The network did not collapse due to lack of energy, but for lack of control. Renewable continues to be connected as if they were passive

Almost two months after the blackout that disconnected Spain and Portugal, the government has made public a technical report that focuses on a very specific problem: the lack of tension control at critical moments, especially in renewable parks.

Is it possible? As the engineer and energy expert Xavier Cugat has pointed out in networks, the debate on voltage control in renewable facilities is not only a technician: There are technologies that already allow it. One of them is SMA’s ‘Q at Night’ system, which allows solar plants to provide reactive energy even during the night.

The idea is clear: if a solar plant can continue to support the network even without sun, part of the stability problem can be mitigated. This does not directly solve the lack of inertia, but complements the voltage support and improves the resilience of the system.

Reactive energy The principle is simple but effective. SMA photovoltaic investors, equipped with the Q at night function, They remain connected to the network even when they are not generating active energy (that is, when there is no sun). This allows them to inject or absorb reactive energy as needed, contributing to maintain tension within acceptable margins.

In case of high penetration. This type of energy is key to avoiding tension instabilities. In this particular case, it is for a network with low presence of conventional plants. Although it does not contribute inertia, it allows plants to support tension balance and remain connected to critical events instead of disconnecting preventively.

So the issue of inertia? This is where it is necessary to clarify. The Government report has made it clear that collapse was not a consequence of a frequency fall, but of a cascado of over -overdations. Even in a scenario of greater inertia, over -overdrafts would have also produced, according to the report. Therefore, the lack of inertia was not the direct cause of collapse; The collapse was the one that caused the fall in frequency.

During the blackout, different plants were disconnected preventively when detecting overtheions. The problem is that, according to the report, several of these disconnections occurred before even the maximum limits allowed by the regulations were reached. In other words: they did not respond properly to the network conditions.

A system not adapted to its own transition The problem seems structural: the electricity grid has not evolved at the same rate as the massive renewable deployment. With 82% clean generation and the least amount of operational synchronous plants throughout the year, the system faced an explosive cocktail: a lot of distributed generation, little centralized control and little response capacity against critical events. In just 12 seconds, the entire Iberian system of the rest of Europe was disconnected.

A transition without security network. The blackout was a symptom, not an anomaly. Spain leads the renewable transition, but without a prepared network, each advance becomes vulnerability. The voltage control, the response to incidents and the ability to maintain stability without large machines spinning are the great challenge of the new energy paradigm.

Image | Pexels

Xataka | 49 days after the blackout, the government has published the official report. Against all prognosis, he points to a culprit