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Crossing accusations among the actors of the Spanish energy system. The Government of Spain published at the last minute of Tuesday the report that will submit to Brussels on the blackout of April 28, in which it indicates the poor planning of the network operator. Hours later, Red Electrica has submitted its own report, pointing to the bad praxis of electric companies. The electric, on the other hand, deny all responsibility, ensuring that their systems acted correctly to an unstable network, and accusing the opacity authorities.
In a corner of the ring, the Government of Spain. The official report of the analysis committee created by the Government is overwhelming: the blackout was the result of a surge chain reaction that the system could not support. Although the 182 pages technical research Distribute responsibility between the planner and the executors (plants that were connected, but did not comply with the criteria set to control the tension), the Ministry for Ecological Transition directs directly to the network operator due to structural weakness.
Among entire pages censored to maintain the confidentiality of those involved, the Government report indicates the two critical errors committed by Electricity that day: poor programming and insufficient capacity for dynamic control of tensions. On the one hand, the number of thermal groups scheduled to regulate the tension was lower than that of previous weeks. On the other, the operator did not replace a group in the southern zone that had been out of service the previous afternoon. It was where the waterfall caused the three disconnections They made the system fall like a nipe castle.
Following the protocols was the third “mistake” that, without being considered bad praxis, the operator committed. According to the report, Red Eléctrica made three decisions to reduce system oscillations that rose the tension: 1) increase the misery of the network, connecting several 400 kV lines previously disconnected; 2) reduce exports to France and Portugal; and 3) disconnect several reactances, equipment that absorbs reactive energy to lower the tension. The result was the waterfall that triggered the automatic disconnection.
In the other corner of the ring, Red Electric. Faced with the conclusions of the Government, Red Electrica has submitted its own report and a closed defense of his performance. Their managers denied any planning error and aimed directly at the electric: “If the third -party centrals had regulated the tension as they should, the blackout had not occurred,” said Concha Sánchez, director of operation of the system, at the press conference on Wednesday.
Electric Red defends that its programming was enough. That calculations and technical restrictions were made “whenever all groups comply with the obligations imposed by current regulations.” And that this would have been the right plan if the others had fulfilled their part. Who are the others? The electric.
Operator’s analysis determines that disconnections that caused the blackout They should not happen: the plants shot without the tension reaching the ranges required by the regulations. They coincide with the government in which the generation “did not comply with the established obligations” to regulate the tension and “did not absorb the reactive energy” that was obliged to absorb. As a cake, the president of Redeia, Beatriz Corredor, accused the electric Do not facilitate all the required information or to do it without sufficient quality for a technical analysis.
On the other side of the quadrilateral, the electric. Large electric companies (Iberdrola, Endesa and EDP) categorically deny any failure in their facilities. Its version is that the protection systems acted “as established by the electrical regulations in the face of a serious situation of network instability.” That the disconnections were automatic and correct to protect the equipment from a network that was already unstable. And that its centrals followed at all times the instructions of the system operator.
The electric They also accused the government of “issuing public judgments that only result in the confusion and hinder of the process”, and claimed to Red Electric to share all the technical information transparently. The employer assures that Electric detected tension problems “Before the incident occurs” and communicated them to Red Electric. Problems that, according to the employer’s version, were discarded by the operator.
A significant fact is that the report presented on Wednesday by Red Electrica focuses on events after 12:03 of April 28, qualifying the previous facts as “non -relevant.” A statement criticized by analysts, since the government’s own report details “atypical” volatility in tensions throughout the morning and previous weeks. In the words of the electric, the operator cannot act as “judge and part” of the investigation.
And in the corner that remains, consumers. Those who We will pay at the light bill The cost of restoring electricity with synchronous generators, later recovering The cheapest renewable energy. Those who are at the mercy of little transparent data to choose who to believe in this war of accusations, whose backdrop is the foreseeable legal battle for compensation.
The blackout not only affected Spain, but also Portugal and partially to France, which anticipates millionaire claims, which in turn explains the defensive position of all those involved and the meticulous construction of their respective stories. The great blackout of April 28 was not a simple technical failure. It was the collapse of a system that operated on the edge, evidencing a chain of vulnerabilities That, once the responsibilities were purified, it will have to be corrected. Another put to the point that We will undoubtedly end up noticing In the light invoice.
Image | Marvel, Freepik, Xataka
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