By Jo Nova
Is this the Net Zero world we’re aiming for?
It could be a coincidence, but Spain’s grid ran entirely on renewables for the first time on April 16th. Less than two weeks later, at lunchtime Monday Spain and Portugal and even parts of France suffered massive cascading blackouts. Thirteen gigawatts of electricity, about half the grid, suddenly disappeared at 12:30pm. Trains were halted, and people were stuck in dark subway tunnels. A tennis tournament was stopped, flights were cancelled and diverted, and prosaically, as an emblem of the Western World, Spain’s nuclear plants shut too, and are now running on diesel back up. Shops have been stripped, people are fighting over taxis, and landlines and ATMs are down, and even the mobile network failed in Madrid. The mayor of Madrid has urged the PM to declare an emergency and deploy soldiers.
Electricity has been restored to some areas, but the grid operator has said “it could take up to a week to fix”. Other reports say “six to ten hours”.
Notably, Spain has one of the highest proportions of renewable power in Europe — with 50% of the national supply coming from pure unreliable power. Spain has 32 GW of solar power, and 32GW of wind turbines. As it happens, the wind turbines have been largely useless for the last 24 hours. The Telegraph is reporting that solar power was providing almost 60% of Spain’s power two hours before the blackout.
Blackout Chaos
DailyMail, UK
Panic buying has swept Spain and Portugal as nationwide blackouts paralysed both countries, shutting down transport networks and prompting people to clear supermarket shelves amid fears the chaos could last for days.
Huge queues formed outside shops and banks as residents and tourists desperately sought to stockpile essentials and take out cash as much cash as they could amid the uncertainty. Rows of cars were pictured lining up at petrol stations as people hoped to fill up their vehicles and fuel cans, with ex-pats detailing how they have tried to power generators to keep their homes going.
Airports have also been hit by the outages, with flights delayed and cancelled and holidaymakers in Portugal warned by the country’s flagship airline TAP Air not to travel for their flights until further notice. A British holidaymaker in Madrid described the situation in the city centre as ‘carnage’, telling MailOnline: ‘People are starting to panic. It’s going to get really bad if they don’t restore power quickly.’
It must be an attack of the “Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon”
There were rumors it was a cyber attack, or a fire in a transmission line. But Portugal is blaming Spain and says it was due to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” which sounds like a polite way to say “a renewable energy failure”. After all, it’s hard to imagine a rare atmospheric phenomenon blacking out a nuclear plant.
What caused it?
The Guardian
The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns.
REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
It appears the phenomenon occurred when it was a climate extreme of 23 degrees C in Madrid today. The Daily Mail has a fancy diagram explaining how extreme temperatures cause some regions to use more power than others for cooling. As energy “moves to hotter regions” they say, parts of the grid are “left with different voltages and frequencies”. This creates “‘anomolous oscillations in very high voltage power lines, leading to synchronization errors across the network”. I remain unconvinced that this is anything other than panicked post hoc hand-waving excuses.
It’s all kind of obvious when we look at network five minutes before the crisis. Some particular event may turn out to be the trigger, but a system that is 78% reliant on unreliables could probably be knocked over by a teddy bear, or perhaps a wayward cloud.
Before the outage hit, Spain was running its grid with very little dispatchable spinning generation, and therefore no much inertia.
Solar PV/thermal + wind: ~78%
Nuclear: 11.5%
Co-generation: 5%
Gas-fired: ~3% (less than 1GW)Snapshot at 12.30pm local time (outage was 12.35pm) pic.twitter.com/fF7FiIB6UD
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) April 28, 2025
h/t auto, Tonyb, MrGrimNasty, Another Delcon, Old Ozzie, CharlesM, Stephen Neil, Bella, and Bally.
Lots of luck bringing that mess up for a black start, a la Broken Hill.
410
Synch from French nukes went offline.
Splat.
France should set a new “stupid” tax on Spain.
270
Looks like Spain went full “South Afailure”. You never go full “South Afailure” …
350
Spain, wind capital of the World.
What could go wrong Don Quixote?
150
Thousands of switch-mode non pure sine wave inverters all dancing to a slightly different beat as opposed to synchronous spinning inertia? What could possibly go wrong… ?
590
This blackout remindeds me of the one that occurred in the UK in 2019 when wind energy was supplying a very large amount of power to the grid. A lightning strike set off a chain reaction where several power stations went offline (first an NG fired one followed by a large wind farm) as the frequency dropped.
270
I’ve often wondered about that Konrad.
70
“synchronisation failures between the electrical systems”. Of course. Edison won the battle and the world runs on AC, but it is fundamentally unstable for a National system. Local systems must be isolated by HVDC. This idea of National or even supra National systems just makes the whole thing unstable. And then it takes weeks to bring it all back up without blowing up power stations.
This is an expected mode of failure. Not for stable, cheap, reliable, non carbon generated power, but the dream of single point control of all (electrical) power by politicians, ultimately by the EU and then the UN. Hitler and Napoleon would have done the same. It has nothing at all to do with common sense. And it is also why coal, gas, nuclear power must be wiped out. Whoever controls the electricity controls the country and worse, in a digital world, controls even the distribution of gas, water, petrol, food, people.
It’s a taste of the fundamental Totalitarianism behind a national grid. Independence will be wiped out. Politicians uber alles.
400
And we are nowhere near summer. Expect worse to come. And blame the weather. Ha!
180
23*C in Spain sounds like a cold snap, though it looked ‘sunny’ in the video clip. The internet went down so schools were closed: wtf? Have books really been banned? PM Pedro Sanchez said not to spread ‘misinformation’, as a 19-year-old was ‘stunned’ saying “this has never happened before” (via AFP).
Look out Britain, you’re next – it may might possibly could reach 27C later this week, as it was in May 1989 when I briefly visited the UK.
As for the Antipodes today, four different weather sites are promoting four different max temps for us: 20, 21, 22, and/or 23*C. I’m stunned: that’s more than TWICE the amount the whole planet has fluctuated since 1860 or 1880 or 1910 or whenever the climate cherry tree was picked.
If Spain can’t do solar, nowhere can. RIP.
380
A few degrees in a maximum temperature prediction? Everyone know it doesn’t matter. Even if it is the entire and only rationale for killing fossil fuel power.
120
Edison promoted DC power. Tesla and Westinghouse promoted AC power. AC won because DC at available voltages at the time could only transmit power over short distances of a few miles. AC can easily be transformed to higher or lower voltages, and allows 3 phase motors.
HVDC can transmit over long distances, but is only practical at 500 KV to 1000 KV and greater than 750 to 1000 mile distances. Each substation costs about USD 500 Million to 750 Million to construct. Minimum of 2 stations, maximum of 5 for economic reasons. And the bipolar transmission lines for HVDC are some USD 4 Million/mile.
AC systems are not unstable when using dispatchable, syncronized, thermal generation. We’ve had it and it’s worked for over 100 years. Trying to join non-dispatchable, unreliable, generators onto the existing system is what causes the instability. Things worked just fine until the wind/solar and political wonks started messing with it.
550
Well said Lance. While there wouldn’t be sync issues with DC, as you say, it’s really only cost-effective for long-distance transmission lines and cables.
100
Edison actually fought for (his) DC and gave in to AC but this article suggests DC may still be a contender.
[Lance comment only came up after my draft posted article remains of interest]
60
Yes, you are right. It was Tesla who promoted AC. Edison even electrocuted an elephant publicly as a demonstration of the dangers of AC. But until recently long distance high voltage DC was not possible. Now it is rapidly becoming the way to distribute. Huge expense but the cost and fuel saving in million volt transmission are immense.
81
What your article speaks to is not general power generation or distribution, but rather how an end user’s preferences or needs dictate or prefer DC power. Of course, computers use 12 VDC and 5 VDC in vast quantities. But to deliver that power is really only possible via AC systems. AC to DC power supplies are between 80% and 97% efficient. Even if the net efficiency gain is 5% for the DC user, that hardly justifies a DC transmission or distribution system. A data center would still require efficient HVAC which relies upon an AC system. Show me a 1000 KW water chiller that is DC. Or a 100 KW fan or pump. Methinks that article is a puff piece of idiocy.
90
Sorry, Edison lost. Tesla won the AC/DC battle, but lost everything else.
30
Konrad
The greater the percentage of renewables on the grid makes it more and more vulnerable to crash! The inverters react to short fluctuations on the grid very rapidly where the huge generators have hundreds of tons of spinning inertia and ride through transients on the line without problems. They will not get around that one any time soon.
That, possibly, was what caused the South Australian statewide black out.
On top of that you cannot do a black start using anything connecting to the grid through inverters. The inverters see a short circuit when they switched on to the grid during a black start. All of the transformers, motors, etc (inductive load) draw a huge amount of current until the impedance develops (a very short period).
I worked on switch mode power supplies which demonstrates this characteristic. When switched on or during normal operation if they see a short they shut down immediately to prevent the supply destroying itself. They are designed that way to preserve themselves.
John
50
It’s terrible when stuff gets imbalanced.
And causes rare phenomenon.
210
How have the EVs coped, the trains haven’t been a good alternative.
With Ed Milliband’s vision in the UK we are looking forward to the Brave New World, with Black Starts at regular intervals to liven things up.
It was amusing to hear a couple of days ago some functionary from the EU recommending that everyone should have a 72 hour Emergency Kit with bottled water, canned food, and batteries/power bank to run a radio and mobile phone.
I don’t think he realised that his advice would be needed so soon.
281
“everyone should have a 72 hour Emergency Kit with bottled water, canned food, and batteries/power bank to run a radio and mobile phone.”
Not mentioned of course was that little thing called “CASH” The next thing in line to be shut down all for our own good of course.
260
I think that ‘they’ want a cashless society so that everyone’s income and expenditure can be monitored and taxed.
10
I wonder how many mobile phone towers have battery backup, and if they do, the backup durations.
100
Mobile towers seen to have only a few hours battery backup.
Then there’s no way to call emergency services.
Back in the day Australia’s PSTN telephone network could last for weeks on its own batteries and generators.
230
How many families kept the land line?
30
Really doesnt matter as todays “landlines” are just internet connection and will go down like eveything else when the power goes down
60
Still copper wire here…..
20
My landline comes through the NBN and the cordless handset requires a wall plug with 12vdc out to make it work my end, so basically useless without steady AC power.
30
We shouldn’t use weather dependant electricity or other inefficient energy sources.
Sails, windmills, animal and human power became obsolete as soon as a commercially viable steam engine was invented by Newcomen in 1712.
(They used to teach that sort of thing in achools, back in the day. In grade 6, I recall converting my billy cart into a model of Stephenson’s Rocket for a homework assignment about early steam engines.)
Coal and gas and steam engines and the descendants thereof, power station steam turbines and turbo generators to make electricity were the great liberators of humanity, and still are. Except in stupid countries which destroy their power stations, like Australia for instance.
400
Yes David, if wind was the answer we would still be using sailing ships!
Still cannot explain that to the uninitiated.
270
Talking of steam. Lake Goldsmith this weekend. Sorry Jo, OT.
70
Details at:
https://www.lakegoldsmithsteamrally.org.au/
Don’t miss it!
Sadly, the beautiful rural landscape has been utterly destroyed by vast numbers of wind subsidy harvesting devices.
(Trigger warning for Leftoids, you won’t like the internal or external combustion machines on display.)
111
David, you have brought back fond memories of my year’s practical working on a farm in Penicuik, south of Edinburgh, during my BSc in Agriculture degree course. After our oat harvest the oats were thrashed by a thrasher belt powered from a steam tractor like those on your link. Being young, strong and, probably, stupid I vied with the grown farm hands carrying 200lb (about 90kg) bags of oats up a ladder to the grain loft. Suffering for it now, 60 odd years later, with a pinched nerve in my spine! It was a great year though.
30
Not only are unreliables dependent on the weather, (wind needs to blow, not too much, not too little and sun needs to shine), for it to work, it sits out in the weather unlike coal or nuclear power stations, so what could go wrong.
10
How do you say “dispatchable power – spinning reserve” in Spanish?
Economic losses from blackout need to be added to the real cost of all the “free” power.
Look at all the other countries learning their lesson…Oh wait, cult members are closed
to reality and never learn. Why do we keep voting for them?
290
potencia despachable – reserva giratoria
110
In Latin.
Cactus fuctus.
10
AKA – in all languages – WTF?
40
Sounds worse that way – I love it!
20
Voltus absentus.
10
In contrast look at our generation in Eastern Australia with wind over the last 24 hours lucky to be at 10% capacity factor and the grid being supplied by predominantly fossil fuel generation.
Bowen hiding under a rock so as his claims of future 80% renewables generation not to be exposed during the election campaign. Clever by the ALP or deceptive?
380
” In contrast look at our generation in Eastern Australia with wind over the last 24 hours lucky to be at 10% capacity factor and the grid being supplied by predominantly fossil fuel generation. ”
Wind supplying 6.55% at 8.10pm last night.
230
Even worse, Batteries in the NEM, 37 battery sites, 5,547 MW Capacity, 0.5 percent of supply at 19.7 Gwh output over 7 days.
150
Why do Australians allow simpletons like Bowen to be in charge of our most important infrastructure elements like the electrical power system?
400
Obviously our PM Albo thought it was a good and solid appointment OMG
220
What makes you think that Bowen or any other politician is in charge of anything?
They are merely the talking heads spruiking for big bureaucracy.
220
And will we see Dutton highlighting the Spanish fly in the ointment of nuclear. Real life, real time example of disconnect with Laborious party policy. Ka-ching, cash in time or crickets?
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I’m tipping crickets Earl………….
80
Hummm, Grid Vertigo?
40
Only a few weeks ago the EU and UK were urging their citizens to put together a 72 hour survival kit; non-perishable food, water, cash etc., in case of amongst other things, power outages.
Coincidences eh!
150
Given the interconnectedness of the European grid, how did they stop this from spreading to the rest of Europe with a cascading series of failures and blackouts?
How was it stopped at “just” Spain, Portugal and parts of France?
120
At a guess the interconnectors were shut down. How that shut down didn’t cause further chaos is anybody’s guess.
90
The French wanted to fix Spain, so they turned it off and turned it back on again.
80
Welcome to sunny Spain, it is just so satisfying to be able to say ‘we told you so’.
240
More renewables = less stability. In other words, the greater the instability, the greater the susceptibility to “rare atmospheric phenomenon” and “induced atmospheric vibration” and other forms of stakeholder spin, useful idiot shilling and excuse mongering.
300
Just added to the post:
The Daily Mail has a fancy diagram explaining how extreme temperatures cause some regions to use more power than others for cooling. As energy “moves to hotter regions” they say, parts of the grid are “left with different voltages and frequencies”. This creates “‘anomolous oscillations in very high voltage power lines, leading to synchronization errors across the network”. I remain unconvinced that this is anything other than hand-waving excuses.
470
Jo, they are talking through their hats.
It’s ALL mumbo jumbo.
Because 97% of the people do not have a clue about how electricity systems work
so they can say ANYTHING.
Politicians are the worser.
370
A grab for the closest expert!
70
Yes, along with “China cyber attack! Let’s start WWIII” and “Solar flare”, this is just frantic hand flapping to try to get “narrative” airborne.
This is another “Green Out”. The Lamescream Establishment Misledia just don’t want to say it.
230
It was all of 23C in Spain. Heatwave my foot.
Only a very few things will cause a grid failure: Loss of generation, loss of transmission , frequency collapse or voltage collapse.
Spain had 78% renewable and 20% dispatchable power online at time of outage.
My best guess is that the installed inverters cannot generate sufficient reactive power to sustain system voltage and/or some large number of inverters lost their 50 Hz synch pulse and disconnected from the grid simultaneously, causing a large drop in available generation. If only 20% of generation was dispatchable, then the grid almost instantly collapsed.
This is why no sane grid should have a renewable generation penetration higher than the average capacity factor of that form of renewable generation, and certainly no higher than reserve thermal dispatchable generation. A grid collapse happens in as little as 10 seconds or as long as 15 minutes, but that’s the time window available to stabilize the grid. Barring that, it is grid wide blackout time.
Restarting the grid is tricky. All the loads that were connected at the time of collapse are still connected, and mostly inductive loads. All the large loads have to be disconnected, the grid segmented, and portions of the grid brought back online stably, whilst synchronizing and paralleling generation sources. Residential loads are the largest resistive load source. Everything else is inductive. Inductive loads take 4 to 6 times their running power to start up. They simply don’t have the reactive power to do this.
It could be weeks to months before all this happens.
401
23 is the new 100?
180
From SMH (paywalled):
Major power outage brings Spain and Portugal to a standstill
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/major-power-outage-brings-spain-and-portugal-to-a-standstill-20250429-p5luxo.html
An extract from the SMH story:
” One Portuguese official said the problem appeared to be with the electricity distribution network in Spain. A board member for Portuguese electricity distributor REN, Joan Coneicao, said it the outage was possible caused by a “very large oscillation in electrical voltage, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to the Portuguese system”. REN said it had restored production at a hydroelectric and thermoelectric plant, and was prioritising supply resumption to hospitals and transport. ”
Cheers,
Dave B
110
Ah yes, blame the French.
‘Spain’s grid operator REE blamed a connection failure with France for triggering a knock-on effect.’ (Reuters)
51
Yes E+G, it’s likely that Frogs detected some anomaly developing so cut the Spaniards off, leaving them to their own ‘unreliables’ to cope, which they didn’t and couldn’t.
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“REN said it had restored production at a hydroelectric and thermoelectric plant”
Notice these two types of plant have very heavy rotating synchronous generators, logically the most reliable, so the unreliables will be the last to be connected.
180
An interesting back story on the “panic buying” would be how well the shops cope given that their cash machines would be out along with their eftpos. Are transactions cash only? If so just how much of the “rarely used” cash is sitting “out there” in the back garden/under mattresses? Apparently a consequence of the GFC was that our reserve b(l)ank had to increase print of $50 and $100 because so many of those denominations went out of circulation. Then after GFC impact subsided apparently not all of it flowed back so given our European demographic I would hazard a guess we might expect another run on circulating notes.
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Jo, totally agree, look at the geographic temperature variations in the Australian eastern grid (NEM) from Tasmania in the south to Cairns area in the tropical north, arid western NSW & SA etc. If anywhere was to have its Electricity grid systems effected by weather and atmospheric conditions it’s Australia. So like you say, mumbo jumbo excuses.
110
You’re right to be sceptical. A robust grid gobbles up these excuses… I mean, irregularities.
170
Remember this Spanish “renewables” scam when they sold “solar energy” at night?
220
So, really not unlike what happened in South Australia / Adelaide a few years ago. A system too reliant on wind / solar, then affected by an anomaly(storm) which affects energy infrastructure. The whole system trips to protect that infrastructure. Also, your backup link (Victorian interconnector) trips as well. Then, because there is no spinning reserve available anymore the grid can’t be stabilized quickly and rebooted. It’s why so many businesses in Adelaide installed their own generators after that event and why a similar event in future won’t be as disastrous. So, then the idiots running the de- carbonized grid can say “ Look, the grid worked”. I predict a huge demand for small generators in Spain in the immediate future.
220
I recall how a few years ago, the Australian Government spent $20 million on a diesel generator for the Australian Submarine Corporation in South Australia because when welding a submarine hull, you cannot afford to interrupt the welding process due to a power failure or any other reason.
I can’t find a reference online, it seems to have been “disappeared”.
170
There are a number of diesel generators operating in SA, e.g. those in the desalination plant.
From what I can gather the plant runs an hour or so a year (because there is a contract about maintenance) but it seems that those diesels use a lot of fuel.
80
It was the Russians!! Always the Russians!
“The blackout is the second serious European power outage in less than six weeks after a March 20 fire shut down Heathrow Airport in the UK and comes as authorities across Europe gird against sabotage backed by Russia.”
“Officials said the reasons for the blackout were unclear… restoring power to the country and neighbouring Portugal could take six to 10 hours…the outage was possible caused by a “very large oscillation in electrical voltage, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to the Portuguese system”.”
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/major-power-outage-brings-spain-and-portugal-to-a-standstill-20250429-p5luxo.html
80
You mean rather than incompetence in planning and operation?
110
I wonder whether this might make some voters be caution about Labor’s plan about electricity?
Probably a bit too late.
130
Anyone who votes for Labor is already so stupid that they wouldn’t understand or care.
280
They’re not stupid. There are various reasons people vote the way they do and one of those reasons might be a lack of information, or they’ve been given a different set of information.
How do you give them information that might assist them? You create a site like this and hope they read it.
How do you stop them reading or engaging? You call them stupid and other names whenever you can.
We can get into the weeds about about why people vote the way they do and you can try to bring it back to intelligence. But that won’t serve any real purpose.
It’s not a thing that people who don’t see things your way are stupid.
61
Hi All,
Javier Blas gets it right, sort-of.
The nuclear generation, having a conventional generator, would also have been supplying a proportion, a large proportion, of the available synchronous inertia.
Remember, the availability of sufficient synchronous inertia at all times is absolutely essential to the continued operational reliability of any grid.
“Ronin”‘s opening remark about this situation being “a la Broken Hill” is in fact spot on.
If we remember, only half of the emergency backup generation at Broken Hill was available when the triggering event, the disconnection of the one connecting transmission line caused by a storm. These emergency generators, being conventional generators, are able to supply synchronous inertia, but the single generator on its own couldn’t supply the entire load. What then complicated the situation was that rooftop solar, which provides no synchronous inertia, kicked in during the day, promptly destabilising what grid function that was available.
Synchronous inertia, the locked-together mechanical rotational inertia provided fully automatically by conventional generators spinning at the same frequency, is a direct consequence of the application of Maxwell’s equations. As such, it is always “there” when conventional generators are in use. That is, so long as the generators are properly operational, it is fail-safe always available. However, to be effective, there must be sufficient conventional spinning generation operational.
By contrast, any form of substitute for synchronous inertia cannot be provided by such as solar panels, wind turbines or batteries without the provision of highly complex, and therefore prone to failure, sophisticated circuitry of some kind. However this might be provided, it cannot be considered to be “fail-safe”.
I trust that the AEMO, with all its talk about developing “synthetic inertia” or “grid-firming” technologies using batteries are taking very careful note of what has happened in Spain and Portugal.
Beautifully reported Jo, as always.
Paul Miskelly
330
Spain is only now learning the lessons that AEMO has been learning since SA’s September 2016 state wide black event. Inertia based resources destabilise the grid in both frequency (inertia) and voltage (system strength). AEMO has been monitoring both across the NEM and publishing reports since 2018:
https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/nem-forecasting-and-planning/system-security-planning
Back in December 2024, AEMO then released its Transition Plan for System Security:
https://aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/nem-forecasting-and-planning/transition-planning
More recently, the AEMC published a determination opening the door for AEMO to create a new market for security services for the grid:
https://www.aemc.gov.au/rule-changes/improving-security-frameworks-energy-transition
Close reading of all these reports and documents highlights two things:
1. AEMO is hoping that the market can solve the instability caused by high VRE on a grid, and
2. No one has a technological solution to date.
I have been telling people that no one, anywhere in the world, has yet to demonstrate a prototype grid running exclusively on energy generated by wind and solar. What is worse is that the academic world has only just started to describe the problem of high VRE grid instability, but has yet to progress to addressing this problem:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358984174_The_effect_of_renewable_energy_incorporation_on_power_grid_stability_and_resilience
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0142061522006974
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/18/3/689
Australia’s grid will require 94% wind and solar generation. Thanks to our federal government, our target for CO2 emission reductions is aiming to achieve 82% renewable generation by 2030. Neither of those have ever been achieved by any country, anywhere in the world! So hang on for a bumpy ride if Labor wins on 3rd May.
The current state of play is that AEMO is looking for technology that has yet to be invented! That means our clean renewable energy transition is being built on hopium!
Alternatively, we might be bumping up against a fundamental limitation of physics, courtesy of Maxwell’s equations! And there may be no solution to this problem!
Ask a different question: Who will be paying for this new security services market? We all will!
240
This is going to be you Australia, enjoy.
240
I think the Spanish gave the game away when they came up with this as the cause – “induced atmospheric vibration”. Forty years of working in an RF and electrical engineering field and this is news to me. Now, we do know that charged particles can impact transmission lines, such as when we have a very large solar flare which triggers a geomagnetic storm, but that didn’t happen in this case and only one country in the south of Europe was impacted. Aside from this, there is no other mechanism for any atmospheric related issue. When you know you’re being lied to you also know everything else they say is also probably a lie, so we’ll never know the truth.
The outage occurred at midday, when the sun was at its peak and my guess is that this was possibly triggered by excess solar power in the system that caused a frequency imbalance that couldn’t be stabilised in a grid with insufficient spinning inertia. But you can’t rule out a cyber attack. Did the Chinese use Spain as a trial run to test an inverter based grid attack ?. We know that almost all of the inverters are made from China, using Chinese software and are connected online. Switching off a large bank of inverters or by removing their over-frequency derating settings could cause this type of outage.
230
That power distribution graph shown was so interesting.
Add the Solar PV, Wind, Solar Thermal, Cogeneration/Waste sources and it adds up to around 82%.
Okay, you say, that’s good. (but only IF you’re a renewables supporter)
Most of that is from Inverters, and some small MW Units, so as Lance and others have pointed out, they offer no large heavy spinning ‘reference’ for frequency control, hence, with few large spinning references, then absolute frequency control is minimal at best.
Now, see that Solar Thermal (Concentrated Solar Power, CSP) there’s 1500MW. That’s from an overall CSP Nameplate of 2400MW, so it’s operating at around a Capacity Factor of 62.5%, Again, you might think that’s good.
However, that Nameplate is from around 50 plants, so only at an average of 50MW per plant. That 50MW is pretty much the best you can get from CSP. (and even then they all need Natural Gas to operate them initially, in the hours before the compounds come up to operating temperature)
Now, while those 50MW Units offer ‘some’ spinning reference, consider this.
FIFTY plants for a Nameplate of 2400MW.
And that’s still only 90% of Bayswater, and Bayswater DOES have 4 Large Units with heavy spinning reference for that important frequency control.
50 CSP plants cost humungously more than ONE coal fired power plant.
Now, as I mentioned in a recent comment here, again see how power generation is closely linked back to ….. SCIENCE.
Tony.
PostScript – And see how they use carefully worded, and reasonably sounding technical speak (mumbo jumbo really) to ‘explain away’ the reasons behind this.
340
“induced atmospheric vibration”
Yes, I previously named this mumbo-jumbo as technobabble. Designed to confuse the scientific/engineering illiterate.
Using it shows without doubt that the truth will remain hidden from public gaze as well and as long as possible.
50
This is what happens when Electrical Engineers are no longer allowed to design/run/maintain an Electricity Grid.
270
Yes.
A politician-designed electrical grid.
Made by people just like Australia’s simpleton anti-Energy Minister Chrissy “Blackout” Bowen.
I’d be willing to bet he is so innumerate he couldn’t write “one million” or “one billion” in numerals.
Or if given a battery, some pieces of wire and a light globe, all with screw terminals and the wire stripped to make it easy, he would be unable to create a functional circuit.
190
DM,
Or a female engineer-designed electrical grid?
Theory says it should be superior because females have more experience with vibrations. Geoff S
00
The trains in Spain fail mainly as do plains (ruinables!)
110
“REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
A triumph of leftist govt inspired doublespeak.
About the only bit of that you could believe is “synchronisation failure”, in other words, when France detected a wobble, they disconnected them causing a cascading failure due to “synch anomalies”.
240
No “rare atmospheric phenomenon” in my data…
As always, cash rules, for those with it on hand…
Panic buying, shelves stripped bare in minutes…all for a possible few days without power.
Once again – people just aren’t prepared for anything on the good ship LaLa Land.
Now – imagine this event was global and it was a cyberattack taking down banking, communications, infrastructure.
Just a matter of time.
160
Possibly a ‘test run’.
100
It used to be said that major cities were only three square meals away from societal breakdown. Here looting broke out in under 8 hours.
This must be a nightmare for the Parasite Class. The self-styled “Elites” must now choose between genuflecting before the holy tri-bladed cross of Gaia, or embracing the reliable power needed to run their planned digital gulags.
They so want their face recognition, central bank digital currency, social credit scores, de-banking of dissidents and vaccine passports. But none of it can work without reliable power.
And each Green Out that crashes their systems reminds the hosts of the parasites that power outs don’t have to be accidental.
180
Update: half of Spain’s power is now restored, cause still unknown (or undisclosed).
110
If their politicians are anything like Australia’s, it will be blamed on not enough ruinables.
110
A diesel backed ATM would be a great investment in Spain at the moment.
80
I doubt it. Not sure if an ATM, whether working or not, would spit out money if it could not access your bank account to record it.
40
It’s all a bit sus. How come we haven’t had them here. After all we’re similar to Spain for climate. Maybe we’ll get them more frequently if Albo gets his way and we go berserk on becoming a green energy superpower. Anyhow here’s a link to a .pdf that deals with this phenomenon which applies to solar and wind Inverter Based Resource power systems: https://www.esig.energy/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/esig-rpt-oscillations-8.24-print1.pdf
20
Google goes cold on Europe: Stops making smart thermostats for continental conditions
Google’s change means apps its Nest and Home apps won’t be able to remotely control the thermostats. Users will be able to use the thermostats the old fashioned way: By walking up to it and using their hands.
But even that may not be a great option because a Google support document states that once software and security updates stop flowing “you may experience an unpredictable decline in performance if you attempt to use it continuously.”
https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/28/google_nest_thermostat_changes/
“you may experience an unpredictable decline in performance if you attempt to use it continuously.”
Sorta like renewables then? 😆😆😆
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I don’t like being dependent on cloud services at all, especially ones liable to spy on you but I wonder what Goolag considers to be so unusual about European heating systems that it no longer wishes to support them?
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Let the Spanish domino trip-out scenario be a story that we can offer to our renewables friends down the pub. Au needs true spinning reserve but to protect yourself have a back-up plan. I know I’ve plugged this before but it is easy to protect your own homes.
1) A 3.5kva generator and 20 litres of petrol in reserve.
2) Tradesman style torches. I use Milwaukee 18V and have enough battery power for weeks. Head torches are really useful. My expensive “LED Lenser”™ has its own lithium rechargeable and I wonder why I struggled on with El Cheapo brands for so long.
3) Charging mobile phones off your car’s battery is okay until the battery will no longer start the car. Most trade tool batteries can be fitted with a USB adaptor so a typical 5AHr lithium battery will run your phone for weeks.
4) My LiFePO 100Ahr battery runs a camping fridge 24/7/365 with just one old solar panel on my roof which is stood up at 50º to optimise the winter sun angle. Shortly I’ll add a small inverter to maintain power to my new Starlink internet set-up which is expensive but more reliable than our illustrious national telco. The local telco exchange only has just over 24hrs of battery-life to support local landlines. (as an exercise, try NOT using ANY telecoms for 2 days,- it is hell running a business)
5) A camping gas cooker run from a standard BBQ bottle will last weeks.
6) Matches, candles, kerosene lamps are low tech, cheap and reliable.
7) My ancient box freezer stays frozen for an entire day with a blanket thrown over the top. I run the generator for only an hour at night to chill fridges. Reduce air spaces in fridges. Reduce open-door times. Many foods remain okay with just a wet tea-towel draped over them in a draughty location.
8) In rural Au where we have to collect rain-water, build a tank-stand so you always have gravity pressure water. I have a serious 7000 litre high tank but a Bulk Liquid Container up on a few bricks will keep most households in drinking water for a week.
Spain has warned you of what is inevitably coming to Australia.
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Or as an alternative to a petrol generator, a diesel or LPG (propane) one as diesel and propane fuels have virtually indefinite storage life. And you can run a diesel generator on vegetable oil if you get desperate.
60
A lot easier to do when you live in a country location. We have much the same sort of set up or at least our spin on some of it. I wouldnt be anywhere near as as well set up (or able to use a lot of it) if we lived in the burbs.
20
John,
There has been an increase in domestic fires, started by decomposing Li ion batteries.
Is it really good policy to add 20 litres of petrol or diesel to many more households? Geoff S
00
23 degrees celsius is a “climate extreme” in Spain?
Bollocks!
100
Extremely mild
40
So even Spain, one of the poorest European countries, has nuclear, unlike backwards, couldn’t-
run-a-tuck-shop-Australia.
120
Spain ranks about 4 or 5 in GDP, most of the EU is poorer than Spain. They are reasonably well heeled.
30
Bless our ABC: their article on loss of grid electricity in Spain and Portugal makes reference to a “power outrage”. No mention of renewables but how prophetic?
120
Like its twin, our RNZ blamed a recent recycling yard fire on “lithium iron batteries”. Today’s young ones wouldn’t last long in a real Iron Age Outrage.
30
I find this ABC report interesting in two ways:
The headline says Spain lost 15 GW in 5 seconds, cf nearly 18 GW of solar as Jo reports; and
There’s no mention of the weather at the time in this (or other) report (s).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-29/spain-portugal-power-outage-how-it-happened/105227080
” The network lost 15 gigawatts of electricity generation in five seconds at around midday local time, the Spanish energy ministry said, without explaining the reason for the loss. ”
Cheers,
Dave B
20
I met up with an interesting gentleman this morning on my dog walk with my son’s dog Mazie.
He retired recently but was in construction up till recently. He told me that all his ex-colleagues are reporting that in Australia government has stopped expenditure on roads and infrastructure, and is concentrating all its financials on construction of renewables . .
40
Doesn’t sound quite right.
I admit our roads in Victoria are almost potholed like a war zone. But our government, federal and state, has recent budget allocations for more infrastructure projects and existing ongoing projects consuming billions that are not renewables. Including planning on over $100billion on a train tunnel that seemingly few will use.
I guess we’ll know more after the Federal election this coming Saturday when most promises are taken back off the table.
30
Sometimes the Nullarbor Plain is useful.
In this instance, separating the WEM from the NEM.
Though I do wonder what will happen when the Collie coal fired generation is “history”. At least WA is large enough to support the “theory” that weather can be different in a large enough geographic area.
Time to refill the 20L petrol can. Insurance for the 2KW portable generator. And time to replace the empty 45 kg LPG bottle (for the cook top)
Perhaps time to ask the local representatives to please not cancel completely fossil fueled generation before the success and cost of a black start to the electrical grid is adequately understood.
50
Bluewaters at Collie is Australia’s most modern coal power station, so I doubt that it will be shut down soon. The Muja coal power units are the old ones that will be shut down first.
20
Has anybody tried turning Spain off and back on again to fix it?
They are now? 😆
60
‘REN said it had restored production at a hydroelectric and thermoelectric plant’ They can’t even bring themselves to say that a thermoelectric plant is a coal fired or nuclear power station.
30
The press always struggle to correctly report on technical stuff, they aren’t technical people and aren’t smart enough to ask the right people.
10
You are too forgiving. I’m sure it’s deliberate.
20
Pity this ‘outage’ didn’t happen a few days earlier. It could have been used in our election lead-up to show the fragility of high % solar and wind energy. I discuss some of this in my bestselling book “Australia’s Looming Energy Crisis”. See http://www.ozenergycrisis.com.au.
Will include the Spain/Portugal incident in my forthcoming talks to Rotary and Probus clubs in Sydney starting this Thursday.
We are gambling with Australia’s economic future. We cannot afford to fail our grandkids, but with present plans we are going to do so in a big way.
50
“Pity this ‘outage’ didn’t happen a few days earlier. It could have been used in our election lead-up to show the fragility of high % solar and wind energy. I discuss some of this in my bestselling book “Australia’s Looming Energy Crisis”.
So true Alan, the right may be able to talk about it but time is fast running out, better that it happened today and not next week.
Do you have tips and suggestions in the book for folk to prepare for more unreliable power, I am thinking of buying one of those portable Lifepo all in one battery/inverter things and I keep some cash as a backup.
00
Here is a May 2024 presentation to the Climate and Energy Realists of Five Dock given by By Alan Lawrensen on his book “Australia’s Looming Energy Crisis” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTI3X4ev8QE
10
Albo-tross is campaigning for lots more inverter based generation(wind and solar), Snowy2 may never be completed, loss of heavy spinning generation, Dutton is advocating for heavy spinning generation(steam turbines, heated by nuclear.)
My vote will be submitted accordingly.
The libs ought to get on this immediately, there’s only a few days left and millions have already voted.
00
Great thread post on X on the implications of the Spain event by Aidan Morrison. His conclusion: “In about 3 years we’ll have much more solar than Spain had today. And AEMO’s status is “progressing understanding of the challenges”. And it’s not clear we know how to restart the system. I’ve said enough. AEMC is right. It’s bad.”
https://x.com/FootnotesGuy/status/1917113938216686008
00
FWIW
“And it’s not clear we know how to restart the system.”
The way we’re going to restart the system that was crashed by cranks might rely on a forgotten crank start Lister gen set
10
It’s going to be a long climb up and down the stairs for all the high rise dwellers, home to no lights, refrigeration, airconditioning, water supply, ATM, TV , phones etc.
50
I’d guess that the smart ones will climb down once and deal with all that at ground level?
00
Drumroll…and the rare atmospheric event was..
https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1916923567914078304
What do you bet…
30
Perhaps Don Quixote succeeded after all.
10
The ‘rare atmospheric phenomenon’ is in the same category as a ‘special military operation’, a euphemism for events of which you do not want to, or dare to, mention the proper name.
I predict it will enter the language to report anything concerning weather or climate.
20
How can we Australians get someone in control of our electricity systems to speak up about the potential for blackouts in NEM, given the similarity to the Spain/Portugal system that failed. (Except we have no neighbour like France with large spinning reserves).
Surely a responsible Federal Minister would order minions to make an assessment of future Australian risk and recovery. I am fairly sure that this will not happen before the next election and I think that silence will continue after it. We used to call it mushroom politics, as mushrooms are grown by being kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
What did we do to deserve this? Geoff S
20
>Surely a responsible Federal Minister would…
Instead of their responsibility to their nation and their people most ministers these days, and certainly those who are selected for promotion through the ranks, see their responsibilities being to their party, their backers, and their wallet.
>What did we do to deserve this?
Too many of us took the bribes. We got bought off with the new car, house, new cellphone, big TV, steady job, comfy life, the ultimate leisure of not having to think.
00