In today’s episode of Should’a Asked Kate;
Spain’s grid operator warned that a resurgence in sharp voltage swings threatens to disrupt the country’s power supply less than six months after it suffered the most severe outage in Europe in decades.
Red Electrica requested urgent changes to its operating procedures to better manage voltage in its system, according to a document published by the regulator. The company said the challenges are being caused by abrupt changes in scheduled production, particularly from renewable power plants.
It’s a sign that while investigators have called the events of that blackout unprecedented, the conditions that led to it may be a persistent problem for the stability of Spain’s power network. Spain has been a leader in deployment of renewables and its grid stresses will be closely watched by grid operators across Europe who seek to rapidly decarbonize their grids without jeopardizing reliability.
How long until Spain’s grid operator starts attaching resistor banks to their grid for the purposes of voltage control, because you only have a small range to work with, before bad things can start happening.
For some reason this came to mind: John Prine: Dear Abby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJVFY_LX9Ik
Practical Engineering has some good stuff on the complexity of electrical grids.
I worked in a diesel power plant just long enough realize it’s a lot more complicated than I thought.
Plenty of ‘cow looking at a train’ moments.
“Connecting Solar to the Grid is Harder Than You Think”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G4ipM2qjfw&t=172s&pp=0gcJCfwJAYcqIYzv
But Stan!? The sloganeering that said; … “we need a new kind of grid”. Played very well with focus groups and the public. It played as well as CA’s high speed bleed of cash train … which promised to make CA … “just as kewl as Europe”
Grid crash happened before, and …
“There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule.” Mark Twain
LOVE that quote! I’ve gotta commit that to memory
“caused by abrupt changes in scheduled production”
It’s called “feedback” or “ringing”. You plug in the guitar, turn up the gain and face the amp, you get feedback.
It’s much worse in an electrical grid, because there’s no volume knob. She starts to ring, and then stuff starts to melt and go on fire.