electrical

When the heat arrives, the boys fall in love, the solar panels have a fatal and Spain has a new electrical problem

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Summer has arrived with excessive force To Spain. June has closed as the hottest month of which you have a record, and there is no indications that temperatures are going to give truce. The streets are emptied, public parks are deserted, and fans snort day and night as if trying to mark the rhythm of these unbearable days. But while life adapts as it can to this new heat, under the surface – where the invisible network that sustains modern life – heat has also tested the limits of the electrical system. High demand. While millions of people seek refuge under air conditioning, the Spanish electrical system begins to show saturation signals. Extreme heat triggers demand, reduces the efficiency of some sources of renewable generation and generates imbalances in the electricity grid. As collect the Iberian energy market operator (OMIE)on July 1, the price of the megavatio hour reached a peak of 167 euros at 9:00 p.m., an unusual figure for a night strip. The increase coincides with a high demand and a reduced renewable production at the end of the day, which forces the system to rely on more expensive technologies such as natural gas, According to Red Eléctrica España (REE). More heat, more network pressure. To all this is added an urban phenomenon that aggravates the pressure on the network: The island of heat. In cities, asphalt, concrete and lack of vegetation make the heat accumulated during the day stay overnight, raising the temperature several degrees with respect to rural areas. As a result, energy consumption does not descend after sunset, but is kept high for more hours. The households continue to light fans and air conditioning apparatus until well into the morning, which stress the system when the renewables have already fallen from the mix. But with more sun … The logical thing would be to think that with more sunny hours, Solar energy would suffice to meet the growing demand. And in part, it does: According to REE dataon July 1, renewables contributed 50.6 % of the electricity generated in Spain, compared to 49.4 % of non -renewable sources. But that daily average hides what happens in critical hours. From eight or nine in the afternoon, the photovoltaic disappears from the energy mix, just when the demand remains high and the temperature barely yields. At that time, they are the combined cycles – central that burn natural gas – that support the system, with more than 14,000 megawatts generated in some moments of that same night, According to REE data. There is an added problem. Solar does not always yield as expected: As we have already explainedpanels can have efficiency losses between 10 and 25% because of high temperatures. For each additional degree, they can lose up to 0.5 % yield. Nor does wind help too much: heat waves usually come accompanied by atmospheric stability situations that reduce the wind, which also lasts production. Will there be any blackout? Talking about generalized blackouts may seem exaggerated, but comparison with other countries, like the United Statesforces to take the threat seriously. However, the Spanish system has proven to have a certain margin of maneuver. After the blackout of April 28, they were activated Adjustment services to balance the network in case of collapse of the system at critical times. Although it avoids collapse, these mechanisms have a cost: they have more thanked the invoice part, especially for those in the PVPC rate. From that moment on, Ree has maintained an additional safety margin, operating with active backup power plants even when they are not in use, which structurally increases the operation of the system. Beyond the specific episode, that blackout exposed the deficiencies of a system that needs More storage, MicroRedes and greater local response capacity to disturbances. A system under stress. This summer is not only breaking temperature records: the margins of the electrical system is also testing. The combination of prolonged heat, night demand peaks and a more vulnerable renewable generation than expected is stressing the network at critical moments. The renewables are the present and the future, but they are not infallible. Its behavior also depends on the weather. And when the heat waves become the norm and not the exception, the resilience of the system depends on other factors: on the reinforcement of the networks, the storage, the demand management and, above all, to prepare the cities to resist without the most vulnerable paying the price. Image | Pexels Xataka | In a desperate attempt to avoid the blackout, Ree tried to start a gas center seven minutes before the disaster

In the twentieth century the pipelines were the key to the world. In the 21st century are the electrical networks and a country is winning them: China

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While a nation installs almost one hundred solar panels per second, another revitalizes factories to produce gasoline engines. While A build the largest solar plant in the worldthe other promises “Dominant Energy” Based on oil and gas. At first glance, two different strategies seem. Actually, it’s a career. And the prize is not just energy: it is the geopolitical power of the 21st century. Two opposing models. An Ember graph published by Our World in Data He has illustrated The point with amazing clarity. At the beginning of the 2000s you can see China’s gradual rebound. However, the crossing occurs in 2010 where the Asian giant exceeds the 4,000 Teravatios-Hora barrier (TWH), to a vertiginous ascent exceeding 10,000 SWH in 2024. In simple terms, China produces more than double electricity than the United States, which remained in the same line. But the most relevant is not how much it produces, but how it does. Data Source: Ember (2025); Energy Institute – Statistical Review of World Energy (2024) The silent revolution. In just one month, China installed 93 gigawatts of solar capacity, which is equivalent – more or less – one hundred panels every second. To that are added another 26 GW in wind, some 5,300 new turbines underway. According to Lauri Myllyvirta, principal researcher at the Institute of Policy of Asian Society, cited by The Guardian: “Only the facilities of that month would generate as much electricity as whole countries such as Poland, Sweden or the United Arab Emirates.” In total, between January and May 2025, China has added 198 GW of solar capacity and 46 GW of wind, sufficient to match the electricity production of Türkiye or Indonesia. This way, Keep overcoming The more than 1,000 GW, which represents half of the world total. They have known how to get ahead. More and more linked climatic ambitions with the growth of renewable technologies. In a recent speech, cited by The GuardianXi Jinping linked the development of the clean energy sector with China’s economic revitalization: “We have built the world’s largest and most complete energy chain in the world.” The term “new energies” includes renewables, batteries and storage technologies. The Asian giant is currently the largest global supplier of clean technologies: the market of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles and nuclear reactors under construction dominates. In addition, it has almost 700,000 patents in clean energy, more than half of the world total, According to The New York Times. The other face. For a good part of the twentieth century, the United States was the reference in energy innovation: from the first commercial solar cells until The first wind farms. However, since Trump’s arrival, the focus It has been placed again strongly towards fossil fuels. According to The New York TimesWashington has pressed allies such as Japan and South Korea to invest billion dollars in American natural gas infrastructure. At the same time, companies such as General Motors have given clear signs of where the wind blows: the company canceled an electric motion plant near Buffalo (New York) to allocate 888 million dollars To manufacture gasoline V-8 engines. Where asymmetry resides. It is not just two different paths, but in world influence. According to Climate Energy Finance datathe companies of the Asian giant have announced more than 168 billion dollars in foreign investments in clean energy projects: from turbines in Brazil to electric cars in Indonesia, through gigantic solar plants in Saudi Arabia and hydroelectric projects in the Congo. Green energy, for Beijing, is not just a business. It is a soft power tool. A way to gain global land through infrastructure, long -term contracts and own financing. An influence that does not need military bases, but solar panels. In contrast, the United States has cut many of its international energy cooperation programs. Its foreign strategy is more transactional: specific gas, oil or even weapons agreements. But without a structural project that allows you to compete on this new energy board. And this change of roles? Half a century ago, the United States led energy innovation. In 1979, Jimmy Carter He installed solar panels In the White House. Decades later, Barack Obama financed projects like Tesla. But cases Like Solyndra’s failurea solar company that broke after receiving a federal loan, unleashed a conservative narrative against public investment in renewables. China, on the other hand, assumed risks. In the early 2000s, then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao – rare earth geneologist – understood that the country’s economic and geopolitical future went through controlling energy production. Your government invested hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, factories, technical training and innovation. Protected his market, automated manufacturing and dominated access to essential raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and silicon as has developed New York Times. The forecasts. The world is moving towards solar and wind energies, so confirms it The International Energy Agency. The energy demand will continue to grow, but its origin will be different. And that will change the global balance, because whoever leads this new energy matrix will also have a geopolitical, commercial and diplomatic advantage. China is prepared to lead that world. The big question is whether the United States – or any other global actor – is willing to compete with the same strategic vision, patience and scale. Because energy not only moves factories or illuminates cities. Today the global board moves. Image | Unspash Xataka | An explosive ramifications have just opened in the world energy industry: the “Peak Oil” of China

A country has literally found the bomb -proof solution to the large electrical blackouts: Ukraine

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It happened a few hours ago. Among the multiple calls that the Spanish Government has received from countries, worrying about the emergency situation after The national blackoutone did not go unnoticed. Zelensky, president of Ukraine, called Pedro Sánchezand not only to show your support, but to provide all the necessary help. After all, if anyone knows about blackouts, that is the nation of the East. They have learned to survive in the dark and Russian bomb proof. The devastation of the electrical system. From the beginning of the large -scale invasion in February 2022, Russia has directed a good part of its attacks against infrastructure Ukrainian energy. Last summer, Ukraine had lost and in just three months More than nine gigawatts of generation capacity, more than a third of the one it owned before the war. According to Ukrenergo dataThis would be equivalent to the total demand of countries such as the Netherlands at peak hours, or even the sum of Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Winter. All state thermal plants were destroyed and all hydroelectric plants had suffered damage to missiles or drones. The strategy of Russian attacks was clear: it was not only sought to destroy military capacity, but to break the soul of a society through forced darkness, interrupting the most essential: Heating, running water, elevators, communications, operating rooms or the simple possibility of maintaining an organized civil life. Today, and according to the UN agency for refugees, More than 60% From the country’s electricity generation capacity it has been destroyed or useless. In a country where winter is not only a station but an existential threat, running without energy is running out of heating, without water, without communications. For millions, electricity represents the last bastion between dignity and precarious survival. Survive blackouts. He told the last July the BBC that the blackouts in Ukraine had become a presence as constant as the war itself. In cities such as Odessa, Kyiv or Zaporizhzhia, electricity was an intermittent luxury, a resource that appears and disappears under the buzzing of the generators or the sepulchral silence of the fallen network. In that context, electricity ceased to be just a comfort to become the threshold between life and death. Cases like Tetiana’smother of a child with serious disabilities, who lives that truth every day: her son depends on breathing machines, feeding and receiving medication. Without stable supply, his life hangs from a thread. In your home, prolonged blackouts (sometimes twelve hours a day) force to constantly feed a gasoline generator that, in addition, must stop every six hours so as not to overheat. When your child convulses, the minutes without mobile or ambulance coverage are transformed into torture. In words to the British environment“You can die if you don’t receive oxygen. I am missing words.” Thus thin is the line between chaos and survival. Scheduled cuts. In August of last year there was a substantial change in the struggle of Ukraine to the blackouts. A Mondayhundreds of missiles and Russian drones fell on the nation. First the electricity was cut, then the water. That day marked the Greater Russian air attack against Ukrainian energy infrastructure since the beginning of large -scale invasion. The bombing continued the next day, raising the number of deaths to twelve and leaving millions of people throughout the country. The largest private energy company in Ukraine, DTEKmade a decision: Apply scheduled cuts In multiple regions: Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk. On the periphery of the capital, the neighbors began to live with six hours of blackout followed by two hours with electricity, in the early morning. A rhythm that allowed planning (even if not resting). Loading with energy. The result of the situation is that Ukraine has learned to live with the blackouts. What would have paralyzed the country before, today faced with Decentralized solutions. In Kyiv, the so -called “invincibility points” offer citizens electrical charge and the Internet during the cuts. But many do not even go to them: they have made portable batteries an object as essential as mobile phone or keys. Most shops, from street stalls to shopping centers, already have their own generators. In fact and as we said, that buzz of its engines has become the usual soundtrack of the blackouts. Examples Told the CNN Maksym Holubchenko, a 25 -year -old barista in the capital, that his cafeteria remains open thanks to one of those generators. However, it does not supply to cover all the demand: in winter you can maintain the operation, but in summer they must turn off the air conditioning and parts of the coffee maker so as not to overload the system. Adaptation is not comfortable, it is simply the result of an urgent need, and a resistance without alternatives. For Inna, an 87 -year -old woman from Odessa, the current situation arouses ancient echoes. “I already survived World War, so I have some experience … I bought candles,” He reported. His story underlines a painful paradox: a modern, European country, with full integration ambitions in the West, forced to technologically retreat, to depend on the rudimentary to face the essential. The candles, thermos, the portable loaders, the calendars marked by electric cuts … make up a new normality born of the energy siege. Go to the bank without light. Before prolonged blackouts caused by Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, the National Bank of Ukraine has also launched the Power Banking Projecta network of autonomous bank branches designed to operate without depending on the electricity supply. These “unwavering” offices will be equipped with generators, special communication channels, ATMs, additional and effective personnel available, allowing citizens to access essential services such as money withdrawals, payments, transfers, currency change and financial advice even during prolonged cuts. In addition, a “National Roaming System” Between ATMs, with unified limits and without commissions between banks, initiative already adopted by entities Like Oschadbankto guarantee equitable cash access throughout the country. Broken as a resistance symbol. In short, Ukraine applies preventive cuts Not only … Read more

While the Portuguese enjoyed sun eclipse, their electrical system had a really bad time

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Last Saturday, March 29, a partial solar eclipse It was visible in the Iberian Peninsula in the morning. A phenomenon that entertained more than one in this first spring mornings. However, for our Portuguese neighbors it has been a problem for their electricity grid. The absence of the star. During the two hours of eclipse, Portugal lost 560mw of solar generation, which is equivalent to 23% of the country’s electricity production at that time, according to national electrical networks (REN). An imbalance. Solar energy suffered A drop in electricity generation During the astronomical phenomenon, but it was a loss that occurred progressively, approximately 10MW per minute. This situation led to a decline of 8.5% of the electrical production of total consumption, how has expressed a press release THE REN. Return to normal. From 11:30, solar production began to recover at a faster rate, 22MW per minute until it reached its normal intensity. However, the fall was greater than the answer, although it turned to other sources such as hydroelectric and thermal. The balance attempt. Last year, the Portuguese country reached historical records with renewables, covering up to 90% of your demand. However, the eclipse evidenced Portugal’s problem with the storage of energy in batteries and its energy dependence with Spain, how It is observed in the daily balance. An affected interconnection. The eclipse also had an impact on Spain, which ends affecting interconnection Between both countries. At the broader level, the Entso-E network And European Transmission Systems (OST) operators They registered A loss of generation of approximately 21,000 MW during the event. To minimize the impacts, the electric operators of several countries, including Portugal and Spain, they worked together through the service of Short-Term Adequacy (STA)which allows to plan and balance generation and consumption in a seven -day window. Was the impact here very big? In Spain the lack of solar generation, was Supply thanks to wind energy with 31.3% of the electrical production. In addition, after what It has happened in March with heavy rainsfrom the Spanish Electric Red They announced that they had prepared to analyze and anticipate the possible effects of the solar eclipse, guaranteeing the security of the supply and the correct operation of the system. Image | Pexels Xataka | Spain and Portugal have shown how the energy transition is leading: 82% clean electricity in 2024

an electrical grid that works 24/7 with solar energy

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We tend to assume that solar energy is intermittent, but there is nothing that petrodollars can’t solve. And Abu Dhabi is precisely the first city in the world to announce a large-scale solar plant designed to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The news. The pulse of the United Arab Emirates does not tremble investing what is harvested with its fossil fuels in renewable projects that will one day replace them. Its capital, Abu Dhabi, has just signed for 6 billion dollars the installation of a photovoltaic plant on a public service scale with a particularity. According to Masdar, the developer, it will be the first solar plant designed to supply clean energy 24/7 thanks to the combination of the Emirati sun, millions of solar panels and a huge storage system. The details. The huge project, participated by the state company EWEC (Emirates Water and Electricity Company), will combine a 5.2 GW photovoltaic plant with a 19 GWh battery storage system. Once connected, the plant will not only power millions of homes, but will be responsible for up to 1 GW of the grid’s base load, the minimum power required by the electrical grid that is traditionally covered by more stable thermal sources, such as coal. and gas. Alliance with China. As is happening in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the Emirates is strengthening ties with Chinese companies for this renewable drive. JA Solar and Jinko Solar They will supply 2.6 GW of solar panels each based on TopCon technology, which has higher efficiency and lower degradation rate. For its part, CATL will supply the batteries directly integrated into its HAVE storage systemwhich promises zero degradation in five years and a capacity of 6.25 MWh per container. POWERCHINA and the Indian multinational Larsen & Toubro will be in charge of the design and construction of the plant, which will generate 10,000 jobs. Green Emirates. The Abu Dhabi project, whose roadmap marks the start of operations in 2027, is framed in a long-term plan of the United Arab Emirates: the Energy Strategy 2050. The country hosted the COP28 summit, in which United Nations countries emphasized the urgency of installing more sustainable energy solutions. Sultan al Jaber, who chaired the summit, is also Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology of the United Arab Emirates and president of Masdar, promoter of the solar plant. “For the first time, we will transform renewable energy into 1GW of reliable baseload power, at unprecedented scale,” highlighted al Jaber in a statement. In Xataka | More billionaires, less oil: Abu Dhabi’s plan to become the new Singapore

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