- The power outage that occurred in Spain on Monday at 12:25 pm (CEST) stemmed from a significant mismatch between supply and demand, said Spanish grid operator Red Eléctrica de España (REE), citing “a loss of generation” greater than the system could absorb.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said that “at 12:33 this morning, 15 GW of generation were suddenly lost from the system. This has never happened before.”
According to REE data, during the power supply restoration, more than three-quarters of the electricity generated came from renewable energy. By evening, the proportion of photovoltaic energy naturally decreased, and gas and steam plants were brought online. Coal and nuclear 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 we’ve 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, some homes and businesses never lost power thanks to solar panels and battery-based backup solutions.
“We are one of the few companies in Galicia and Spain that operated completely normally in their offices yesterday, thanks to our headquarters being completely off-grid, using 100% Galician-made technology,” a spokesperson from Spanish energy company Norvento Energia told pv magazine. “Our CIne building has a microgrid that is disconnected from the electrical grid, allowing it to continue operating autonomously at all times, as it produces energy at the point of consumption from renewable sources and has a battery storage system that works synchronously to ensure a constant supply.”
The Norvento Energia spokesperson explained that the company uses wind, photovoltaic, biomass, and battery storage systems powered by intelligent power electronics converters, all designed and manufactured in Lugo. They also noted that, unlike infrastructure with backup diesel generators, which enter zero-energy mode before connecting to the grid, their system never goes into zero-energy mode.
Streetlights and traffic lights equipped with solar panels continued to operate.
Eduardo Prieto, director of operational services at Red Eléctrica, said that although “these are not definitive conclusions,” there are indications of two “generation disconnection” episodes, which occurred at 12:32 pm and at 12:00 pm.
“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 achieved,” he said. “A second and a half later, another event occurred, also compatible with the loss of generation, and this led to a blackout 3.5 seconds later, that is, a five-second window, incompatible with the functioning of the electrical system. The system managed to recover from the first of these events, but not from the second.
Prieto noted that the system could not withstand the extreme disturbance, leading to zero voltage, and emphasized that the cause of the generation loss is still under investigation. He did not specify the location of the second event but acknowledged that it is “very possible” solar generation was affected. He added that they are awaiting information from generation control centers to analyze the disturbances, with some providing early data while others have yet to do so.
Luis Marquina, president of the Battery Storage Association (AEPIBAL), told pv magazine that “whatever 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 efficiently help address this issue, particularly by managing renewables, maximizing their integration into the grid, and speeding up grid reactivation.
“Taking advantage of the situation to give more support to gas and even coal, as we hear doesn’t seem reasonable to us: renewables cannot be reversed, but we must understand that a massively renewable generation needs support technologies that help the system maintain its reliability and security of supply,” said Marquina. “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.”
Sánchez also said that “the government has two clear priorities: the first, to consolidate the restoration of our electrical system to 100%, and to achieve this, numerous teams are deployed on the ground, and today the system will be operated in an intervened, fail-safe manner, with synchronous generation. If there are no developments, tomorrow it will return to full market operation. 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 within hours or days. Meanwhile, private generating 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 recurrence of the incident.
Sánchez also noted that private operators will be held accountable, if applicable, and announced the creation of an investigation committee led by the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
“The technical analysis committee has been established, and the CNMC will be present in the investigations,” said Sánchez, adding that the government will request an independent report from Brussels to obtain a “more accurate picture,” because “we are part of a European network.”
Author: Pilar Sánchez Molina
This article was originally published in pv magazine and is republished with permission.
