn't producing.
The term "transported" has a very broad meaning, so I may be off-topic. In the affirmative, please forgive me :).
Need to be very careful about hydrogen as a fuel; too many excessive claims have been made in the past.
This summary seems very plausible. Notice that storage and use of hydrogen is local; it is not distributed nor transported.
Hello tggzzz,The term "transported" has a very broad meaning, so I may be off-topic. In the affirmative, please forgive me :).
Need to be very careful about hydrogen as a fuel; too many excessive claims have been made in the past.
This summary seems very plausible. Notice that storage and use of hydrogen is local; it is not distributed nor transported.
While local projects do indeed exist, I would like to point out that hydrogen is also starting to be transported over very long distances.
Just looking at one operator in one country, hydrogen is transported and distributed by pipelines, some of which are hundreds of kilometers long.
Eight projects in France (https://www.natrangroupe.com/en/our-energy-transition/hydrogen?page=0l) (split on two pages).
On that page (https://www.natran-deutschland.de/en/our-future/) you'll find the German map of the forecasted hydrogen pipelines (about 5900 km) over 90% of which is based on today's natural gas pipelines.
It's also interesting to notice that a pipeline has an immense capacity of energy transportation. The one that traverses France from North to South can carry 200 GWh/d of hydrogen.
To name a few: Lack of Lithium to built all the batteries the author proposes. The land area needed to grow wood for electricity and bio-fuel production (*). You also need to put things in the perspective that the UK is not the only country with these problems so there will be fierce competition (and cost) for any material which can not be mined / produced in extremely large volumes.That withouthotair book is woefully outdated and it doesn't look at resource and cost issues.
Which parts of the physics, chemistry, biology and geography have changed?
What do you mean by "resource issues"?
BTW, the general opinion on burning wood (bio-mass) has changed since then as this is not efficient use of land and causes similar pollution compared to coal (**). The book also doesn't really give an answer how to implement seasonal storage to provide electricity during the winter.
* The bio-fuel industry seems to have come to a standstill last time I checked. 1st generation bio-fuels (made from crops grown specifically for fuel) production seems to have levelled out due to environmental impact. 2nd generation bio-fuels (made from agricultural waste) looked promising for a while but there seems to be no major advances. It is logical the author mentions it as a solution at the time of writing but the world has moved on.
** If you look at the past you'll see quite a few governments have Pavloved into CO2=bad mode so they started to subsidise energy forms which do reduce CO2 but have adverse environmental effects in the form of extra pollution (like burning bio-mass and promoting diesel cars).
Hydrogen is going to play a huge role in transport.
Yes yes nctnico we know. It's coming soon! Soon! Maybe in 5 years? This time for sure! I'm already holding my breath.My guess at likely timeline of technologies:
I will not dwell on the subject because this is another realm and I feel I am off-topic in relation to the outage in Spain. Maybe I'll start a dedicated Hydrogen thread if there is interest. However, here are some links that mainly present a forecast on future projects. I would say that the story of large-scale hydrogen will begin in Europe in 3 years (2028).Hello tggzzz,The term "transported" has a very broad meaning, so I may be off-topic. In the affirmative, please forgive me :).
Need to be very careful about hydrogen as a fuel; too many excessive claims have been made in the past.
This summary seems very plausible. Notice that storage and use of hydrogen is local; it is not distributed nor transported.
While local projects do indeed exist, I would like to point out that hydrogen is also starting to be transported over very long distances.
Just looking at one operator in one country, hydrogen is transported and distributed by pipelines, some of which are hundreds of kilometers long.
Eight projects in France (https://www.natrangroupe.com/en/our-energy-transition/hydrogen?page=0l) (split on two pages).
On that page (https://www.natran-deutschland.de/en/our-future/) you'll find the German map of the forecasted hydrogen pipelines (about 5900 km) over 90% of which is based on today's natural gas pipelines.
It's also interesting to notice that a pipeline has an immense capacity of energy transportation. The one that traverses France from North to South can carry 200 GWh/d of hydrogen.
Useful examples, but it isn't clear to me how much more than "design concepts" those are. Design concepts are easy to produce, but the devil is in the implementation details.
Being "based on existing natural gas pipelines" raises a couple of questions. What will happen to the end users; will their equipment be hydrogen compatible? To what extent is the existing pipeline and plant compatible?
Somebody decided to save the money and turned off several gigawatt of solar power within a minute or so, starting an instability that finally lead to disaster.If this is confirmed, the root cause is truly disappointing and very basic. A phased shutdown of solar farms was certainly possible.
Appears similar to market turmoil caused by the Trump tariffs. People with power having difficulties to manage complex systems.
Somebody decided to save the money and turned off several gigawatt of solar power within a minute or so, starting an instability that finally lead to disaster.If this is confirmed, the root cause is truly disappointing and very basic. A phased shutdown of solar farms was certainly possible.
It is not confirmed, it's dietert1's theory. Quite an interesting one to be fair, but does not hold water.I understand. So let's see if @dietert1 can provide evidences to sustain his theory.
If it was at 12:30:01 or something, then dietert's theory would indeed sound more compelling.Maybe the guy needed a couple of minutes to understand he was loosing money :).
IIRC somebody said hopefully nuclear waste in the floor of the sea could be recovered?. In the case of Irish sea, perhaps. But not for the european-french waste. Here you have a bathymetry of Bay of Biscay. Do you see that red zone? There is where that waste is. Now you can look at the bar at the right and realize it's Titanic-like depthYou are not wrong (*). It was the case until the beginning of the 80' but mainly before 1970. It has not much to do with the nuclear power plants that are in operation. The waste stems from the atomic reseach (also military) made by several european countries : UK, Belgium, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.
Perhaps I'm wrong. But I don't think so.
Meanwhile it's more or less clear what happened. Before the blackout, Spain was exporting massive power to other countries. Then, at high noon energy prices went negative as they didn't know where to dump the extra energy. Somebody decided to save the money and turned off several gigawatt of solar power within a minute or so, starting an instability that finally lead to disaster. There has been another thread about negative energy prices: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/australia-people-paid-to-not-export-solar/msg5888716/#msg5888716 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/renewable-energy/australia-people-paid-to-not-export-solar/msg5888716/#msg5888716). Appears similar to market turmoil caused by the Trump tariffs. People with power having difficulties to manage complex systems.For me when reading reports I have a very different conclusion.
The sun is our existing nuclear fusion site and it gives us more energy than we may ever need. Yet it's not enough to setup the solar panels and inverters. We need storage capability. Like growing potatoes on the roof, if you want so. One disadvantage of hydrogen is the < 60 % efficiency when burning it. Maybe battery systems can do better.
Regards, Dieter
..Frequency went below 48 Hz initiating the national blackout after two large plants in southern Spain got disconnected within a minute or so.
shorter and shorter periods), but that does not explain why the disconnects happened starting at 12:32:57, which is quite far from both 1-hour and 15-minute market barriers.
If it was at 12:30:01 or something, then dietert's theory would indeed sound more compelling.
For me when reading reports I have a very different conclusion.
1 The frequency was a bit unstable
2 Someone/something disconnected the power connection to France
3 The frequency deviated even more, likely out of specification for inverters which lead to
4 Inverters shutting down making the issue even larger
I mean after they were assigned punishment prices at 12:30.
I mean after they were assigned punishment prices at 12:30.
To which market you are referring to? Spot market has been at -1.01EUR/MWh (which is not a lot by any means) for already 33 minutes during the incident. Same price in Portugal and France as well. So clearly not spot market? Maybe you have some deeper knowledge?
Let's try to avoid making stuff up.
i found this bulk price chart from the web
there is a dip on the 27th
but other than that i know nuts
Maybe the guy needed a couple of minutes to understand he was loosing money :).
I have to say, I agree more with dieter1. I think he has occam razor in his hands.
I also don't understand negative prices, i never got paid for my bill.
No, i don't have other info. Thanks for the data about prices.Prices aren't negative on the day-ahead market 99.9% of the time.
Certainly the break even price is above zero, e.g. at 10 €/MWh which is only 0,01 €/KWh. These low values indicate oversupply.
In the daily spot price curves, Spain and Portugal seem to be lower than everybody else, except "Nord Pool". Looks like they have PV energy in abundance and can't get better prices due to missing storage and grid connections to the rest of Europe. I remember in the days after the blackout it was said that a new power line from Spain to France will be constructed. But France with their high fraction of nuclear isn't a good entry point either.
I have some difficulty understanding how PV production can be auctioned one day in advance while there is the risk of negative prices. Wouldn't every producer try to stay away from negative prices? Assuming that they can turn off their production within minutes (technically and by legal condition). Of course it's a shame to turn a PV plant off when the sun is strong. This may cause a lot of anger about the french nuclear setting. Appears to be a very distant past when there were plans to build PV plants in Africa, near the equator.
Regards, Dieter
I have some difficulty understanding how PV production can be auctioned one day in advance while there is the risk of negative prices. Wouldn't every producer try to stay away from negative prices?
Of course it's a shame to turn a PV plant off when the sun is strong.
Those are waste casks and barrels you see in those open air ponds. They are not low level waste either. The newest pond being filled, yes they are still filling ponds with high level waste, is being filled with the reactor and fuel from the Windscale reactor that went on fire in 1957(?). I'm serious. They only DEFUELED the burnt out reactor in the past couple of years, 68 years to cool? They are still chiselling through the graphite core/pile today. It's all being "drummed up" and stored in open air ponds.Iirc those Windscale reactors (of a truly big Brit brain design btw) were breeding plutionium and tritium for them Brit Empire Nukes, thye had nothing common with energy. Be happy you have them handled in a civilized way. You could always do it the Russian ways: dump the high level liquid waste into nearby lakes and river [Mayak plants], or just dump the entire reactor wreck with fuel elements into the sea [Novaya Zemla dumping sites]. Is there any real reprocessing (PUREX-like processess) facilities which handle spent fuel rods in UK right now?
But i think the russian alternative looks even more martian.Live a bit further from them and it will appear Jovian. And they don't have to break anywhere, today they outsource almost all of their foreign ops to locals for pennies via the Voices from the Internet, including in/direct corruption or seemingly random in/action.
I really think that people are barking up the wrong tree regarding hydrogen and solar. The sun shines somwhere inthe world all of the time, there should be solar farms right around the globe at the eqater feeding electrolyers to produce hydrogen which is stored and transported to where power is required by ship and pipe.Yeah, right, equater solar farms in wet tropical climate, with rains and heavy clouds every day, and with 100% humidity which destroys metal contruction. I'm yet to see full ascend of Ariane rocket launching from French Guiana, unobscured by damn clouds.
Get a spot price contract and you will be paid. I have been paid, many have been paid, it's no magic. Of course, conversely, get a PV system and produce too much at wrong times without limiting your export, and then you are paying.
Negative prices are easy to understand.
(...)
This is in line with what is my experience of people using the phrase "occam's razor" - usually used with very little facts collected or verified.
So far, my takeaway is that Spain got so much PV that it's equivalent to roughly 40 nuclear reactors.
c) It looks like the problem is more about transmission lines than generation. IIRC, some years ago I heard Germany was not able to carry wind power, generated in the shores of the Baltic Sea, to the south, were it could be put to good use,
d) That blackout in Spain is ringing the same bell to me. I would think priority should now be to build more transmission lines. Storage should also be provided as soon as possible, so inverters could manage that inertia problem.
Is that right?
So far, my takeaway is that Spain got so much PV that it's equivalent to roughly 40 nuclear reactors.To solve the current climate crisis, multiple different power generation technologies must be used.
More accurately and usefully, somewhere between 0 and 40 nuclear reactors, depending on date, time, and weather.
c) It looks like the problem is more about transmission lines than generation. IIRC, some years ago I heard Germany was not able to carry wind power, generated in the shores of the Baltic Sea, to the south, were it could be put to good use,
d) That blackout in Spain is ringing the same bell to me. I would think priority should now be to build more transmission lines. Storage should also be provided as soon as possible, so inverters could manage that inertia problem.
Is that right?
More accurately and usefully, somewhere between 0 and 40 nuclear reactors, depending on date, time, and weather.
Yeah, that's right. But, trust me, spanish weather has very little to look like british weather. Even in the north. Just a narrow strip on the shores of the Bay of Biscay is usually cloudy. After passing over the mountains, there is usually sunny. To the point that is hard to me to stand up to it. Even in winter. Ask any british inmigrating to Spain how weather in Costa del Sol is like.
There is also about 40 equivalent nuclear reactors from wind. That cierzo wind going from the Atlantic/Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean, is quite strong and steady. When I am on family's home, I can hear it most of the days. That's the reason the northern half of Spain got so many windmills, while the southern half got PV.
Of course it could also be 0 in all even with the wind. But that posibility begins to look really a quite remote one. Then there is at least hydro, and if nothing else, combined cycle.
At the time we were fighting against Lemoniz NPP, should some green guru say that, someday, sun and wind would make so much power that, after exporting it to all our neighbors, there would still be so much electricity, that price would be negative, we would have thought he was high on LSD.
Edit: typos
So far, my takeaway is that Spain got so much PV that it's equivalent to roughly 40 nuclear reactors.
More accurately and usefully, somewhere between 0 and 40 nuclear reactors, depending on date, time, and weather.
If the problem is lack of capacity of transmission lines, then possibly that might help. But is it?
Note that Spain is ~1000km in diameter, which corresponds to a ~5ms delay in a 20ms/50Hz "signal". When adding a new generation source, it is necessary to synchronise it to the grid. Having to add many new geographically distributed generation sources is clearly non-trivial. Adding more transmission cables might make it more difficult to blackstart and synchronise the phase across Spain and beyond.
Think of the blackout as a control theory problem.
(...)
I'll bet that latency is seconds, and remember that "latency is physics, bandwidth is economics" :) It would be difficult to make such a control system stably respond to fast changes.
If the problem is lack of capacity of transmission lines, then possibly that might help. But is it?
Note that Spain is ~1000km in diameter, which corresponds to a ~5ms delay in a 20ms/50Hz "signal". When adding a new generation source, it is necessary to synchronise it to the grid. Having to add many new geographically distributed generation sources is clearly non-trivial. Adding more transmission cables might make it more difficult to blackstart and synchronise the phase across Spain and beyond.
Think of the blackout as a control theory problem.
(...)
I'll bet that latency is seconds, and remember that "latency is physics, bandwidth is economics" :) It would be difficult to make such a control system stably respond to fast changes.
I agree, but my point is, so far we have been told that would be "impossible" to generate enough electricity, unless nuclear power being used.
Well, it seems now that's not true.
Having the generation ability, I'm pretty sure control could be achieved.
OTOH, I still don't think control failed. I remember ENDESA lied to their own workers They made up that history about a fire in France that never happened. Why to do so?
As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
| Summary of New Realistic Setup Parameter Value Total Power 50 GW Head (Height Difference) 50 m Turbines 140 Power per Turbine ~357 MW Flow per Turbine ~810 m³/s Total Flow Rate ~113,400 m³/s |
Realism Check
Power per turbine (~357 MW): Matches current large hydro turbines
Flow per turbine (~810 m³/s): Comparable to the Three Gorges turbines
Total flow (~113,400 m³/s): Huge, but manageable over a wide dam (Gibraltar is ~14 km wide)
So, this is a realistic large-scale hydro project, still world-record scale, but not science fiction anymore.
| Summary of Material Needs Element Estimate Dam length ~14 km Average dam height ~500 m Base width ~1,000 m Volume required ~3.85 billion m³ Material source Feasible from North Africa Pit size (excavation) ~80 km² at 50 m depth Resulting basin/lake Possible, if water supplied |
Those are waste casks and barrels you see in those open air ponds. They are not low level waste either. The newest pond being filled, yes they are still filling ponds with high level waste, is being filled with the reactor and fuel from the Windscale reactor that went on fire in 1957(?). I'm serious. They only DEFUELED the burnt out reactor in the past couple of years, 68 years to cool? They are still chiselling through the graphite core/pile today. It's all being "drummed up" and stored in open air ponds.Iirc those Windscale reactors (of a truly big Brit brain design btw) were breeding plutionium and tritium for them Brit Empire Nukes, thye had nothing common with energy. Be happy you have them handled in a civilized way. You could always do it the Russian ways: dump the high level liquid waste into nearby lakes and river [Mayak plants], or just dump the entire reactor wreck with fuel elements into the sea [Novaya Zemla dumping sites]. Is there any real reprocessing (PUREX-like processess) facilities which handle spent fuel rods in UK right now?
Also keep in mind: majority of those nasty high level waste as well as those contaminated wastelands like Hanford Site or Mayak come from hot fuel rods reprocessing for plutionium. The thing is the specialized knowledge of keeping everything clean from radioactive contamination, of all radioactivity/radiotoxicity/toxicity of associated chemicals and their impact on health and environment was both not known at all up until like late 60-ties, when the peak nuclear production hysteria was already passing. Even if, it was subject to be ignored because the "nuclear war is coming and moar nukes are needed"/jobs retaining, and, well, human resources were mostly just another resource back then - if some die off, "women will give birth to more". Plus the mentality "future generations definitely will find out what to do with all the waste". Even in 1986, during the Chernobyl disaster none of this was a common knowledge - the HBO series show this exact aspect in a skewed image. Be grateful you can find out those issues in elementary school books today.
No, I'm not "nuke fanboy" or wtf any other strawman term coined here, nor I would not mind NPP behind my fence, nor open-air storage of dry cask with spent fuel rods - assuming I would get subsidized electricity and heat from the plant, no industrial noise, and the casks would not cast shadows into my garden, bonus points for having them behind a tree line. But none of this would happen anyway and I'm in a minority. And I also have PV installation, in total it was cheap af - installed it myself - options for normies is getting massivelly extorted by those installation companies which magically appeared alongside some dumb gov subsidiares programs...
The Mediterranean sea was empty some time back, people say.. What about to build a dam over the Gibraltar, create say, a 50m difference and put there XX turbines with generators? ;DI don't see how the Mediterranean would drop. Some major rivers end up in the Mediterranean so it can only rise. And due to the Suez canal, the Mediterranean sea is also a major freight shipping route. A lot of people will be unhappy if it gets closed off.
The Mediterranean sea drops by aprox 1m/year (??doublecheck) so in 50years (the time for building up the dam) we get the difference. And people around it will get new nice beaches handy.. :)
Hello dietert1,Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
Let's give it a try with the mature water storage technology (yield is about 80 %).
Look at the world biggest hydro pump storage station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station). 40 GWh of storage capacity.
You would need 17 of those, requiring 34 reservoirs or lakes having each a capacity around 50 Mm3. Surface of each reservoir/lake is about 200 km2.
The hydraulic head between the two reservoirs of each station must be at least 425 m.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:Please provide examples of existing pump stations ( PSHP) with 10km2 par pair of lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
anti-renewable (and other topic) troll is trolling. 1000km grid? high VRE generation mix?If the problem is lack of capacity of transmission lines, then possibly that might help. But is it?I agree, but my point is, so far we have been told that would be "impossible" to generate enough electricity, unless nuclear power being used.
Note that Spain is ~1000km in diameter, which corresponds to a ~5ms delay in a 20ms/50Hz "signal". When adding a new generation source, it is necessary to synchronise it to the grid. Having to add many new geographically distributed generation sources is clearly non-trivial. Adding more transmission cables might make it more difficult to blackstart and synchronise the phase across Spain and beyond.
Think of the blackout as a control theory problem.
(...)
I'll bet that latency is seconds, and remember that "latency is physics, bandwidth is economics" :) It would be difficult to make such a control system stably respond to fast changes.
Well, it seems now that's not true.
Having the generation ability, I'm pretty sure control could be achieved.
Hello Someone,So moving the goalposts and asking for an existing example, while you claim it could never be done but provide no reason why it couldnt? No comment as to why your claimed figures were wrong by more than an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.
Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:Please provide examples of existing pump stations with 10km2 par pair lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
Hello dietert1,Thanks for mentioning that Chinese site. There may be an error in those numbers, though. If you assume the water level can change by 2 m, then the 42E6 m³ moving water needs an area of 21 square kilometers, right? That appears more realistic, though you need it twice, once at the top, once at the bottom. Spain does have mountains. And an investor doesn't need 34 sites. He needs one.As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
Let's give it a try with the mature water storage technology (yield is about 80 %).
Look at the world biggest hydro pump storage station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station). 40 GWh of storage capacity.
You would need 17 of those, requiring 34 reservoirs or lakes having each a capacity around 50 Mm3. Surface of each reservoir/lake is about 200 km2.
The hydraulic head between the two reservoirs of each station must be at least 425 m.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
The Mediterranean sea was empty some time back, people say.. What about to build a dam over the Gibraltar, create say, a 50m difference and put there XX turbines with generators? ;DI don't see how the Mediterranean would drop. Some major rivers end up in the Mediterranean so it can only rise. And due to the Suez canal, the Mediterranean sea is also a major freight shipping route. A lot of people will be unhappy if it gets closed off.
The Mediterranean sea drops by aprox 1m/year (??doublecheck) so in 50years (the time for building up the dam) we get the difference. And people around it will get new nice beaches handy.. :)
Why doesn't it [pumped hydro energy storage] happen?
It is not done and will never be so because you do not have the suitable terrain and the required hydraulic head to do so. Especially not in Spain (15 times smaller than Australia).Hello Someone,So moving the goalposts and asking for an existing example, while you claim it could never be done but provide no reason why it couldnt? No comment as to why your claimed figures were wrong by more than an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.
Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:Please provide examples of existing pump stations with 10km2 par pair lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
These are mature technologies which no-one (other than you seemingly) questions the ability of it to work. The scaling is trivial (high school) physics.
Sometimes i am wondering about certain people getting presents, e.g. a Boeing 747. The money that was and still is earned from fossils gets used in a wrong way.Receiving a boeing 747 as a present is not a gift out of affection. It is somebody else dumping their old, antiquated shit on you! Saves them money disposing it.
On public trust.... well, the UK government has a very consistent track record in this area.you missed the important one out - Rename, ask most people under 50 were is calder hall and most wouldnt know,give it a few more years and the same response will happen with windscale
* Deny
* Delay
* Downplay
* Only partially admit
Yes, meanwhile i saw there exist three 500 GWh class hydro storage plants within Spain plus many more smaller ones. Elevations are between 600 and 1000 m. Their storage time is about 50 h, so that may be the reason why they don't completely cover demand during the night.Probably if these three gigantic PSHPs had existed a fortnight ago, the total blackout might have been thwarted.
Sometimes i am wondering about certain people getting presents, e.g. a Boeing 747. The money that was and still is earned from fossils gets used in a wrong way.
Regards, Dieter
Edit: Those appear to be potential hydro storage sites, yet without plants until now. In 2022 total installed hydro storage in Spain was about 100 GWh.
Probably if these three gigantic PSHPs had existed a fortnight ago, the total blackout might have been thwarted.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
You said some specific quantity of storage would require some enormous land area and number of sites (quote tower above fixed to include the full context). Except when we ask the experts they say it can be done with much less space and number of sites... so now you claim it cannot possible ever be built at large scale? ok if that were true (you have no evidence this cannot scale) then we build many smaller scale plants of similar size to existing examples. Which can be easily found within the borders of spain, in that map I shared above (you asked for a map, have at it). This is all realistic and doable with todays technology and price point.It is not done and will never be so because you do not have the suitable terrain and the required hydraulic head to do so. Especially not in Spain (15 times smaller than Australia).Hello Someone,So moving the goalposts and asking for an existing example, while you claim it could never be done but provide no reason why it couldnt? No comment as to why your claimed figures were wrong by more than an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.Please provide examples of existing pump stations with 10km2 par pair lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.Hello dietert1,Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
Let's give it a try with the mature water storage technology (yield is about 80 %).
Look at the world biggest hydro pump storage station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station). 40 GWh of storage capacity.
You would need 17 of those, requiring 34 reservoirs or lakes having each a capacity around 50 Mm3. Surface of each reservoir/lake is about 200 km2.
The hydraulic head between the two reservoirs of each station must be at least 425 m.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
These are mature technologies which no-one (other than you seemingly) questions the ability of it to work. The scaling is trivial (high school) physics.
And now we have:The technology does scale and has real world examples of it.No, it's Schrödinger's renewables: it produces nearly nothing, yet at the same time it produces so much it swamps whole countries and collapses their grids due to overproduction.
The impact on nature and safety issues will likely make most of the hydro storage projects a non-starter. Another question: where is the water coming from? Spain isn't particulary wet so hydro storage systems would need two reservoirs: one high and one low to preserve the water.Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
Spain is mostly a plateau over 500 meter altitude. I have to soar that in about 40 kms to go from Donostia to Iruña (you know, where the people runs with the bulls) It's more or less the same all allong the Bay of Biscay.
To the east, we have the Pyrenees, peaks are about 2,000-3,000 meters most of the time. Then, along the Mediterranean coast, You have Teruel, where the roads go at about 1,000 meters altitude, and you are at about perhaps 200 meters over sea level in 50-60 kms?, and it goes similarly until Gibraltar.
IIRC, Spain is the most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland. So, even in the plateau, you have plenty of sierras with more than 500 meter altitude difference above the plains.
Of course, urban ecologist would be howling... but I'm pretty sure there are lots and lots of possible locations.
Map, read it:The impact on nature and safety issues will likely make most of the hydro storage projects a non-starter. Another question: where is the water coming from? Spain isn't particulary wet so hydro storage systems would need two reservoirs: one high and one low to preserve the water.Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
Spain is mostly a plateau over 500 meter altitude. I have to soar that in about 40 kms to go from Donostia to Iruña (you know, where the people runs with the bulls) It's more or less the same all allong the Bay of Biscay.
To the east, we have the Pyrenees, peaks are about 2,000-3,000 meters most of the time. Then, along the Mediterranean coast, You have Teruel, where the roads go at about 1,000 meters altitude, and you are at about perhaps 200 meters over sea level in 50-60 kms?, and it goes similarly until Gibraltar.
IIRC, Spain is the most mountainous country in Europe after Switzerland. So, even in the plateau, you have plenty of sierras with more than 500 meter altitude difference above the plains.
Of course, urban ecologist would be howling... but I'm pretty sure there are lots and lots of possible locations.
Caution with significant hydraulic head : at 1000 m, how much time is required to go from zero to full power ? 20 s ? 40 s ? 1 minute ? More ?
Pyrotechnic starts for emergency generators, I have never seen those. And I work with emergency gennys....
They just have a redundant amount of ready to go diesel engines and battery backups. Those are online within a minute with static-synchronization.
]Map, read it:
https://re100.anu.edu.au/
People are claiming the possibility of pumped hydro without considering both reservoirs? shame on you even suggesting such a bare faced lie. That map also lets you filter on protected environments, as if mining never just walks into protected areas and says "but this is more important":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabiluka
or pumped hydro being compatible with protected areas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_2.0_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station
Pyrotechnic starts for emergency generators, I have never seen those. And I work with emergency gennys....
They just have a redundant amount of ready to go diesel engines and battery backups. Those are online within a minute with static-synchronization.
Yesterday i learned something about the Cortes-La Muela hydroelectric storage. It has about 800 m height, generators for about 1.5 to 2 GW and can start generating power "within some seconds". That means the water tubes are large enough to keep water speed and friction small. Or they use some kind of pressure vessel at the bottom.Caution with significant hydraulic head : at 1000 m, how much time is required to go from zero to full power ? 20 s ? 40 s ? 1 minute ? More ?
At nuclear power plants, it is critically important to ensure uninterrupted power supply to essential safety systems. To prepare for potential failures in both the external grids and the plant's own power generation, large emergency diesel generators - usually the size of a large building are installed. These generators are very powerful and require significant effort to start. To enable rapid activation, they are equipped with high-energy pyrotechnic charges that act as starters. This setup allows emergency generators to be brought online within seconds, even in the event of sudden multiple power source failures. These systems undergo regular scheduled tests, during which the loud detonations from the pyrotechnic starters can often be heard.
Maybe a similar approach might be considered for pumped-storage hydroelectric stations. While the hydroelectric station is ramping up, powerful diesel generators - initiated by pyrotechnic charges are activated to temporarily support the power grid.
Yesterday i learned something about the Cortes-La Muela hydroelectric storage. It has about 800 m height, generators for about 1.5 to 2 GW and can start generating power "within some seconds". That means the water tubes are large enough to keep water speed and friction small. Or they use some kind of pressure vessel at the bottom.Caution with significant hydraulic head : at 1000 m, how much time is required to go from zero to full power ? 20 s ? 40 s ? 1 minute ? More ?
At nuclear power plants, it is critically important to ensure uninterrupted power supply to essential safety systems. To prepare for potential failures in both the external grids and the plant's own power generation, large emergency diesel generators - usually the size of a large building are installed. These generators are very powerful and require significant effort to start. To enable rapid activation, they are equipped with high-energy pyrotechnic charges that act as starters. This setup allows emergency generators to be brought online within seconds, even in the event of sudden multiple power source failures. These systems undergo regular scheduled tests, during which the loud detonations from the pyrotechnic starters can often be heard.
Maybe a similar approach might be considered for pumped-storage hydroelectric stations. While the hydroelectric station is ramping up, powerful diesel generators - initiated by pyrotechnic charges are activated to temporarily support the power grid.
Regards, Dieter
A) The map you are praising shows locations without plants. It is nothing else than a topographic analysis : 'by using geographic information system (GIS) analysis'.You said some specific quantity of storage would require some enormous land area and number of sites (quote tower above fixed to include the full context). Except when we ask the experts they say it can be done with much less space and number of sites... so now you claim it cannot possible ever be built at large scale? ok if that were true (you have no evidence this cannot scale) then we build many smaller scale plants of similar size to existing examples. Which can be easily found within the borders of spain, in that map I shared above (you asked for a map, have at it). This is all realistic and doable with todays technology and price point.It is not done and will never be so because you do not have the suitable terrain and the required hydraulic head to do so. Especially not in Spain (15 times smaller than Australia).Hello Someone,So moving the goalposts and asking for an existing example, while you claim it could never be done but provide no reason why it couldnt? No comment as to why your claimed figures were wrong by more than an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.Please provide examples of existing pump stations with 10km2 par pair lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.Hello dietert1,Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
Let's give it a try with the mature water storage technology (yield is about 80 %).
Look at the world biggest hydro pump storage station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station). 40 GWh of storage capacity.
You would need 17 of those, requiring 34 reservoirs or lakes having each a capacity around 50 Mm3. Surface of each reservoir/lake is about 200 km2.
The hydraulic head between the two reservoirs of each station must be at least 425 m.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959 (https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959)
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
These are mature technologies which no-one (other than you seemingly) questions the ability of it to work. The scaling is trivial (high school) physics.
You have zero standing on this, with all the information in front of you the new "arguments" fail immediately. But do continue to try and distract everyone from the easily available public data showing Spain (like almost every country in the world) has enough untapped pumped hydro storage to pivot to a 100% variable renewable grid:
https://re100.anu.edu.au/ (https://re100.anu.edu.au/)
100% VRE is already an illogical extreme position as hydro (without the need for pumps) is dispatchable already, and can back the "unreliable" sources. What fraction of storage is needed depends on how much capacity is installed and the geographic spread of resources. You jumped to 100% solar + pumped hydro only, when real world would include something more like wind producing 50-60% of generation. I could add some stupid straw man argument about a water column 1km high only needing a tiny land area to store huge amounts of energy, just as dumb as your figures/positions.
They are also equipped with large emergency axes mounted throughout the facility :) Intended for manually severing power cables in critical situations.:-DD Hope they got long handles.
Only 150 kW ? :)Yesterday i learned something about the Cortes-La Muela hydroelectric storage. It has about 800 m height, generators for about 1.5 to 2 GW and can start generating power "within some seconds". That means the water tubes are large enough to keep water speed and friction small. Or they use some kind of pressure vessel at the bottom.Caution with significant hydraulic head : at 1000 m, how much time is required to go from zero to full power ? 20 s ? 40 s ? 1 minute ? More ?
At nuclear power plants, it is critically important to ensure uninterrupted power supply to essential safety systems. To prepare for potential failures in both the external grids and the plant's own power generation, large emergency diesel generators - usually the size of a large building are installed. These generators are very powerful and require significant effort to start. To enable rapid activation, they are equipped with high-energy pyrotechnic charges that act as starters. This setup allows emergency generators to be brought online within seconds, even in the event of sudden multiple power source failures. These systems undergo regular scheduled tests, during which the loud detonations from the pyrotechnic starters can often be heard.
Maybe a similar approach might be considered for pumped-storage hydroelectric stations. While the hydroelectric station is ramping up, powerful diesel generators - initiated by pyrotechnic charges are activated to temporarily support the power grid.
Regards, Dieter
T Folse on YouTube gave figures for generator start. Chynobel the generators too a minute or more, hence the turbine rundown test. Modern reactors it's 8 seconds from "demand" to "full power available".
If there is a total loss of grid, the lights stay on, but heavy machinery including coolant pumps, lose power. The plant will run on battery stacks which only power instrumentation and some lower power systems.
Power is not required to shut the reactor down. If there is nobody in the building and you cut the HV wires, the reactor will mechanically/automatically scram. The rods will fall in under 1 second.
That takes the power level from 100% down to about 6% in a few seconds and down to 1% after a few minutes. A 1500MW plant, that's still 150kW of heat. This is why the diesel generators need to start fast to restore circulation... beyond "natural convection" which will work.
The sun continues to rise, the interconnection with France and its 2.8 GW of capacity is quickly saturated, and despite total exports of more than 4 GW, the load becomes less than production. It's a fall. "Around 12:30 p.m.," the expert explains, "Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!Again, bullshit claims violating Kirchoff's current law.
A collapsing grid... What is being stated is that the generating capacity is 32GW while there is only 22GW of consumption which ofcourse isn't a workable situation and hence the grid collapsed (according to what has been quoted above). There is no violation of any laws here!The sun continues to rise, the interconnection with France and its 2.8 GW of capacity is quickly saturated, and despite total exports of more than 4 GW, the load becomes less than production. It's a fall. "Around 12:30 p.m.," the expert explains, "Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!Again, bullshit claims violating Kirchoff's current law.
Please, have these experts explain how do you put too much current into a wire, more current than what comes out of it?
A collapsing grid... What is being stated is that the generating capacity is 32GW while there is only 22GW of consumption which ofcourse isn't a workable situation and hence the grid collapsed (according to what has been quoted above). There is no violation of any laws here!The sun continues to rise, the interconnection with France and its 2.8 GW of capacity is quickly saturated, and despite total exports of more than 4 GW, the load becomes less than production. It's a fall. "Around 12:30 p.m.," the expert explains, "Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!Again, bullshit claims violating Kirchoff's current law.
Please, have these experts explain how do you put too much current into a wire, more current than what comes out of it?
"Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!An electricity grid is not a bucket. Kirchhoff applies to electrical network of any size.
As another forum member explained earlier, it is wise to keep in mind that in Spain/Portugal noon is actually at 2 PM (14h00 CET).
An electricity grid is not a bucket. Kirchhoff applies to electrical network of any size.
I would not really focus only on the figures which do not clearly explain in one unique sentence the total production, the local consumption and the amount of exported power. All this has of course to match in order to keep the grid at it's nominal frequency.A collapsing grid... What is being stated is that the generating capacity is 32GW while there is only 22GW of consumption which ofcourse isn't a workable situation and hence the grid collapsed (according to what has been quoted above). There is no violation of any laws here!The sun continues to rise, the interconnection with France and its 2.8 GW of capacity is quickly saturated, and despite total exports of more than 4 GW, the load becomes less than production. It's a fall. "Around 12:30 p.m.," the expert explains, "Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!Again, bullshit claims violating Kirchoff's current law.
Please, have these experts explain how do you put too much current into a wire, more current than what comes out of it?"Spain's production consists of 22 GW of solar and wind power for a total production of 32 GW – 7 GW more than its consumption!An electricity grid is not a bucket. Kirchhoff applies to electrical network of any size.
I'm taking that report with a pinch of salt. Contrary to radiolistener's experience, mine tells conspirators are powerful, very rich people able to pay for fabricated news/opeds published in mainstream media, while average people has to resort to methods that could easily be called "violence" and "terrorism". Maybe things are different there, i don't know. But this is Spain.
About the french secret service looking forNo the French secret service is not focused on finding Martians :).martianrussian hands, well, i take that with a mountain of salt. Not that it would really surprise me. We really deserve it, i think. But official narrative in that matter has very little to do with reality. I'm pretty sure of that.
While this may sound conspiratorial at first, history offers numerous examples of false-flag operations and manipulative tactics used to consolidate power. Governments across the world, not excluding Spain, have been implicated in such strategies.
I have always wondered about that but there is little published about it.
The local control loop for a generator (or load) can synthesize a negative resistance by manipulating its excitation, and if the negative resistance exceeds losses between the generator and load or another generator, oscillation becomes possible and even likely. This would manifest as increasing swings in voltage and frequency, with increasing phase shifts at each end better imagined than witnessed with rotating source and loads. (1) There are other ways to model this other than negative resistance, but they lead to the same results. Transmission line losses act to prevent this through dampening, or put another way, allowing greater negative resistance to be tolerated. The transmission line losses could also be seen as adding a zero to the system reducing phase lag, or countering negative resistance from any source or load preventing the combined resistance from going negative.
Grid-tie inverters make this much worse because they can synthesize any response, including non-linear ones, but I have never seen requirements and specifications for control loop response. If I was designing a grid-tie inverter, I would sure use some variation of a damped response, and maybe even play games to maximize phase margin. Some large scale predictive models no doubt rely on small grid-tie inverters operating independently of every other, but the response of inverters from the same manufacturer is likely to be uniform leading to an unrealistic model.
I have only done modeling of interlinked mechanical and electric systems in these terms a couple of times, but I always got good results once mistakes were fixed. I assume power engineers get good at this, and management then ignores them. Engineering is subordinate to politics.
(1) I have witnessed it a couple times at small scales, and it was both loud and destructive.
I would caution against the assumption that what’s often labeled as "..." or "..." necessarily originates from average citizens acting independently.Wait a second, i didn't wrote "necessarily originates from average citizens acting independently"
average people has to resort to methods that could easily be called...mainly because they don't have the money/power to do things the oligarch way
Ordinary people have no need or desire for wars or acts of terror. What they truly seek is a peaceful life - one where they can work, raise their children, contribute positively to their communities, and focus on everyday concerns like home, family, and personal well-being. Their goals are grounded in stability, not conflict.Well, i do know quite a few ordinary people that thought differently. In fact, the microdistrict where I was raised, has the world record of that ordinary people per square meter.
While this may sound conspiratorial at first, history offers numerous examples of false-flag operations and manipulative tactics used to consolidate power. Governments across the world, not excluding Spain, have been implicated in such strategies.I guess you mean, like when we (allegedly at the time) purposedly broke that battleship in La Habana harbour? ;)
An electricity grid is not a bucket. Kirchhoff applies to electrical network of any size.
It's important to recognize the dynamic behavior of the system during transient events. Unlike a purely static model, a real power grid can temporarily store and redistribute energy in the form of magnetic and electric fields - within the inductances and capacitances of lines, transformers, and machines.
[...]
Similarly, in a power grid during transient conditions, energy is dynamically stored and released across the network. This is why purely static interpretations of Kirchhoff’s laws must be extended with time-domain considerations - the system behaves not just as an interconnection of nodes, but as a distributed energy storage and transfer medium.
Hello Someone,So you've moved form completely misleading claims of huge land areas required (which that analysis shows is false) to oh but you can't prove they are viable economically? That those authors address simply, there are so many possible locations and resources that it is implausible enough couldn't be found that are practically realisable.A) The map you are praising shows locations without plants. It is nothing else than a topographic analysis : 'by using geographic information system (GIS) analysis'.You said some specific quantity of storage would require some enormous land area and number of sites (quote tower above fixed to include the full context). Except when we ask the experts they say it can be done with much less space and number of sites... so now you claim it cannot possible ever be built at large scale? ok if that were true (you have no evidence this cannot scale) then we build many smaller scale plants of similar size to existing examples. Which can be easily found within the borders of spain, in that map I shared above (you asked for a map, have at it). This is all realistic and doable with todays technology and price point.It is not done and will never be so because you do not have the suitable terrain and the required hydraulic head to do so. Especially not in Spain (15 times smaller than Australia).Hello Someone,So moving the goalposts and asking for an existing example, while you claim it could never be done but provide no reason why it couldnt? No comment as to why your claimed figures were wrong by more than an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE.Please provide examples of existing pump stations with 10km2 par pair lakes that can feature 120 GWh of storage and 6 GW of installed power.Hello dietert1,Your numbers are wildly exaggerated (off by an order of magnitude) and the maps are already publicly available:As Siwastaja wrote above the discussion about energy storage started much earlier and in the context of nuclear energy. Why doesn't it happen? Isn't that a good investment to supplement the large Spanish PV plants by storage? When you look at the price diagrams, it seems that even a 24 hour storage could achieve like 99% self-supply.... which leads to a storage capacity of 28 GW x 24 h = 672 GWh (ballpark).
Let's give it a try with the mature water storage technology (yield is about 80 %).
Look at the world biggest hydro pump storage station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fengning_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station). 40 GWh of storage capacity.
You would need 17 of those, requiring 34 reservoirs or lakes having each a capacity around 50 Mm3. Surface of each reservoir/lake is about 200 km2.
The hydraulic head between the two reservoirs of each station must be at least 425 m.
Maybe you can check the map of Spain if there are suitable locations for those 34 reservoirs ?
https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959 (https://re100.anu.edu.au/#share=g-d39a5688446926d55bf059716f828959)
plenty of pumped hydro resource spread all over spain (and most of the world).
4-5 pond pairs of less than 10km2 per pair could meet that 600-700GWh goal.
These are mature technologies which no-one (other than you seemingly) questions the ability of it to work. The scaling is trivial (high school) physics.
You have zero standing on this, with all the information in front of you the new "arguments" fail immediately. But do continue to try and distract everyone from the easily available public data showing Spain (like almost every country in the world) has enough untapped pumped hydro storage to pivot to a 100% variable renewable grid:
https://re100.anu.edu.au/ (https://re100.anu.edu.au/)
100% VRE is already an illogical extreme position as hydro (without the need for pumps) is dispatchable already, and can back the "unreliable" sources. What fraction of storage is needed depends on how much capacity is installed and the geographic spread of resources. You jumped to 100% solar + pumped hydro only, when real world would include something more like wind producing 50-60% of generation. I could add some stupid straw man argument about a water column 1km high only needing a tiny land area to store huge amounts of energy, just as dumb as your figures/positions.
What a lack of seriousness and realism.
You cannot fill a reservoir with water if the soil is porous. Do you understand that ?While you fail to understand that water proof lining of hydro storage is a completely normal and low cost activity.
Yep. Many farmers here build "balsas" -water reservoirs at small scale- using some lining to avoid filtrations. Probably about one for each farm of medium-major size, if owner is minimally serious. Otherwise they would be screwed big time, even a short drought would destroy any possible harvest.You cannot fill a reservoir with water if the soil is porous. Do you understand that ?While you fail to understand that water proof lining of hydro storage is a completely normal and low cost activity.
I would caution against the assumption that what’s often labeled as "..." or "..." necessarily originates from average citizens acting independently.Wait a second, i didn't wrote "necessarily originates from average citizens acting independently"
What I did write was:Quoteaverage people has to resort to methods that could easily be called...mainly because they don't have the money/power to do things the oligarch way
..Ordinary people have no need or desire for wars or acts of terror. What they truly seek is a peaceful life - one where they can work, raise their children, contribute positively to their communities, and focus on everyday concerns like home, family, and personal well-being. Their goals are grounded in stability, not conflict..
[OT] Well, all devil regimes (and their leaders) build up their devil power on the fact, that the above is basically not "true". Those "ordinary people" want the "peaceful life" mostly for themselves only, but deeply in their very souls they may easily hate/discriminate some other people/entities/nationalities for basically any reasons you may imagine..
I understand your perspective, but it reflects a somewhat idealized and, frankly, naive view of how real power structures operate. In practice, individuals who might be capable of offering meaningful resistance to repressive state mechanisms are proactively identified and neutralized - often literally by the system long before they can act.
Frankly, have you ever heard about a regime (and its leaders) which came to a devil power while they were not supported by the "peaceful ordinary people" in practice ?
2 meals. 2 meals from ripping each others eyes out like magpies. Civilisation is 2 meals deep.
2 meals. 2 meals from ripping each others eyes out like magpies. Civilisation is 2 meals deep.
Only 150 kW ? :)
Frankly, have you ever heard about a regime (and its leaders) which came to a devil power while they were not supported by the "peaceful ordinary people" in practice ?
There is no comparison there. For hydro storage you need dams which are tens of meters in height. This translates to some serious water pressure prone to seeping through any crack / opening and causing erosion and ground water level issues. With some dam heights over 40 meters, the pressure will be higher than your tap at home! Really, building a basin that high / deep is specialist work and it will likely need to be made entirely out of reinforced concrete to sustain the pressures involved. Timeandfrequency's assesment of how useful the map is, is really on point. It is nothing more than a highly theoretical tool. But more likely the result of the question 'can we do something cool with GIS data?'. Let's see if we can make AI find lakes and higher plateaus nearby and dream up some numbers.Yep. Many farmers here build "balsas" -water reservoirs at small scale- using some lining to avoid filtrations. Probably about one for each farm of medium-major size, if owner is minimally serious. Otherwise they would be screwed big time, even a short drought would destroy any possible harvest.You cannot fill a reservoir with water if the soil is porous. Do you understand that ?While you fail to understand that water proof lining of hydro storage is a completely normal and low cost activity.
There is no comparison there. For hydro storage you need dams which are tens of meters in height. This translates to some serious water pressure prone to seeping through any crack / opening and causing erosion and ground water level issues. With some dam heights over 40 meters, the pressure will be higher than your tap at home! Really, building a basin that high / deep is specialist work and it will likely need to be made entirely out of reinforced concrete to sustain the pressures involved. Timeandfrequency's assesment of how useful the map is, is really on point. It is nothing more than a highly theoretical tool. But more likely the result of the question 'can we do something cool with GIS data?'. Let's see if we can make AI find lakes and higher plateaus nearby and dream up some numbers.
Yes, it is all specific to the site and has many engineering trade-offs: higher dam and smaller area or smaller dam and larger area? no one size fits all answer. And the claims are silly too:There is no comparison there. For hydro storage you need dams which are tens of meters in height. This translates to some serious water pressure prone to seeping through any crack / opening and causing erosion and ground water level issues. With some dam heights over 40 meters, the pressure will be higher than your tap at home! Really, building a basin that high / deep is specialist work and it will likely need to be made entirely out of reinforced concrete to sustain the pressures involved. Timeandfrequency's assesment of how useful the map is, is really on point. It is nothing more than a highly theoretical tool. But more likely the result of the question 'can we do something cool with GIS data?'. Let's see if we can make AI find lakes and higher plateaus nearby and dream up some numbers.No, you don't need a dam tens of meters in height. There are plenty of refurbished hydro power stations here that have dams less than 5 meters in height. What you need to make the most profit is to get the biggest possible difference in height between the level of water and the turbine. So usually these dams less than 5 meters in height are the start for a channel, that goes at the same altitude all along the valey, until there is enough altitude difference over the talweg, so you are now able to make a very good profit of it. Then it goes right down trough a pipe, until it reachs the turbine, placed in the bottom of the valley. Then you can build another little dam and another channel, and so on.
Even so, if you ever come here, you will be able to see, all along rivers as Bidasoa and Oria, old hydro facilities, that dont have any channel and have just these 5 meters -or less- hydro potential. I remember these were all long time abandoned in the 1980s, but all were refurbished in the 1990s and early 2000s.
So I have to think they are profitable.
a) it's not AI or something else which is extrapolating/guessing/fitting for that data set, rather a conventional hand made algorithm which uses well agreed upon physical and economic inputs.There is no comparison there. For hydro storage you need dams which are tens of meters in height. This translates to some serious water pressure prone to seeping through any crack / opening and causing erosion and ground water level issues. With some dam heights over 40 meters, the pressure will be higher than your tap at home! Really, building a basin that high / deep is specialist work and it will likely need to be made entirely out of reinforced concrete to sustain the pressures involved. Timeandfrequency's assesment of how useful the map is, is really on point. It is nothing more than a highly theoretical tool. But more likely the result of the question 'can we do something cool with GIS data?'. Let's see if we can make AI find lakes and higher plateaus nearby and dream up some numbers.Yep. Many farmers here build "balsas" -water reservoirs at small scale- using some lining to avoid filtrations. Probably about one for each farm of medium-major size, if owner is minimally serious. Otherwise they would be screwed big time, even a short drought would destroy any possible harvest.You cannot fill a reservoir with water if the soil is porous. Do you understand that ?While you fail to understand that water proof lining of hydro storage is a completely normal and low cost activity.
I think there is a simpler motivation; skewing the economics allows for plenty of rent seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).
For example emission of fossil carbon dioxide could be modeled as a tort, where a Pigouvian tax could be used as an efficient remedy, but instead we get cap-and-trade with its infinite possibilities of rent seeking. I was looking over the current Canadian "carbon tax" and it is not.
I think there is a simpler motivation; skewing the economics allows for plenty of rent seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).
For example emission of fossil carbon dioxide could be modeled as a tort, where a Pigouvian tax could be used as an efficient remedy, but instead we get cap-and-trade with its infinite possibilities of rent seeking. I was looking over the current Canadian "carbon tax" and it is not.
Had to look up "Pigouvian/Pigovian tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax)"! It can also be considered as an attempt to avoid The Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
Either way, the current carbon taxes are no more than greenwashing, not only because they allow the polluter to continue polluting, but also because there is no way of ensuring the "benefits" aren't being sold multiple times to multiple companies.
I think there is a simpler motivation; skewing the economics allows for plenty of rent seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).
For example emission of fossil carbon dioxide could be modeled as a tort, where a Pigouvian tax could be used as an efficient remedy, but instead we get cap-and-trade with its infinite possibilities of rent seeking. I was looking over the current Canadian "carbon tax" and it is not.
Had to look up "Pigouvian/Pigovian tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax)"! It can also be considered as an attempt to avoid The Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
Either way, the current carbon taxes are no more than greenwashing, not only because they allow the polluter to continue polluting, but also because there is no way of ensuring the "benefits" aren't being sold multiple times to multiple companies.
Joseph Stiglitz' recent book (The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society Norton 2024) discusses Pigovian taxes as a solution for the Tragedy of the Commons. He prefers regulation for the traditional problem and current environmental problems.
I think there is a simpler motivation; skewing the economics allows for plenty of rent seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking).
For example emission of fossil carbon dioxide could be modeled as a tort, where a Pigouvian tax could be used as an efficient remedy, but instead we get cap-and-trade with its infinite possibilities of rent seeking. I was looking over the current Canadian "carbon tax" and it is not.
Had to look up "Pigouvian/Pigovian tax (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax)"! It can also be considered as an attempt to avoid The Tragedy of the Commons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
Either way, the current carbon taxes are no more than greenwashing, not only because they allow the polluter to continue polluting, but also because there is no way of ensuring the "benefits" aren't being sold multiple times to multiple companies.
Joseph Stiglitz' recent book (The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society Norton 2024) discusses Pigovian taxes as a solution for the Tragedy of the Commons. He prefers regulation for the traditional problem and current environmental problems.
David Friedman discusses Pigovian taxes as a remedy for negative externalities which would be inefficiency handled through torts in court. Dilute pollution is an example where it would be irrational for any individual to seek compensation, but a tax actually fits. In my view there is no difference, so for instance taxes on income treat income (and profits) as a negative externality which must be minimized and punished.
tggzzz seems to be describing cap-and-trade, so I do not understand his point. An economic solution like a Pigovian tax makes sure that if we must pollute, we only do so where it provides the greatest benefit, rather than the whims of a politician seeking rents.
Allow me to share some observations on the "green renewable" subject. The fundamental mistake of radical proponents of "green renewables" lies in extrapolating the proven benefits of these technologies in limited contexts to all scales and applications. (...)
So Spain is getting rid of any nuclear power.
You can take Germany as an example, where all nuclear plants have already been shut down. As far as i understand the confrontation with Russia caused much more trouble, but in the end it may speed up the necessary transitions. I think everybody is surprised by how fast renewables have been growing. I still remember experts saying that PV will never contribute more than 5 %.It's very difficult to make any conclusion from the German electricity price because it is heavily taxxed and they decided that chaos and shotgun approach is the best they can do. For example the government would finance 100% cost of some solar installations like balkonkraftwerk. Up to 500EUR and 800W. Which meant that they started making 800W systems for exactly 500EUR. While two 400W panels cost 60EUR and a 800W inverter is like a 100EUR from Hoymilles. So the government stepping in resulted systems that are about twice as expensive as they could be.
For the time being electricity for the private consumer is very expensive, about 0.70 €/kWh including VAT (!!) and as far as i understand a transition to 80 % renewables is under way until 2035. There exist laws to shutdown all coal power plants until 2035. It's a process to be checked at multiple revision dates.
Of course we don't know yet when and how a similar transition will be possible for private transportation. The EU wants it but it affects the consumer side of the system. For any democratic government it's easier to modify the supply side.
Regards, Dieter
It would be interesting to know how the phase-out of nuclear energy has affected electricity/fuel prices, living standards, and the overall economy in Spain.
[..]Nah, it's about half as much (at least here in Lower Saxony).
For the time being electricity for the private consumer is very expensive, about 0.70 €/kWh including VAT (!!) and as far as i understand a transition to 80 % renewables is under way until 2035.
[..]
and as far as i understand a transition to 80 % renewables is under way until 2035
...
tggzzz seems to be describing cap-and-trade, so I do not understand his point. An economic solution like a Pigovian tax makes sure that if we must pollute, we only do so where it provides the greatest benefit, rather than the whims of a politician seeking rents.
I was thinking, loosely, of the various schemes that enable a polluter to buy some.form of permit with the claim that it will be used to avoid someone else polluting somewhere else. Typically that is something more more or less unverifiable, such as replacing a third world pollution source with a less polluting source.
Compared.with such "trades", legal regulation seems simpler and more direct, and less subject to fraud. But not without lesser imperfections, of course.
So Spain is getting rid of any nuclear power.
@ guenthert: Prices are high and there seem to be large price differences. That 70 cents/kWh price i quoted was what i remembered from our last electricity bill. It included three months of 2023 and the exact number was 0,5761 €/kWh + 19 % VAT = 0,69 €/kWh. Meanwhile we pay 45,43 €/kWh + 19 % VAT = 54,06 €/kWh.[..]Nah, it's about half as much (at least here in Lower Saxony).
For the time being electricity for the private consumer is very expensive, about 0.70 €/kWh including VAT (!!) and as far as i understand a transition to 80 % renewables is under way until 2035.
[..]
Not intending to pick on dietert1, the sentiment that electricity is very expensive is common and compared to other industrial countries prices are high (but only some 30% more than e.g. in France with its high share of energy coming from nuclear reactors). From personal experience, I don't lose sleep over my electricity bill, it's currently some €36/month (with the default plan offered by my local utilities), i.e. less than what I paid in Silicon Valley (probably because of the older, energy wasting appliances there and the fridge of a size you could hide the corpses of a whole family in).
I'd say, unless you have an electric vehicle, it's a non-issue for private persons. If you operate an aluminum smeltering oven however ...
...
tggzzz seems to be describing cap-and-trade, so I do not understand his point. An economic solution like a Pigovian tax makes sure that if we must pollute, we only do so where it provides the greatest benefit, rather than the whims of a politician seeking rents.
I was thinking, loosely, of the various schemes that enable a polluter to buy some.form of permit with the claim that it will be used to avoid someone else polluting somewhere else. Typically that is something more more or less unverifiable, such as replacing a third world pollution source with a less polluting source.
That is cap-and-trade, with politicians picking favorites.QuoteCompared.with such "trades", legal regulation seems simpler and more direct, and less subject to fraud. But not without lesser imperfections, of course.
Rent seeking is a big imperfection.
Spain is outsourcing their nuclear power and baseload capacity to France.
Then you were in the "Grundversorgung" offered by your local energy company. These prices were indeed in many cases predatory. There is no other word for that.@ guenthert: Prices are high and there seem to be large price differences. That 70 cents/kWh price i quoted was what i remembered from our last electricity bill. It included three months of 2023 and the exact number was 0,5761 €/kWh + 19 % VAT = 0,69 €/kWh. Meanwhile we pay 45,43 €/kWh + 19 % VAT = 54,06 €/kWh.[..]Nah, it's about half as much (at least here in Lower Saxony).
For the time being electricity for the private consumer is very expensive, about 0.70 €/kWh including VAT (!!) and as far as i understand a transition to 80 % renewables is under way until 2035.
[..]
Not intending to pick on dietert1, the sentiment that electricity is very expensive is common and compared to other industrial countries prices are high (but only some 30% more than e.g. in France with its high share of energy coming from nuclear reactors). From personal experience, I don't lose sleep over my electricity bill, it's currently some €36/month (with the default plan offered by my local utilities), i.e. less than what I paid in Silicon Valley (probably because of the older, energy wasting appliances there and the fridge of a size you could hide the corpses of a whole family in).
I'd say, unless you have an electric vehicle, it's a non-issue for private persons. If you operate an aluminum smeltering oven however ...
Regards, Dietert
After that guy Turiel, to have the needed stability in the grid will mean a big inversion. I'm trying to make that add up with the statements about inverters being able to give that stability.
Would more modern inverters needed? Or would be it like, upgrading a firmware? What about hardware/software cost?
What could be the cost of energy not dumped into the grid?
IIRC Germany mandates some form of frequency control in grid tie inverters. IMHO that is a better option compared to a communication channel because the latter introduces all kinds of security issues. According to this article Chinese inverters are already highly suspect: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/china-installs-kill-switches-in-solar-panels-sold-to-the-west-heres-why-its-extremely-dangerous-and-how-beijing-could-trigger-a-world-war/articleshow/121217348.cms?from=mdr (https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/china-installs-kill-switches-in-solar-panels-sold-to-the-west-heres-why-its-extremely-dangerous-and-how-beijing-could-trigger-a-world-war/articleshow/121217348.cms?from=mdr)After that guy Turiel, to have the needed stability in the grid will mean a big inversion. I'm trying to make that add up with the statements about inverters being able to give that stability.
Would more modern inverters needed? Or would be it like, upgrading a firmware? What about hardware/software cost?
There would need to be some way to coordinate independent producers to moderate their output, which means a communication channel.
Now imagine someone looking to invest in grid-tied solar having an option between a "coordinated" inverter, which will cost more and produce less power by fiat, and a less expensive independent inverter which produces full power within regulatory limits. The later will have to be prohibited, but people already illegally use cheap Chinese grid-tie inverters.
Does any jurisdiction do this yet? I know many areas have delays of months to years for permission to connect new legal grid-tie inverters.
There would need to be some way to coordinate independent producers to moderate their output, which means a communication channel.
Now imagine someone looking to invest in grid-tied solar having an option between a "coordinated" inverter, which will cost more and produce less power by fiat, and a less expensive independent inverter which produces full power within regulatory limits. The later will have to be prohibited, but people already illegally use cheap Chinese grid-tie inverters.
The cost would be operating those sources below their capacity factor, which also makes nuclear power uneconomical. When coal and natural gas plants operate below their capacity factor, their incremental costs are lower because they are not burning as much expensive fuel. When nuclear power, solar, or wind operate below their capacity factor, it is money lost because their fuel costs are low.
learned from that video interview with Mr. Turiel that the energy price auctions are fake but the real revenue with renewables is determined elsewhere.
Granada substation power loss pinpointed as ground zero of Spain's blackout - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/ (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/)
After that guy Turiel, to have the needed stability in the grid will mean a big inversion. I'm trying to make that add up with the statements about inverters being able to give that stability.Depends on which timescale you are talking about. The "complete" (any time scale) solution is having all the inverters programmed to run below their maximum power point at the nominal frequency and change the output power up/down as the frequency changes. That can be done already on most inverters by changing their parameters, some might need a new firmware image, it's hard to believe there would be many inverters out there that couldn't do this.
Would more modern inverters needed? Or would be it like, upgrading a firmware? What about hardware/software cost?
What could be the cost of energy not dumped into the grid?For the end customer that would be whatever fraction of their current generation is then kept back in reserve, 10% ? 20% ? but at the same time there is compensation paid to operators keeping reserve which in theory should wash that out to close to neutral (or a slight profit).
Minor Problems:
Some user on a forum like this figures out how to adjust the parameters (or hardware) to push the full available power onto the grid so they get paid extra
If I'm right, they already have a communication channel to each and every of those new and compulsory electricity counters installed in our homes
The Chernobyl syndrome (incompetence of those in the control rooms)?Granada substation power loss pinpointed as ground zero of Spain's blackout - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/ (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/)Next questions: why there and not anywhere else, and why did it spread so disastrously?
The Chernobyl syndrome (incompetence of those in the control rooms)?Granada substation power loss pinpointed as ground zero of Spain's blackout - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/ (https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/power-generation-loss-spains-blackout-started-granada-badajoz-seville-2025-05-14/)Next questions: why there and not anywhere else, and why did it spread so disastrously?
Best to wait for statements from those with solid information.Agree. BTW, in Chernobyl, they'd started to reduce the power output as planned, but soon after the grid controller phoned them asking to postpone further reduction because there was a negative power balance in the grid at the moment. So the reactor was left running at low power level for hours. That suggests that the grid is not something that works on its own. There is always someone responsible for controlling it.
Best to wait for statements from those with solid information.Agree. BTW, in Chernobyl, they'd started to reduce the power output as planned, but soon after the grid controller phoned them asking to postpone further reduction because there was a negative power balance in the grid at the moment. So the reactor was left running at low power level for hours. That suggests that the grid is not something that works on its own. There is always someone responsible for controlling it.
IIRC Germany mandates some form of frequency control in grid tie inverters.You can also put a no storage statcom at the distribution transformer and it can push the power to the where it's needed on the cycle for the rest of the grid. Inverters follow the leader and the statcom leader can phase shift it.
The "complete" (any time scale) solution is having all the inverters programmed to run below their maximum power point at the nominal frequency and change the output power up/down as the frequency changes.
Does it still make sense to use a control scheme which was a result of spinning metal? It's not like frequency control magically works out, synchronous condensers are a patch job to handle the instability of frequency control.
IMO voltage control will be more stable, but that has the problem of lack of fairness.
Does it still make sense to use a control scheme which was a result of spinning metal? It's not like frequency control magically works out, synchronous condensers are a patch job to handle the instability of frequency control.
IMO voltage control will be more stable, but that has the problem of lack of fairness.
I don't know - like said before think grid frequency as a distributed control signal, and then it all makes sense. Frequency itself isn't important, but it spreads the information about production - consumption balance in the whole grid within milliseconds (basically as fast as one can sense the frequency).
Consider the frequency deviation as being the error signal in the (large distributed) control system. If a local control loop at the battery/solar plant is used to decrease the frequency deviation, then the error signal has been made smaller. In order to maintain the overall frequency deviation limits, the gain of the rest of the control system might have to be increased. We know what happens when control loop gain is increased too much.
Consider the frequency deviation as being the error signal in the (large distributed) control system. If a local control loop at the battery/solar plant is used to decrease the frequency deviation, then the error signal has been made smaller. In order to maintain the overall frequency deviation limits, the gain of the rest of the control system might have to be increased. We know what happens when control loop gain is increased too much.
This is the weirdest thing I have heard in a while. Error signal has been made smaller, because error* has been made smaller.
*) error = imbalance in production and consumption
That is literally how any control loop works. I don't understand where you get that gain must be increased somewhere else.
Now, the whole acts as a P controller, and P controllers have offset error. If 50Hz long-term average is to be maintained, some I term needs to be added: for example, by offsetting the "middle frequency" where plants output 50% of their rating. But this has nothing to do with the stability conditions; P controller in itself can easily be stable, only excessive delays somewhere, or way too much gain, can ruin it.
Clearly it is speculation, but consider that the hypothesis involves two independent control loops.
One loop is a local loop in just one specifically plant and it's connection to the grid. The other loop is country/continent scale containing many generating plants and many loads distributed across the grid. It is conceivable that the two loops could "fight" each other and become unsable.
Have you heard of a better explanation for the oscillations in the days leading up to this event?
I don't know - like said before think grid frequency as a distributed control signal, and then it all makes sense. Frequency itself isn't important, but it spreads the information about production - consumption balance in the whole grid within milliseconds (basically as fast as one can sense the frequency).
Last, I just got my last electricity bill. Please note that, in the last months, I got most of my appliances out, and I'm underusing this flat. However price per KW/h doesn't change for this reason. A said, this is called "last resort rate". Almost any person in retirement, or bad economic situation, can get electricity at these rates in Spain. Here you have the attachment.
Still i don't get it. If i imagine a big plant with a local load it supplies and with a weak and far away global grid connection. Let's assume no connection to start with. The plant will run at the nominal frequency and voltage providing stable supply. Now when i want to integrate this partial grid into a larger grid i need to synchronize them, so their phase matches before i enable the link. While the plant and its local grid are still separate i can compare the phase, but once it gets connected, how can i maintain sync? Remember the plant is strong enough to enforce/modify grid frequency, phase and voltage locally. I think that situation may easily become an oscillator.
Certainly bigger plants need very strong and multiple grid connections to make it possible at all.
QuoteThe cost would be operating those sources below their capacity factor, which also makes nuclear power uneconomical. When coal and natural gas plants operate below their capacity factor, their incremental costs are lower because they are not burning as much expensive fuel. When nuclear power, solar, or wind operate below their capacity factor, it is money lost because their fuel costs are low.
Sorry, can't understand that. Incremental costs are lower for coal/gas because they are cheaper fuel than nuclear, but solar and wind, which are free fuels, loss money the same as nuclear?
Can you please explain what your bill means?
If I understand it correctly, it seems that you have much more cheaper prices for electricity than minimum prices for citizens in Ukraine which is 0.0929 EUR/kWh and for entrepreneurs almost ten times higher.
Can you please explain what your bill means?
If I understand it correctly, it seems that you have much more cheaper prices for electricity than minimum prices for citizens in Ukraine which is 0.0929 EUR/kWh and for entrepreneurs almost ten times higher.
While the plant and its local grid are still separate i can compare the phase, but once it gets connected, how can i maintain sync? Remember the plant is strong enough to enforce/modify grid frequency, phase and voltage locally. I think that situation may easily become an oscillator.It could oscillate if there was insufficient damping or too much gain or various other poorly designed/configured aspects. In reality this does not happen with spinning generators in their current mix/balance.
Still i don't get it. If i imagine a big plant with a local load it supplies and with a weak and far away global grid connection. Let's assume no connection to start with. The plant will run at the nominal frequency and voltage providing stable supply. Now when i want to integrate this partial grid into a larger grid i need to synchronize them, so their phase matches before i enable the link. While the plant and its local grid are still separate i can compare the phase, but once it gets connected, how can i maintain sync? Remember the plant is strong enough to enforce/modify grid frequency, phase and voltage locally. I think that situation may easily become an oscillator.When a synchronous rotating producer is attached to the grid it becomes magnetically coupled to the rotating magnetic field from the three grid phases.
Certainly bigger plants need very strong and multiple grid connections to make it possible at all.
Under normal grid operating conditions with all parts of the grid near correct frequency and voltage, what is a typical phase deviation between different parts of the grid? As far as i understand the sign and amount of phase deviation between two ends of a power line determines the direction and amount of power transfer between two parts of the grid. Those phase differences should also affect the phase relationship between AC voltage and current inside a part of a grid. I mean it isn't very likely that the transfer line appears as a resistive load.
Under normal grid operating conditions with all parts of the grid near correct frequency and voltage, what is a typical phase deviation between different parts of the grid? As far as i understand the sign and amount of phase deviation between two ends of a power line determines the direction and amount of power transfer between two parts of the grid.
The resonant frequency of the european net is 0,15 Hz and spain and the balkan are the ends of the resonator.
Grid Forming
Under normal grid operating conditions with all parts of the grid near correct frequency and voltage, what is a typical phase deviation between different parts of the grid? As far as i understand the sign and amount of phase deviation between two ends of a power line determines the direction and amount of power transfer between two parts of the grid.
Everything would have been a lot easier if Edison had won.
They did not have power diodes back then.
They have published the timeline:
https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/9-may-2025-iberian-blackout/ (https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/9-may-2025-iberian-blackout/)
timestamp demand freq coal nuclear ccgt wind pumped hydro biomass oil solar ocgt fr_ict nl_ict ei_ict ew_ict nemo other n/s sc/en ifa2 int_ict nsl vkl_ict
2025-06-11 10:05:32 23422 50.15 0 4275 6199 2421 436 82 2804 0 8229 4 1359 1001 -452 -38 1016 445 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:10:32 23321 49.93 0 4275 6005 2445 461 80 2822 0 8229 4 1358 1002 -452 -38 1016 472 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:15:32 23298 49.92 0 4272 5851 2512 461 80 2829 0 8274 4 1358 1003 -452 -38 1016 531 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:20:32 23263 49.96 0 4267 5740 2554 461 80 2825 0 8320 4 1358 1003 -452 -38 1016 574 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:25:32 23138 50.04 0 4266 5657 2599 461 80 2824 0 8320 3 1358 1002 -452 -38 1016 492 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
*2025-06-11 10:30:33 22412 49.95 0 3073 5699 2644 461 80 2829 0 8383 3 1359 1001 -404 0 1016 866 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:35:32 22206 50.05 0 3074 5636 2691 461 80 2822 0 8807 5 1358 1003 -404 0 1016 679 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:40:32 21913 50.08 0 3078 5276 2717 461 80 2818 0 8807 3 1358 1001 -404 0 1016 724 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:45:32 21658 50.03 0 3083 4886 2793 461 80 2825 0 8805 4 1358 1001 -404 0 1016 771 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:50:32 21522 49.87 0 3084 4556 2862 461 81 2836 0 8834 4 1358 1002 -404 0 1016 881 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 10:55:32 21482 49.87 0 3077 4349 2943 461 81 2836 0 8834 5 1358 1002 -404 0 1016 973 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:00:32 21532 49.91 0 3074 4440 3024 461 81 2830 0 8920 3 1358 1002 -274 0 1016 862 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:05:31 21678 49.95 0 3074 4528 3109 461 81 2831 0 9569 4 1357 1002 -274 0 1016 835 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:10:31 21678 50.04 0 3074 4528 3109 461 81 2831 0 9569 4 1357 1002 -274 0 1016 835 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:15:31 21661 50.08 0 3078 4374 3321 461 81 2830 0 9529 3 1357 1002 -274 0 1016 758 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:20:31 21611 50.05 0 3083 4252 3379 461 81 2832 0 9585 4 1356 1002 -274 0 1016 766 0 0 -2 995 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:25:31 21592 50.09 0 3086 4183 3429 461 81 2825 0 9585 3 1357 1002 -274 0 1016 769 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:30:32 21525 50.05 0 3089 4022 3502 460 81 2828 0 9614 3 1357 1002 -124 0 1016 784 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:35:31 21479 50.11 0 3090 3864 3576 460 81 2827 0 10013 2 1356 1002 -124 12 1016 814 0 0 -2 995 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:40:31 21479 50.11 0 3090 3864 3576 460 81 2827 0 10013 2 1356 1002 -124 12 1016 814 0 0 -2 995 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:45:31 21538 50.15 0 3085 3798 3687 460 81 2824 0 9913 2 1356 1002 -124 37 1016 809 0 0 -2 997 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:50:32 21411 49.95 0 3084 3727 3918 460 81 2824 0 9944 3 1356 1002 -124 49 1016 512 0 0 -2 995 1395 989
2025-06-11 11:55:31 21457 50.03 0 3085 3712 4011 460 81 2833 0 9944 5 1357 1002 -124 39 1016 476 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 12:00:33 21457 50.05 0 3085 3712 4011 460 81 2833 0 10065 5 1357 1002 -124 39 1016 476 0 0 -2 996 1395 989
2025-06-11 12:05:32 21443 50.03 0 3080 3627 4179 407 81 2811 0 10329 4 1357 1002 -160 0 1016 500 0 0 -2 995 1395 989
Ein Generator kann sich wie eine Spule oder wie ein Kondensator verhalten. Das hat was mit der Erregung zu tun. ....I give you the translation from Google (https://translate.google.com), which seems to be correct in this case:
And the official report (in Spanish):
Se presenta el informe del Comité de análisis de la crisis eléctrica del 28 de abril: https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/prensa/ultimas-noticias/2025/junio/se-presenta-el-informe-del-comite-de-analisis-de-la-crisis-elect.html (https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/prensa/ultimas-noticias/2025/junio/se-presenta-el-informe-del-comite-de-analisis-de-la-crisis-elect.html)
* Cause solely overvoltage, nothing to do with frequency oscillations or "too little inertia"
Later, REE said it observed a “significant” disturbance on a power line in Badajoz and reduced the electricity exchange with Portugal. At 12:16 p.m., the oscillation recurred, it said. It originated at a “photovoltaic plant that we will call A in the province of Badajoz,” which is “connected to the transmission grid.” Sánchez said the oscillation “unequivocally” resulted from malfunctioning internal controls at the plant, an issue “that must be clarified by the owner.”
The anomalous fluctuations led to the disconnection of 700 MW of generation, mainly from small facilities outside REE's visibility, including self-consumption plants.
Subsequently, export flows “reduced,” voltages kept rising, and a substation in Granada experienced a generation trip. Disconnections continued, including another 582 MW in Badajoz. When the transmission grid had lost over 2,000 MW and “a considerable volume” on distribution networks, the system could no longer maintain voltage levels.
Sánchez said that until that point “we cannot speak of overvoltages,” noting that voltage levels remained within regulatory limits. She also stated that some generators failed to comply with voltage control obligations. “They must provide this service,” she said. According to REE simulations, the blackout could have been avoided if generators had delivered the required voltage control, since “sufficient” capacity was available. “It's a different matter” whether the companies obligated to provide the service actually did so, she added.
So it was a phase/frequency problem.
What is a "phase problem"?
It comes from a "photovoltaic plant we'll call A in the province of Badajoz," which is "connected to the transmission grid." According to Sánchez, this fluctuation is "unequivocally" due "to a malfunction of the plant's internal controls." But this issue "logically must be clarified by the owner."
They have added data:
https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/ (https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/)
They have added data:
https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/ (https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/)
ENTSOE published a full factual report yesterday, same URL https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/ (https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/)
Am I right?
REE was unable to compensate because 22% of power plants, in charge of compensations, were not doing their contracted work,
REE was unable to compensate because 22% of power plants, in charge of compensations, were not doing their contracted work,
It is interesting to see what Entsoe is going to say in their "analysis" report, because REE already made quite clear claims that contracted voltage reserve providers did not do their job, or did the opposite, yet I was unable to find anything supporting these statements in Entsoe's first part of the final report (the "fact" parts).
What seems clear is that voltage controls were lacking, but was it due to negligence (incorrect usage of existing resources), or just poor resourcing / poor power system design?
In the context of power outages, there is also interesting trends and news about some requirements for EU Member States which should be implemented by the end of 2026... I just wonder, what vulnerabilities would Spain face in the event of a sudden failure of electronic services such as electronic payment systems, digital ID, digital signatures services and other (due to power outage, destroying datacenters, etc)? How dependent is the population on these services today? How long would essential resources remain accessible, and could society adapt quickly enough to prevent a broader systemic disruption and collapse due to missing electricity, electronic payment systems and other electronic services? How long can you live normally when these services suddenly disappear or become unusable?
this isn't ww2 where every family had a month or two of flour in the basement.
3 meals.
For this reason, consider installing a well with a mechanical pump,No can do. If I dig down 2 meters the entire country sinks into the sea.
Based on my experience, I recommend maintaining a one-month supply of drinking water and at least a six-month reserve of food. Keep in mind that, in the event of a complete blackout, tap water will become unavailable. For this reason, consider installing a well with a mechanical pump, and be sure to locate the nearest natural spring and familiarize yourself with the routes to reach it — access to potable water is critical for survival.I recommend living near the open ocean. You can fish for food, and evaporate sea water to make fresh water. The sandy soil is also easier to dig into to bury your toilet waste (remember, sewers may not work in a blackout).
Based on my experience, I recommend maintaining a one-month supply of drinking water and at least a six-month reserve of food. Keep in mind that, in the event of a complete blackout, tap water will become unavailable. For this reason, consider installing a well with a mechanical pump, and be sure to locate the nearest natural spring and familiarize yourself with the routes to reach it — access to potable water is critical for survival.I recommend living near the open ocean. You can fish for food, and evaporate sea water to make fresh water. The sandy soil is also easier to dig into to bury your toilet waste (remember, sewers may not work in a blackout).
Getting a lot of large powerstations that have disconnected and scrammed/stopped back online is also a challenge but something we have practiced quite a few times in Sweden due to faulty transmission components causing cascading effects, back in the days when we had nothing but inertia in the grid (hydro, thermal and nuclear) or due to the effects of weather.One country will soon have been forced to upgrade to a modern decentralised energy grid. Contrary to the many, many subsidies that have been thrown into that hole with startups and flops.
If you have prior knowledge of a lake or river's fish habitat, then yes, that solution is probably ok.Based on my experience, I recommend maintaining a one-month supply of drinking water and at least a six-month reserve of food. Keep in mind that, in the event of a complete blackout, tap water will become unavailable. For this reason, consider installing a well with a mechanical pump, and be sure to locate the nearest natural spring and familiarize yourself with the routes to reach it — access to potable water is critical for survival.I recommend living near the open ocean. You can fish for food, and evaporate sea water to make fresh water. The sandy soil is also easier to dig into to bury your toilet waste (remember, sewers may not work in a blackout).
why not a river or lake, fish and freshwater ...
I recommend living near the open ocean. You can fish for food, and evaporate sea water to make fresh water. The sandy soil is also easier to dig into to bury your toilet waste (remember, sewers may not work in a blackout).
Three of seven spanish nuclear reactores were offline that day, either forma planned fuel reload or just simply because they were unable to operante at a profit. So much for pronuke crowd here insisting renewables were to blamed.
I am not blaming renewables because i am pronuclear
I am blaming renewables because their bang bang on off code for voltage and frequency limits is the only mechanism by which you can excite a 7hz resonance.
I am not blaming renewables because i am pronuclear
I am blaming renewables because their bang bang on off code for voltage and frequency limits is the only mechanism by which you can excite a 7hz resonance.
Yeah, whatever.
I am blaming mainstream operators because breaching the contracts is an easy way to cause disaster.
AFAIK nobody else has been officially framed so far.
Three of seven spanish nuclear reactores were offline that day, either forma planned fuel reload or just simply because they were unable to operante at a profit. So much for pronuke crowd here insisting renewables were to blamed.
I am not blaming renewables because i am pronuclear
I am blaming renewables because their bang bang on off code for voltage and frequency limits is the only mechanism by which you can excite a 7hz resonance.
Rotating iron has on the order of a 20 second resonce time not 20 milliseconds
at this point everyone interested has read some sort of report, possibly even the official one, and the causes are well-known.
Oscillation Episodes Created the Preconditions. While the oscillations did not directly cause the blackout, they shaped the system state in which it occurred. The measures taken to dampen them—reducing exports and reconnecting lines—changed power flows and raised voltages. The 0.63-Hz forced oscillation was traced to converter-driven instability in a specific area of southern Spain. The absence of power system stabilizers on some large generating units and insufficient damping from existing ones weakened the system’s resilience to the inter-area 0.2-Hz oscillation.
anyhow, what i'm saying is rotating iron does not produce these problems, never has. the dampening bars in the rotors prevent this nonsense.Better go on an edit war at wikipedia then:
However, the final report of ENTSO-E of March 2026 declared that "...even with significantly higher inertia values, the loss of system synchronism would not have been avoided, considering the sequence of events".[109] The Chair of the ENSO_E Board of Directors declared "that a system with greater inertia would have faced the same problem" and "that a central part of the explanation shifts towards voltage behaviour and the system's ability to withstand rapid disturbances, rather than towards simplified interpretations based exclusively on inertia."[95]So reputable sources have worked through your hypothetical of MOAR IRON, and it still doesn't fix it.
but a wind generator has some.
I think the management of a unified European power system is pretty complex and the blackout in Spain appears of similar character as Victor Orban and his mafia in Hungary. As tatel wrote it looks like some actors violated previous contracts so the blackout may have been invoked by some political group. The political actors may even sit in France, with an attempt to "punish" Spanish photovoltaic production. Probably Spain just needs more/better distribution lines to the rest of Europe.
Here in Brasil - a country as large as whole Europe - electricity is 100% renewable and cheap, previously water, with photovoltaic increasing rapidly. Until now there haven't been major problems with power distribution, except until now all attempts to build underground distribution networks failed.
Regards, Dieter
An additional 208 MW of distributed wind and solar units either ramped down quickly or disconnected for unknown reasons.if they can't identify how some power ramped down or shut off.. well, you can indeed be concerned about just about every other possibility.
anyhow, what i'm saying is rotating iron does not produce these problems, never has. the dampening bars in the rotors prevent this nonsense.Better go on an edit war at wikipedia then:Quote from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackout#InertiaHowever, the final report of ENTSO-E of March 2026 declared that "...even with significantly higher inertia values, the loss of system synchronism would not have been avoided, considering the sequence of events".[109] The Chair of the ENSO_E Board of Directors declared "that a system with greater inertia would have faced the same problem" and "that a central part of the explanation shifts towards voltage behaviour and the system's ability to withstand rapid disturbances, rather than towards simplified interpretations based exclusively on inertia."[95]So reputable sources have worked through your hypothetical of MOAR IRON, and it still doesn't fix it.
Oscillation Episodes Created the Preconditions. While the oscillations did not directly cause the blackout, they shaped the system state in which it occurred. The measures taken to dampen them—reducing exports and reconnecting lines—changed power flows and raised voltages. The 0.63-Hz forced oscillation was traced to converter-driven instability in a specific area of southern Spain. The absence of power system stabilizers on some large generating units and insufficient damping from existing ones weakened the system’s resilience to the inter-area 0.2-Hz oscillation.
From 12:32:00 p.m. onwards, voltages at numerous nodes began rising. About 500 MW of large renewable generation in Spain reduced output, and because these plants operated in fixed power factor mode, their reactive power absorption dropped proportionally, further boosting voltage
The high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) line to France, still pushing power in constant-power mode, was the last connection to sever at 12:33:24 p.m. All system parameters collapsed.
...Most small production units are in fixed power factor mode. I believe you can expect any type B or lower to be constant power unless otherwise required by the DNO.
why the hell are they operating renewables in fixed power factor mode?
...
so who got fined?
so who got fined?
So far nobody got fined. Mainstream operators are on the way, though, because they breached availability contracts. Iberdrola, Endesa and also REE. Endesa spread disinformation saying to his own workers the cause was a wild fire in southern France. Then, Endesa workers were telling that hoax to people, including me personally. Of course, the big fishes in Endesa knew they had breached that availability commitment they were taking money for. Yet they made up that wildfire hoax to mud the waters.
All in all, about 40 filings, 4 of them could mean a 60 million fine each.
However that remains to be seen. Not holding my breath. These guys are used to get away with murder. In fact, they are used to have policemen committing murder for them, literally. Moreover, Spanish justice has the "Atutxa Doctrine" and the "Botin Doctrine", depending if the guy being framed is a politic rival or a well-known member of the oligarchy.
Anyway, since they had success and electricity prices went up after the power cut, we can be sure they will pay any fines (if necessary) and will laugh all the way to the bank (owned by the very same oligarchs, BTW).
No filings against medium-small operators so far.
Do you think possibly the government could reform the operator structure and merge them into one for better oversight
Or is there too much political tension in the various provinces to achieve this?
So reputable sources have worked through your hypothetical of MOAR IRON, and it still doesn't fix it.
None of this will be implemented by a huge mass of rotating iron which johansen wants.
You seem to want to ignore the report
Oscillation Episodes Created the Preconditions. While the oscillations did not directly cause the blackout, they shaped the system state in which it occurred. The measures taken to dampen them—reducing exports and reconnecting lines—changed power flows and raised voltages. The 0.63-Hz forced oscillation was traced to converter-driven instability in a specific area of southern Spain. The absence of power system stabilizers on some large generating units and insufficient damping from existing ones weakened the system’s resilience to the inter-area 0.2-Hz oscillation.
I just stumbled over this YT video; to me, it seems to coincide with the point of view stated by some contributors in this thread. Anyway, I would like to see comments about it, in case you have any:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9oWsQuENE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9oWsQuENE)
- it is up to debate if anti-renewable political movement is partially to blame, or is it corruption, or just generic administrative friction with no ill intents, my take is heavy on the last one because things usually are unsexier than some full blown conspiracy.
But funnily enough, the story confirms exactly what sensible people like Someone or myself have been saying for years on this forum in various threads.