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While It is still done Analysis Committee meetings to find out what happened in the blackout of April 28. A new preliminary report of the European Network of Electricity Transportation Networks (ENTSO-E) has thrown An important focus on something that Europe could not see.
Short. So far, what was known were the data of the “Black box”where second to second it has been investigated that it began to fail. But a new preliminary report of the Entso-E has confirmed That it is not only about the oscillations that were recorded in Spain: collapse was a “complex sequence of events.”
In depth. The point is that the report explained that during the half an hour before the incident, two power and frequency oscillations were observed in the European electricity grid, between 12:03 and 12:07 and between 12:19 and 12:21. And of course, both Red Eléctrica in Spain and RTE in France took measures to mitigate these oscillations. However, at 12:33, the electrical system of the Iberian Peninsula He collapsed completely.
The matter has more crumb. At that time, no oscillations and system variables were detected within the normal range of operation. But that did not mean that everything was under control. Europe had detected those oscillations, but when Spain and France intervened, they did not interpret it as a critical risk. This was how in southern Spain, a series of failures in electricity generation caused a loss of 2200 MW. This loss was sufficient to trigger a drop in the frequency of the system, which fell to 48 Hz. In other words, the electrical frequency must be maintained around 50 Hz. If it drops from 48 Hz, the system can enter a critical state. And that was exactly what happened.
From that moment on … The blackout was inevitable. The electricity exchanges between Spain and its neighboring countries were at high levels: 1000 MW towards France, 2000mw to Portugal and 800MW to Morocco. But when the system collapsed, these connections were also lost. The transmission lines between France and Spain stopped working at 12:33:21 and automatic protection systems disconnected the entire Iberian network three seconds later.
There was a figure that circulates in networks. The president of the Government in his appearance before the media said: “15GW disappeared in 5 seconds”I immediately ran this statement in the networks, but the Entso-E has specified that the loss was 2.2GW.
So where did that figure come from? The 15 GW that circulated after the blackout comes from an initial REE estimate based on automatic defense systems. According to the Secretary of Energy of MitecoJoan Groizard, 10 GW were counted in automatic cuts (demand breakdown) and 5 GW in contribution of interconnections that stopped supplying energy. However, the report of the ETSO-E specifies that the loss recorded in southern Spain was 2200 MW (2.2 GW), a significantly lower figure, evidencing that the initial calculation did not reflect the loss of generation itself, but the global impact of the event on the electrical system.
And now what? Entso-e has created A panel of experts to continue investigating what happened. These experts, from countries not affected by the blackout, will collect all the available data to rebuild minute by minute what happened on April 28 to prepare a technical report that will be presented to the European Commission throughout the second half of the year. In turn, the Spanish committee will continue working in parallel, analyzing not only technical failures, but also possible cyber attacks or errors in digital systems, according to has detailed The vice president, Sara Aagesen, in an interview for eldiario.es.
Forecasts In the same interview, Sara Aagesen He has insisted in that the causes of the blackout are “enormously complex” and that no hypothesis is ruled out. But many unknowns are left: what centrals were disconnected exactly? What triggered the drop of 2200 MW? And why not the alert signals were detected in time?
The first “green” blackout He has put Testing the Iberian Electricity and has evidenced the vulnerabilities of a system in full transition to renewables. While the full analysis of the blackout could take months, both system operators and governments They move in a field full of uncertainty. The key now is to rethink the Microredes, Energy storage and Gridorming technologies capable of stabilizing an increasingly volatile network. The road is being configured now and is in the present where you have to continue working.
Image | Unspash and Eric Fischer
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