Iberien Peninsular Blackout

Many sources in the last 24 hours quoting a Spanish government report, e.g. this from Reuters, but no link to the actual government report.  Has anyone found this?

Paul Adkins

the guided photons have a very low individual energy and long autocorrelation function, and I don't see a virtual particle model as a very helpful way to describe wht e we have here either. I think voltages between things and currents flowing through things is the more applicable model. We just need to be very clear what we are correcting for.

Mike.

the guided photons have a very low individual energy and long autocorrelation function, and I don't see a virtual particle model as a very helpful way to describe what  we have here either. I think voltages between things and currents flowing through things is the more easily applicable model.
We just need to be very clear what we ought to be sensing and correcting for. Voltage and current Sines/ cosines shifted in the manner of KVAr are one form of correction required, flow reversals mid cycle to maintain a sine-wave shape from non sine-wave generators are quite another.

Certainly where I am now has lots of IT kit and lots of LED lights, and the voltage is quite trapezoidal. Not as bad as the experimental waveform shown here but getting on that way.

Mike.

Mike,

Just thought of an interesting experiment.

If we charge up a large capacitor then set up magnets at right angles across it; could we then AC vibrate the flux/current energy out of the capacitor somehow?

There are a several  devices that rely on moving charges about in crossed magnetic and electric fields. 

A capacitor carrying an AC behaves very much as an extension of the conductor that supplies it, and if you organize a current transformer around the dielectric you will see the same current - this "(charge) displacement" current that represents the periodic reversal of the E and D fields is what we make use of in radio antennas. 

The whole process is reciprocal, so one should be able to place the capacitor with a wire emerging at each end,  into the eye of a toroidal transformer and induce a current to flow in it, with a virtual AC voltage source in series with it. There is no free lunch though, as soon as you allow current to flow and do work, the impedance of the transformer primary will fall and consume energy from the exciting circuit.

Mike.

More reading on this:

System operator's report which adds more meat to the government report Mike linked to previously:

https://d1n1o4zeyfu21r.cloudfront.net/WEB_Incidente_SistemaElectricoPeninsularEspanol_18junio2025.pdf

(Notably it dismisses the voltage oscillations that had been apparent all morning)

A bit of a rebuttal from a local utilities trade association:

https://aelec.es/declaraciones-de-aelec-en-relacion-con-el-diagnostico-presentado-por-red-electrica-de-espana/

(Both links from Energy Institute article:

https://knowledge.energyinst.org/new-energy-world/article?id=139683&utm_source=Energy+Network+Members+Only&utm_campaign=507b825fd1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_06_24_10_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e1556a7369-0a4d80e177-453623069 )

From a brief review, at face value, it sounds like the immediate trigger was a control system instability at a generating plant (which then led to a cascade of disconnections) but the network voltage had been oscillating all day 'til then and planned responses didn't operate as expected throughout.

From my point of view I hope the cause of the generator-originated instability is allowed to come to light, as well as the voltage oscillations on the system, but these reports read like defences (granted through Google Translate so nuance might be lost or distorted).

This represents the typical response for this type of event, that is (1) Finger pointing to each involved party and (2) The need more funds to fix problem.

End result: They need to raise the rates for electrical power!

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay   

What is always more interesting is what they are not saying or in other words the ‘Elephant in the Room’ A few points seem to be clear:

Due to the cost of shutting down wind and solar power plants the grid operators are obliged to take all that is available and shut down the rotary plants instead. These Constraint payments are an artificial political requirement not a technical requirement.

The grid had been showing signs of voltage instability previous to the blackout. This was put down to a lack of reactive power control. The effect of the high level of ‘synthesised’ sine waves from wind and solar rather than ‘pure’ sine waves from rotating machines has not really been mentioned other than saying that the grid operator should have been running more gas plants, which goes against the previous financial points.

"The government report also found that REE failed to switch on thermal power stations, which would have helped stabilise the system"

'Poor planning’ by grid operator REE blamed for April blackout in Spain and Portugal | Engineering and Technology Magazine

Blaming the grid operator for not running enough gas plants is a tacit admission that they were running too many renewables on cost grounds. No one really seems to want to say that.

In a sense, the "reactive power" phrasing can be a red-herring of a vague assertion that presumes certain aspects of rotating plant, rather than being clear about the grid forming/following, lead-lag, 'instant' power aspects that (IIUC) were/are not being implemented on the wind and solar plants.

In a sense the old codes were playing King Canut against the rising tide, and we are now between a rock and hard place of old control techniques and modern (quire new) electronic mechanisms that were being disallowed (i.e. not having grid forming on those mandated wind/solar supplies). 

One has to separate the lead-lag control part of the synthesised sine-wave(s) from the harmonic aspects (esp 3rd) to be able to discuss the wider wicked issues of the blame game.

System operator's report which adds more meat to the government report Mike linked to previously:

https://d1n1o4zeyfu21r.cloudfront.net/WEB_Incidente_SistemaElectricoPeninsularEspanol_18junio2025.pdf

Translation by DeepL here

Rgds Paul

Hello Paul:

Do you know which company manufactured and installed the inverter systems at the Province of Badajoz Photovoltaic Plant A?

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay FL

Hello Paul:

Do you know which company manufactured and installed the inverter systems at the Province of Badajoz Photovoltaic Plant A?

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay FL