Owners Turning Off Solar Systems Triggered Spain’s Blackouts

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Spain’s disastrous blackout was triggered by the Owners of solar systems switching off in response to plummeting wholesale power prices, an official investigation has found.

A government report into Europe’s biggest power cut found that Spain’s solar farms were generating so much power on April 28, a particularly sunny day, that wholesale prices became “negative” – meaning there would be losses if operating them.

Plunging prices triggered a mass switch-off, which sent voltage and frequency fluctuations cascading across the national grids of both Spain and Portugal.

Back-up systems meant to guard against such fluctuations were either not operating, or were insufficient to close the big gap between demand and production.

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The power cut caused massive gridlock in cities and left thousands stranded on trains and in elevators across the Iberian peninsula. Several deaths were also linked to the incident.

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Experts said in the immediate aftermath of the power cut that a reliance on net zero energy had left Spain and Portugal vulnerable to the blackouts, because of the way renewable power is generated.

However, Spain’s Left-wing government has repeatedly insisted that wind and solar was not to blame, whereas grid operating data showed the opposite..

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the opposition People’s Party (PP), said ministers were “so intent on being the greenest in the world that you have led Spaniards into the dark”, the BBC reported.

Critics say more time is needed to ensure the grid is resilient and prepared for the huge shift.

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The Spanish report, made public on Tuesday, described how the power cut, which occurred shortly after midday, had been preceded by unusual voltage fluctuations across the Spanish grid from roughly 10am onwards.

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Those fluctuations correlated with abrupt reductions in solar generation, which were probably driven by Owners of solar systems switching off as wholesale power prices fell into negative territory..

This coincided with other, wider changes, such as an abrupt drop in the amount of power being exported to France.

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While the solar switch-off appears to be the immediate trigger for the blackouts, investigators blamed the country’s grid operator Redeia for failing to calculate the correct mix of energy generation needed to prevent a blackout.

Redeia disputed that finding, saying voltages had always been within set limits.

Investigators also attributed a portion of blame to power plant operators.

Some had been paid to keep nuclear and gas-fired power stations in operation to stabilize the system, but had turned down those plants too in order to save money.

Sara Aagesen, Spain’s energy minister, said power plants “should have controlled voltage and, moreover, many of them were economically remunerated to do so.

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Redeia rejected any blame and said it was the fault of power plants.

Concha Sanchez, operations chief, told a news briefing: “Had conventional power plants done their job in controlling the voltage there would have been no blackout.”

Beatriz Corredor, the company’s chairman, said Redeia will release its own full report on the causes of the outage.

‘Unlikely to happen in UK, because of very poor solar conditions’

Duncan Burt, who previously worked for National Grid and is now chief strategy officer at Reactive Technologies, said many of the recommendations on reinforcing the country’s power grids in the Spanish report already had been implemented in the UK.

“This kind of event would be very unlikely to happen in the UK, because its grid operators have already invested a lot in voltage control equipment and measuring systems for inertia,” he said. “The UK is further ahead than Spain in its energy transition.”

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A spokesman for Solar Energy UK, the industry trade body, said: “The major lesson is that the grid needs to be reinforced as renewable generation expands, as is happening here.

“The Spanish grid lacked utility-scale battery capacity and grid-forming inverters, which is unlike the UK electricity networks.”

A spokesman for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “The UK has one of the most reliable electricity systems in the world – in its 75-year history, there has never been a complete grid shutdown...

“The National Energy System Operator continuously monitors the condition of the electricity system to ensure there are sufficient inertia and reserves in the system to prevent large-scale power outages.”