By Jo Nova
The cause of the mysterious oscillations and the big Iberian blackout is still a mystery, and it will take six months before the world has forgotten, sorry, I mean before the official report is finished.
In the meantime, baffled Spanish grid managers, who couldn’t possibly speculate on the cause, have cranked up the nuclear power and the gas, and reduced solar generation for no reason in particular. It’s all very odd, because gas is more expensive, and sun is free.
The Minister accidentally called this “Strengthened Mode” . (Didn’t they used to call it pollution?).
Lest we forget — in the hours before the crash, solar power was providing 60% of the energy, while nuclear power was covering 11%, and gas was just 3%.
Net Zero Spain leans on Nuclear, Gas to keep the lights on after historic Blackout
By Oliver JJ Lane, Breitbart
Spain is running its national power grid in “strengthened mode”, using more nuclear and natural gas in place of the renewables it vaunted before last month’s historic blackout, but still hasn’t said what started the outage.
Bloomberg energy industry journalist Javier Blas, who is Spanish, further notes in a digest of Aagesen’s remarks that she also said — without elaboration — in her address to Parliament that the grid operator was now running the system in “strengthened mode”
The people deserve no hypotheses, says the Minister (covering her #$%)
[Minister for Ecological Transition and Energy Sara Aagesen] said: “The government is working with rigour and not making hypotheses, because that is what the Spanish people deserve. Rigour and truth”.
Per the latest data, in recent days, more reliable traditional generation is being used more, with nuclear responsible for between 14 and 23 percent, and natural gas-fired plants accounting for up to 25 percent at times.
It’s just bad luck, you know, that these mysterious oscillations hit Spain. And thus, they have to use CCGT gas turbines for a while, because they can “adjust more promptly to mysterious oscillations”. It’s just a quirk:
Spain Boosts Costlier Gas Power to Secure Grid After Blackout
By Thomas Gualtieri, Bloomberg
Still, energy regulator CNMC head Cani Fernandez told lawmakers that the system is currently working with more expensive backup mechanisms that would adjust more promptly to unwanted oscillations. That’s a good description of CCGTs versus solar.
“It seems that Red Electrica wants to have tight control over the generation mix to stabilize it” said Javier Pamos, an analyst at Aurora Energy Research. “Combined-cycle plants are being included in it even though there are hours of the day when they wouldn’t be necessary as renewable production is enough to cover demand.”
The output of combined-cycle gas turbines, a more steady generation technology than solar, jumped 37% in the two weeks after the outage, compared with the two weeks prior, data from power grid operator Red Electrica show. Their average share of Spain’s power mix increased to 18% from about 12%.
On May 15th the Spanish Government claimed that there were mysterious oscillations right across the continent:
Spanish government provides further details in blackout update
PV-Magazine
Two oscillations in the system variables detected at 12:03 pm were observed, lasting five minutes, during which strong fluctuations in voltage and frequency occurred.
The second, at 12:19 pm, lasted three minutes. This, according to Aagesen, “is more common within the European system, comes from the center-east, and oscillates with respect to the European synchronous system, which, in turn, oscillates with respect to Turkey. The system operator acted to dampen these oscillations.”
After these oscillations, demand was 25,184 MW at 12:30 pm, at which time there was 3 GW of pumping.
Portugal is now blaming France, saying that because France runs on nuclear power it’s been very slack about building interconnectors to Spain. The unhappy Iberians have said for years that Paris was “resisting” the flow of cheap (but unreliable) energy “to protect its own nuclear power plants and maintain its control over the European energy market.” (Which, of course, it was.)
France is 68% nuclear powered, and the last thing they’d want is surges of useless solar and wind power that the nuclear plants would have to dance around. Unreliable solar and wind generators don’t provide France with anything it doesn’t already have, but the surges would make French nuclear plants operate in a less efficient, more expensive mode.
The EU set a target of 10% electricity swaps between countries by 2020, but at the moment it’s only 3% between Spain and France.
Portugal Scapegoats France After Iberian Blackout
By Javier Villamor, European Conservative
France’s electricity grid operator (RTE) denies any obstruction.
Portugal’s Energy Minister, Maria da Graça Carvalho, has not hesitated to describe the lack of interconnections with France as a direct barrier to the European single market. According to Lisbon, systematic delays by the French government in expanding electricity infrastructure across the Pyrenees have contributed to the energy isolation of both Spain and Portugal, multiplying the impact of the recent system collapse.
Portugal has announced that it will take the case to the European Commission, requesting formal intervention against France for violating the principles of the EU’s internal energy market. The EU had set a target for member states to have electricity import capacity equal to 10% of national generation by 2020 and 15% by 2030. However, the connection between Spain and France barely exceeds 3%.
So the Spanish and Portuguese complaints are undoubtedly true — naughty France.
If only the Iberians had been selling something France actually wanted, it wouldn’t be so hard to make them build the interconnectors.
Image by Greg Montani from Pixabay. | Tunnel by Jo Nova