Any thoughts/information on what happened? Was it a lack of spinning reserve?
Was it " The Portuguese operator, REN, said the outage was caused by a “rare atmospheric phenomenon”, with extreme temperature variations in Spain causing “anomalous oscillations” in very high-voltage lines."
as is written in the Guardian?
The Italien blackout from a few years ago had a definate cause in the tripping of interconnetors from Switzerland during a storm.
Was solar/wind tripping part of the blackout in the UK in 2019?
As I recall it was "part" of what happened - but only because it tripped out exactly as the grid code said it should, rather than due to any particular characteristic of the technology itself. As I understand it the grid codes have since been revised...
If anything solar and wind should be some of the better choices for a black start - as they only need something to synchronise to, rather than large power source.
- Andy.
“More interesting to me, is the fact that it looks from the outside as if there was not a well rehearsed 'black start' process for bringing back small islands of generation and loads & synchronizing and connecting them onto the grid relatively automatically.”
If I remember correctly ‘black starts’ are a form of cascade in the other direction. You would start with some diesels or small gas turbines which could start with their own batteries or compressed air tanks and then use this power to start small steam or gas turbine units and work up in size to the nuclear plants. All these generators bring rotary inertia and stability into the system.
Two weeks ago Spain was running on 100% ‘renewable’ electricity:
So other than Hydro (can this be used for black starts???) they had no synchronous power available. Solar and wind will trip on voltage or frequency errors. Nuclear is shut down on loss of offsite power on safety grounds.
I guess they had to bring some smaller thermal plants back into service before they could start recovering the grid.
Was solar/wind tripping part of the blackout in the UK in 2019?
It is interesting than the fact that some of the physical explanations being given are clearly incorrect, which is probably due to a poor 'expert talking to journalists and politicians' interface, but we have seen that before.
More interesting to me, is the fact that it looks from the outside as if there was not a well rehearsed 'black start' process for bringing back small islands of generation and loads & synchronizing and connecting them onto the grid relatively automatically.
Given the huge synchronous interconnectedness of the Eurogrid, I'd have thought that would have been needed quite often, so a failure so long lasting seems a bit surprising unless distribution transformers or switchgear have been damaged at the same time . I think we will have to wait some time for logs to be studied and then a clearer picture to emerge.
Mike
There are a couple of posts on StackExchange physics.stackexchange.com/.../what-is-induced-atmospheric-vibration and electronics.stackexchange.com/.../what-are-induced-atmospheric-variations-and-how-do-they-cause-grid-desynchron with links to a report on the weak links of the Eurogrid (my term) highlighting the Iberia poor (weak) connection journals.aps.org/.../PhysRevResearch.7.013137.
The likelihood is that the multiplicity of cascading factors have become confused with each other (technologists attempting to talk to journalists).
I'm guessing it's dancing/galloping wires from the heat driven thermals; expanded, slack and distorted wires (aero effects), etc. causing clashing that either is a transient short with re-closure (load transfer / cascade, frequency 'sag'), or transient mischaracterised as low frequency. Either way they ended up with a cascade of protection dropping the whole peninsular.
Most of these 'failures' end up being classified on a 'for the want of a nail [peseta?]' slip/lapse/mistake excuse.
I could be talking about the forum closure, which I definitely did miss, but I am talking about the loss of electricity supply to Spain and Portugal. I was caught in the centre of Madrid when the power went off. There was absolute chaos. I was with my wife and whilst we are both reasonably fit, there was no way we would have been able to walk to our hotel on the outskirts of the city. I thought it was going to be a night on a park bench. Luckily a friend was able to organise a lift around mid-night.
It might be taken for granted but electricity is badly missed when gone!
It will be interesting to find out what caused the departure!
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