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Failed to connect to MySQL: (1203) User howardkn already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connectionsPath: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Bill Sloman Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Re=3A_Causes_of_the_Gran_Apag=C3=B3n_=28Spain=29=2C_first?= =?UTF-8?Q?_oficial_report?= Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:58:41 +1000 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 101 Message-ID: <10318j9$3uetf$1@dont-email.me> References: <6rs8ilxccg.ln2@Telcontar.valinor> <1re47ks.s13naaq38sy8N%liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> <102uluu$36ik2$1@dont-email.me> <10303o8$3lonh$1@dont-email.me> <10310kj$3sqg4$1@dont-email.me> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2025 16:58:51 +0200 (CEST) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="89a9e19dc2e6b5f4e394383d185bcdc0"; logging-data="4144047"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18vz9I11PwmvYnpERugzyn4LrwuxE9dt+g=" User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Cancel-Lock: sha1:GTizwe0hvzl8mEAnPnY4JpBE0QQ= Content-Language: en-US X-Antivirus: Norton (VPS 250619-2, 19/6/2025), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean In-Reply-To: <10310kj$3sqg4$1@dont-email.me> On 19/06/2025 10:42 pm, Martin Brown wrote: > On 19/06/2025 09:04, Carlos E.R. wrote: >> On 2025-06-19 06:29, Bill Sloman wrote: >>> On 19/06/2025 1:28 am, Martin Brown wrote: >> While the groundwork is being prepared to determine who is responsible >> for the blackout, with a view to the millions in compensation that >> will have to be paid to those affected in the future, Iberdrola has >> been pointing the finger at REE, as the electricity system operator, >> as being responsible for the incident for weeks. > > They have had enough warnings that something like this would happen if > they cut their spinning reserves right to the bone. "Spinning reserve" is just stored energy. As the South Australian Hornsdale Reserve has been demonstrating since 2017, a grid scale battery stores quite enough energy to do the same job, if connected to the grid by properly programmed inverters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve Since 2022 they've been calling it "grid inertia", probably because it make it easier to explain to politicians. > It must also surely be the responsibility of *all* the generating > systems not to continue to push full power into an already over voltage > and over frequency grid. It looks as if some of the generating systems discharged their responsibilities by simply turning themselves off. >> But the vice-president and minister for Ecological Transition, Sara >> Aagesen, pointed on Tuesday to ‘poor planning’ on the eve of the >> blackout by REE in the reserve power (gas and nuclear) in the >> so-called technical restrictions market, which the company denies: the >> planned power was at annual minimums, and also a plant was declared >> unavailable and was not replaced. > > That is the influence of bean counters. Spinning reserves cost money. And providing "grid inertia" with a grid scale battery does seem to be a cheap alternative to rotating lumps of metal in turbines and generators. >> The government has also pointed out (this analysis is shared by REE) >> that this reserve market did not work as it should: the three nuclear >> reactors and the six combined cycle gas plants that were supposed to >> operate under technical restrictions (a mechanism with which >> electricity companies pocket billions every year) ‘were not regulating >> voltage’ as they should when these surges began. One gas plant in >> southern Spain stands out as doing the opposite of what it should have >> done: it injected reactive power instead of absorbing it. > > If that is true then they should be prosecuted for it. They helped to > bring down the grid. It doesn't bode well when the investigators have > their hands tied by government and the energy companies to anonymise who > was guilty of what! Better to pretend it was multifactorial and > completely unforeseeable than try to find and fix the actual root cause. > >> According to REE's Director of Operations, if these plants had done >> their job by controlling the voltage, ‘we would not have had a >> blackout’. ‘The incident would have been avoided,’ said the >> non-executive president of REE, Beatriz Corredor. The former socialist >> minister insists on denying any responsibility for the company and >> rules out resigning. > > Why am I not surprised? >> >> The third cause of the blackout, according to the government's report, >> is an ‘undue’ disconnection of installations: a ‘cascading tripping of >> renewable generation plants’, says REE, which does not identify which >> ones because the companies in the sector have asked to anonymise all >> the information that affects them. REE has agreed to publish the >> information that affects it. > > It wasn't undue if they were left holding the baby and the grid was in > catastrophic collapse. Serious damage can result to their output stages. > >> It is likely that this information will emerge with the report being >> prepared by the sector regulator, the National Markets and Competition >> Commission (CNMC). > > The sector regulator seems to have totally failed to regulate. > >> In the background of the blackout is also the lack of mechanisms to >> allow renewables to regulate voltage. This possibility is included in >> an operating procedure that is already 25 years old. Its update, as >> the REE report reminds us, ‘has been pending approval since 2021’ by >> the CNMC. > > Perhaps now they might pull their finger out and do it. > Don't hold your breath. The Australian example might get drawn to their attention, but I doubt it. -- Bill Sloman, Sydney