Europe - Spain, Portugal and France major power disruptions

[Stinsy]

Quote ..........REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of 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.”
Is this really a thing ?? never heard of it before........................

It is a longwinded way of saying the had too much solar and not enough inertia on the grid.

[nowty]

Its going to be interesting to how long it takes to get all the grid back online. There will be a lot more unknowns on the demand side with heatpumps, EVs and fridges wanting instant gratification. Then there is the generation side of connecting a solar farm in full Spanish sun, I wonder if they re-connect them at night to reduce the surges.

[Marcus]

Quote ..........REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of 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.”
Is this really a thing ?? never heard of it before........................

It is a longwinded way of saying the had too much solar and not enough inertia on the grid.

my linguistic skills are not the best: perhaps you could explain how:
"Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’ "

translates to: "too much solar and not enough inertia"?

I can see that "oscillation" could be a consequence of "not enough inertia", but my quick googling of the induced atmospheric vibration, suggests it's brought on by atmospheric variables rather than excess generation.

[nowty]

I don't think Its clear yet as to what caused the oscillations, and there is probably multiple causes but the Portuguese leccy company has said,

"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

That sounds like loss of frequency stabilisation (inertia), a similar event occurred in the UK in 2019 where the tripping out of older domestic solar installations caused an increased demand spike in addition to the loss of two large generating facilities after a lightning strike.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/i ... wer-outage

For two whole countries to go tits up, there is likely to be a lot of lessons to be learned.

[Stinsy]

Quote ..........REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of 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.”
Is this really a thing ?? never heard of it before........................

It is a longwinded way of saying the had too much solar and not enough inertia on the grid.

my linguistic skills are not the best: perhaps you could explain how:
"Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’ "

translates to: "too much solar and not enough inertia"?

I can see that "oscillation" could be a consequence of "not enough inertia", but my quick googling of the induced atmospheric vibration, suggests it's brought on by atmospheric variables rather than excess generation.

The point of inertia is to ensure that frequency stays constant (within 0.1-0.2%) nomatter the strain on the grid. This strain can come from many different directions and inertia is the primary defence. FF generation naturally provides plentiful inertia, solar does not. (I don’t see why solid-state grid inertia cannot be provided by solar and battery inverters, but they don’t (currently) provide that functionality). Very long power lines suffer from several interesting phenomena. In very hot, very dry conditions, the corona discharge effect induces a level of reactance that can fight the grid inertia.

This is one reason why we have been moving to DC for very long HV power distribution Iines.

[Stinsy]

Its going to be interesting to how long it takes to get all the grid back online. There will be a lot more unknowns on the demand side with heatpumps, EVs and fridges wanting instant gratification. Then there is the generation side of connecting a solar farm in full Spanish sun, I wonder if they re-connect them at night to reduce the surges.

Agreed, this is going to be an interesting case study in starting a dark grid. I guess interconnections with neighbouring grids will help. But they’ll be concerned about the problem spreading. Does Spain have a Dinorwig equivalent?

[Moxi]

Spain has 6gW of pumped storage apparently but that 6GW is spread over 18 plants so no real heft to it I guess.

Moxi

[dan_b]

Some information about what went wrong, and how they brought the Grid back online

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c175ykvjxyeo

[Stinsy]

Some information about what went wrong, and how they brought the Grid back online

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c175ykvjxyeo

It is reassuring to see a real-world dark grid being restarted. It seems that Hydro, interconnects, and gas were enough to bring the grid up. Air conditioners are relatively benign in this scenario because they are programmed to insert a random-length delay before restarting and I guess industrial users had manually thrown the breakers (you don't want your mega-expensive frozen warehouse compressors (or whatever) exposed to a stuttering grid).

[John_S]

One heck of a sudden loss of load



Some information about what went wrong, and how they brought the Grid back online

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c175ykvjxyeo

Reading the BBC report, it appears that it was a loss of generating capacity rather than a loss of demand/load.

Although as circuits trip due to imbalance, the load would have quickly followed the generation downwards.