The key culprit for the blackout appears to be green energy. Green energy, unlike gas and coal, does not provide synchronous inertia that stabilizes the frequency in the network. (2)
A random oscillation of some sort, which could have easily been handled in a world of fossil fuel power plants, became a huge problem when wind and solar generators could not respond to it appropriately. And so, people were stuck for hours in elevators or subway trains; traffic lights went dark, banking and cell phone networks stopped working and so forth.
So, was this really a big deal? The electricity system in Europe and many US states is in the hands of crazed fanatics who have no idea what they are doing. The possibility is that there are many far worse blackouts to come until the idiotic net zero thing is abandoned. (3)
The episode underscores how advanced economies also cannot afford to be complacent about their electricity resilience.
Here are some tentative conclusions Roger Pielke Jr. draws:
- Solar and wind, if at high levels of production, create grid instabilities and risks.
- The evolution of energy systems has moved forward without sufficient attention to risks and vulnerabilities resulting from system changes.
- Nuclear power not only is carbon free, but it contributes significantly to grid reliability.
- System inertia was a benefit of large, baseload power generation that has been underappreciated. No longer. (4)
The overreaching lesson to take from Spain’s blackout is that whatever role in electricity generation that solar and wind have in the future, that role should be built on a foundation of nuclear power, supplemented by dispatchable natural gas. Somehow, it’s doubtful that the Iberian blackout will be the last one due to low system inertia.
Spain was warned well before the outage across the Iberian Peninsula that it risked severe energy blackouts due to its reliance on renewable energy.
Many experts highlighted potential vulnerabilities in green energy systems, a concern some argued was overlooked by a progressive Spanish government heavily invested in the green energy transition. (5)
In the aftermath of the blackout, Spain has significantly increased its reliance on natural gas-fired power plants to stabilize its electricity grid. (6)
Spain’s impossible dream of ‘green’ electricity
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