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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says the recent blackout in Spain was not caused by an excess of renewable energy or a lack of nuclear power. He says the government will reform the electricity grid, request an independent report from Brussels, and launch a national investigation. A computer sabotage case is being investigated. The blackout that occurred in Spain on Monday at 12:25 p.m. (CEST) was due to a significant mismatch between supply and demand, said Spanish electricity operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE), citing a generation loss greater than the system could absorb. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stated that at 12:33 this morning, 15 GW of generation was suddenly lost from the system. This has never happened before. According to REE data, during the restoration of power supply, more than three-quarters of the electricity generated came from renewable sources. As night fell, the proportion of photovoltaic energy naturally decreased, and gas and steam power plants came online. Coal and nuclear power plants remained completely shut down. Sánchez denied that the outage was due to a lack of nuclear power, saying during his speech at noon on Tuesday that when the incident occurred, there was nuclear power operating and it went offline; it was no more resilient than other sources. What we see is that, with greater dependence on nuclear power, the recovery would not have been as rapid as what weve seen; in fact, it would have been much slower. At this time, they are not generating power due to the decision of the generating companies themselves, because they are not currently competitive with renewable energy. Meanwhile, in some homes and businesses, the lights never went out thanks to solar panels and battery-based backup solutions. Eduardo Prieto, director of operational services at Red Eléctrica, has indicated that, although these are not definitive conclusions, there are indications of two episodes of generation disconnection, which occurred at 12:32 and 12:00. The first was in a system compatible with the loss of generation in the southwest region of the peninsular system, which was overcome, and a stable system was reached, he said. A second and a half later, another event occurred, also compatible with the loss of generation, which led to a blackout 3.5 seconds later—a five-second window, incompatible with the functioning of the electrical system. The system was able to recover from the first of these events, but not from the second. Prieto noted that the system could not withstand the extreme disturbance, resulting in zero voltage, and emphasized that the cause of the loss of generation is still under investigation. He did not specify the location of the second event, but acknowledged that it is very possible that solar generation was affected. He added that they are awaiting information from generation control centers to analyze the disturbances; some are providing preliminary data, while others have not yet done so. Luis Marquina, president of the Battery Storage Association (AEPIBAL), told pv magazine that anything REE says will seem acceptable to us, given that the issue is very complex and any explanation based on little information makes little sense. He added that in the future, as seen in regions like South Australia, battery storage could help solve this problem efficiently, particularly through the management of renewable energy, maximizing its integration into the grid, and accelerating grid reactivation. Taking advantage of the situation to give more support to gas (and even coal, as we hear) doesnt seem sensible to us: renewables are irreversible, but we must recognize that a massively renewable generation requires supporting technologies that help the system maintain its reliability and security of supply. This is the role of batteries, and this episode should serve to accelerate their implementation and raise awareness of the damage that hoaxes based on fake news about batteries are doing to us all. In short, batteries, yes, and the sooner the better, Marquina added. President Sánchez also noted that the government has two clear priorities: the first is to consolidate the restoration of our electricity system to 100%. To achieve this, numerous teams are deployed on the ground. Today, the system will be operational, fail-safe, and with synchronous generation. If there are no new developments, the market will return to normal operations tomorrow (today, Wednesday). The second priority is to find out what happened and take measures to prevent it from happening again. REE technicians are still analyzing the system and expect results in a few hours or days. Meanwhile, private generation companies are reviewing telemetry from their production and management centers to understand what happened during the five seconds that triggered the system failure. These findings will help strengthen the electrical system to prevent a repeat of the incident. Sánchez also noted that private operators will be held accountable, if applicable, and announced the creation of an investigative commission led by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. The technical analysis committee has been established, and the CNMC will be present during the investigations, Sánchez said, adding that the government will request an independent report from Brussels to obtain a more accurate picture, since although the incident occurred in Spain, we are part of a European network. Brussels has announced that it will submit a report within a maximum of six months. A computer sabotage case is being investigated, but REE rules out it. Finally, the judge of the Spanish National Court, José Luis Calama, has initiated preliminary proceedings to investigate whether the blackout could have been an act of cyber sabotage against critical Spanish infrastructure, although Red Eléctrica rules this out. In that case, it would fall under the category of terrorism. The judge agreed as a first step to require the National Christological Center and Red Eléctrica Corporación SA to prepare separate reports so that, within a non-extendable period of ten days, they indicate the cause or causes that led to the blackout. Likewise, it requests the Police Intelligence Headquarters to submit a preliminary report on the events within ten days. |
