Iberian Electricity Roulette: Russian Roulette With an Automatic
Today the Iberian peninsula returned to a state like that experienced by previous occupants like the Carthaginians or Umayyads: electricity free. Around 1238h local time, the grid crashed in Spain and Portugal: parts of France are affected too.
In brief, frequency crashed suddenly, indicating that generation was insufficient to meet load. And here’s the deal with frequency crashes in renewables dominated systems: when the frequency falls, it can’t get up.
In conventional power systems that rely on thermal and nuclear generation spinning generators absorb most fluctuations through the inertia inherent in large numbers of massive spinning machines. Having other spinning machines on standby is also essential to absorbing shocks. Renewables dominated systems lack this inertia, and have inadequate backup, and are thus extremely brittle: they cannot absorb sharp fluctuations in generation or load, and such shocks can cause the system to collapse.
Today, “can” became “did.”
Perhaps the shock was weather-driven, due to a sudden drop in wind or solar production. Or perhaps it was a sudden increase in load due to a temperature shock: Portugal’s grid operator mentioned “extreme temperature variations” and a “rare atmospheric phenomenon.” That could be interpreted as either a weather driven load shock, or a weather-drive generation shock, or both. Or perhaps a transmission problem cut off power from an important source.
Whatever the initial shock, the ultimate culprit is either directly or indirectly an over-reliance on renewables. Directly in the case that generation volatility inherent in renewables caused the frequency drop. (I am currently working on a project to quantify renewables output in various US markets). Indirectly in the case of a shock to demand that a renewables-heavy system could not absorb due to its inherent lack of inertia.
If that’s victory, what does defeat look like? (And that claim not completely honest, by the way: nukes and thermal generators were supplying spinning reserves and other ancillary services).
This was inevitable, just as it is inevitable that playing Russian roulette with an automatic will end badly. In other words, Iberia just found out the consequences of fucking around with renewables.
The question is whether lessons will be learned. Given that this isn’t the first time this has happened, and countries around the world have doubled down on their renewables death ride regardless I am skeptical: these people NEVER admit error. At least the Trump administration is pumping the brakes, though not hard enough for my comfort. But Germany, the UK, Australia, etc., appear to want to pursue the “energy transition” in the worst way. The worst way being a transition to no energy that occurs with probability one in finite time.
It is thus particularly hilarious to read this from Bloomberg. Great timing!
On noes! Not isolation from the lemmings plunging over the renewables cliff! Anything but that!
Yeah, we’ll be enjoying our isolation from you all shivering or sweltering in the dark.
And speaking of the dark, Spain has to black start its grid. You know, just like that modern economic powerhouse Cuba has had to do several times recently.
Good luck black starting in the black of night in a system loaded with solar. Hell, even when the sun is shining solar generation declines throughout the afternoon–just when Spain needs more generation to get things spinning again.
Perhaps you find my schadenfreude in poor taste. Well, after being lectured and hectored for years about how I and others of like mind are evil because of our Cassandra-like warnings about the idiocy and insanity of renewables, I really don’t care Margaret. Just like with COVID, the oh-so-superior bien pensants have declared their moral and intellectual superiority over and over to justify destructive policies regarding climate change and energy, and to beat dissenters into silence and submission. They should feel grateful that demonstration of their manifest inferiority results in only scorn, rather than lampposts. And as for the non-bien pensants who are suffering, well, they have voted for these politicians and enabled these policies. If they feel betrayed or deceived, hopefully bluntly pointing out whom is really to blame will rip the scales from their eyes, even if it doesn’t drive them to fitting ropes to said lampposts.
“Perhaps you find my schadenfreude in poor taste”: only in that it doesn’t go far enough. There’s a rather entertaining thread on Marginal Revolution that started as a Right On boast about 100% renewable Spain (which turned out to be a lie anyway) followed by various people reporting the news of the big blackout in Iberia.
Most MR commenters seem to be rather dumb clucks in that they don’t understand that if you create an unstable system it’s just childish to worry about which particular perturbation causes the system to crash. One will always come along; that’s why you worry about unstable systems.
I’m not an electrical engineer so I am not master of the details but genuine experts have been warning about the equivalent risks in Britain for some time in the comments threads on this blog here: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
Naturally the Powers That Be care not a toss.
We really are going to have to start hanging the ruling class. (After arrest, charge, trial, conviction and sentencing, naturally. All that could presumably be compressed into a day or two.)
Comment by dearieme — April 28, 2025 @ 1:45 pm
@dearieme. Oh, you can be sure I commented on that thread:
And yes, the other comments trying to put the blame anywhere but renewables are farcical. The fact is that regardless of where the initial shock originated, a renewables-dependent system is far less likely to be able to withstand it.
I’ve been a member of the lamppost brigade for some time. I’ll supply a drum for the drumhead trials.
Comment by cpirrong — April 28, 2025 @ 2:05 pm
“The fact is that regardless of where the initial shock originated, a renewables-dependent system is far less likely to be able to withstand it.”
To be fair, this is only true in a badly-implemented renewables-heavy system (which you might argue is a distinction without a difference, which in the Iberian case does indeed seem fair enough). One of the things that Tesla does very well (outside the antics of their CEO…) is providing grid-scale battery storage, not to provide power when the sun goes down, but to be available in milliseconds to replace the inertia that the spinning turbines previously provided. They earn good money out of that activity too, and provide huge stability to a grid, which can then do managed load-shedding when a shock inevitably arrives. That the Spanish and Portuguese did not have some system like this is startling…
Another issue is that this post seems to ignore the fact that Europe faces different externalities compared to the US: If Spain and Portugal didn’t use so much renewables, they’d have to rely on fossil fuels, which they have to import. And shocks to those imports are ALSO inevitable and are much more difficult to mitigate. So instead they use locally available and very cheap power (like the US does), albeit they haven’t configured their grid properly for it. I bet the will now though.
Comment by HibernoFrog — April 29, 2025 @ 5:51 am
The fact that the ‘prof’ (term loosely applied) fails to mention the lack of interconnection capacity to France as a contributing factor shows that he has only a cursory understanding of the Spanish electricity market, so this gibberish may be summarized as ‘RENEWABLES BAD’. Hibernofrog outlines some solutions like battery storage, inertia and capacity as a service. Plus the mentioned build-out of interconnection from France to the Iberian peninsula.
Comment by [email protected] — April 30, 2025 @ 7:34 am
“this is only true in a badly-implemented renewables-heavy system”
Aha! It’s the old Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried trope.
“And shocks to those imports are ALSO inevitable and are much more difficult to mitigate.”
Nah, you can store vast amounts of fossil fuel energy at no very great cost because, you see, fossil fuels are energy-dense.
Comment by dearieme — April 30, 2025 @ 10:32 am
Deari – all energy systems have their limitations. I have vivid memories of repeatedly queuing for petrol when the tanker driver strikes etc.
Anyhew, I’m sure Elon or – more likely – one of his European or Chinese competitors will be right along to offer the a solution to this problem. A bit embarrassing for the Spaniards and a bit of red meat from the credulous denier loons, but no biggie in the grand scheme.
Comment by David Mercer — April 30, 2025 @ 11:37 am
“Aha! It’s the old Real Socialism Has Never Been Tried trope.”
No, this is a well-understood technical solution that, for example, the Australians have already implemented, after they had similar problems with renewables on their grid: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/07/27/tesla-big-battery-begins-providing-inertia-grid-services-at-scale-in-world-first-in-australia/
That the Spanish didn’t learn from the Australian experience is, frankly, simple incompetence. Also, I’ve heard (though we should wait for confirmation) that in Spain, their plan for load shedding was for human operators to travel to sub-stations and MANUALLY disconnect low-priority consumers. Even rotating-inertia wouldn’t be enough to save the grid from that kind of nonsense. So the only surprise with this blackout is that it didn’t happen sooner.
“Nah, you can store vast amounts of fossil fuel energy”
Sure, but we can only practically store only a few months’ worth, and if there’s a war that lasts longer than that, we’d be f*cked. Whereas the solar panels will truck along for 20 years without much complaint, PROVIDED the grid operator is competent. And this ignores the cost of buying the oil and coal in the first place, whereas, per kWh, Solar is cheap cheap cheap (provided that the cost of peaker plants after sundown doesn’t completely offset this).
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 2, 2025 @ 4:24 am
“the solar panels will truck along for 20 years without much complaint”; tough luck when you enter the dreich doldrums when neither wind nor sun generates anything worth having.
If solar and wind are so cheap why do they need so much subsidy? If they’re so cheap why have our electricity prices in Britain increased so much? A likely explanation is that the claims are inaccurate. Why might they be inaccurate? Lying, I dare say.
“if there’s a war that lasts longer than that, we’d be f*cked.” Golly, people say the strangest things. If there were a war how long would the Tesla batteries survive? Five minutes or ten?
Comment by dearieme — May 2, 2025 @ 6:36 am
“tough luck when you enter the dreich doldrums when neither wind nor sun generates anything worth having”
Hence why I mentioned the need for peaker plants and how that cost needs to be factored in.
“If solar and wind are so cheap why do they need so much subsidy”
Where I am (France), grid-scale solar projects are not subsidised. And I know that in Portugal they had private companies bidding to provide power at €0.04/kWh in open tenders, which is only a fraction of the wholesale rate. The savings should have been spent on peaker plants and inertia substitutes. But government being government, they pocketed it instead, and now we see the result.
“If they’re so cheap why have our electricity prices in Britain increased so much?”
I don’t know, but I assume there are many factors (Maybe earlier wind installations needed a lot of subsidy, plus nuclear got much more expensive, plus some fossil fuels got more expensive). Why would you assume that just one single, simple thing was the cause? You don’t think that if it was that easy, somebody wouldn’t already have fixed it?
“If there were a war how long would the Tesla batteries survive?”. Golly, some people can’t tell which is more likely:
A: A war breaking out in a stable European democracy.
B: A war breaking out in one of the many unstable petro-monarchies that supplies Europe.
Comment by HibernoFrog — May 5, 2025 @ 9:10 am
@HibernoFrog. Re “To be fair, this is only true in a badly-implemented renewables-heavy system.” Reminds me of “real communism has never been tried.”
And again, you advance a technical “solution,” but fail to say anything about the cost. Adam Smith said it was perfectly possible to produce great wine in Scotland with the appropriate technical solutions … at 30x the cost.
Importing fossil fuels is not an “externality.” FFS. If you are going to throw around economic terminology, at least use it correctly.
Further, fossil fuel markets (coal, oil, and now NG) are international in scope. Price shocks are global in nature. The reason European natural gas prices diverged from US prices when Russian supplies were cut off was due to liquefaction (and to a lesser degree regassification) capacity constraints, which are being mitigated by investment, esp. in the US.
Echoing Pat Frank, I also note that Europe has made the conscious decision not to develop its own fossil fuel resources. Most notable is the British prohibition on fracking. FAFO.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 1:02 pm
@libte. You need to change your handle. Might I suggest @libtard?
And speaking of retarded, pushing renewables in an isolated electricity network would definitely qualify. You unintentionally make the case against Spanish policy.
And FYI, I have intimate knowledge of a relatively isolated electricity grid that has pushed renewables, namely Texas/ERCOT. For ~20 years it has been recognized that this is a recipe for disaster.
Comment by cpirrong — May 8, 2025 @ 1:05 pm
Your reading comprehension is limited, ‘prof’. Spanish policy is to seek higher grid interconnection with the rest of Europe. There is some French opposition to that, and this lack of interconnectors has contributed to the accident. Let’s hope the ones in change will learn the right lessons.
All of which you haven’t mentioned , bec. self-evidently you know FA all the Spanish electricity market.
Comment by [email protected] — May 8, 2025 @ 6:22 pm
The reason European natural gas prices diverged from US prices when Russian supplies were cut off was due to liquefaction (and to a lesser degree regassification) capacity constraints, which are being mitigated by investment, esp. in the US.
What is the ‘prof’ smoking? Liquefaction constraints? You liquefy natural gas to export it. Europe was short natgas after Russia, why on earth would they need more capacity to export.
Comment by [email protected] — May 8, 2025 @ 6:26 pm