light

The Spanish Galeon San José was sunk transporting 20,000 million dollars. Mexico and Colombia are going to bring that treasure to light

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The history of San José Galeon It is very particular. The ship left the shipyards of Guipúzcoa in 1706 to the sea of ​​the Caribem, and there it was loaded to the flag with gold, gems and jewels from Peruvian, Bolivian and Mexican mines. It was a Awesome boat With 40 meters of length, 64 cannons and a crew of 600 people, but was sunk after an attack of British privateers in 1708, leaving only 10 survivors and that juicy treasure in the depths of the sea off the coast of Cartagena. It is one of the More than 1,500 Spanish Spanish ships Through the world and Mexico and Colombia are collaborating to ‘rescue’ those treasures that have been in the back of the ocean for more than 300 years. It has a value My dear of 20,000 million dollars and is the protagonist of an authentic soap opera. A soap opera. The history of San José did not end when the ship touched background. In fact, I may only start. In 1981, the Search Armed Exploration Company claimed to have located the Spanish wreck and delivered the coordinates Not Spain, but Colombia. The treatment? Supposedly, access to half of the treasure. However, in 2015, the Colombian government said they found the remains in a place different from that indicated above. That enraged the company Cazatesoros, who claimed that it was a strategy so that Colombia did not have to share the treasure. Neither short nor lazy, former president Juan Manuel Santos proudly said it was one of the most important treasures in Colombiaand everything pointed out that Search Armada would not see a cent. Meanwhile, Spain was not with crossed arms and appealed to his sovereignty about Galeon. Investigating. In 2024, with the wreck even in dispute, the Commission for the Investigation and Accusation of the House of Representatives of Colombia opened an investigation against former president Santos. The reason? “Intrusion and looting” of the Spanish Galeon. “It’s not a treasure”. The current Colombian government has another point of view and, in May last year, declared as the protected archaeological area the pungent area. The Minister of Cultures of Colombia, Juan David Correa, said that it was “the first time that an archaeological heritage area submerged at such depth is declared, it is historical for Latin America. We already have a special plan of underwater archaeological management.” Protection. The objective, then, is to guarantee the protection and conservation of the Galeon, as Alhena Caicedo, director of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, and said history, and The doors were not closed to treat the wreck as shared heritage. The objective now is to see what the ship was transporting and catalog it. It seems that it is not a treasure rescue mission, such as Correa itself: “It is not an extraction mission for economic value. What we want is to leave Colombia the possibility of a scientific-cultural mission that will have several stages and that starts today.” Mosaic rebuilt from photogrammetry files Mexico + Colombia. And that is where the National Institute of Anthropology and History -INAH- of Mexico comes into play. In an initiative called “Towards the heart of the San José Galeon”, Colombian and Mexican researchers are collaborating to be able to carry out this ‘recovery’ process. Mexico has a great experience when making archaeological expeditions (with recent examples such as the entire Mayan train networkthe application of New techniques to explore the interior of pyramids and the Underground stay mapping). A underwater expedition is different, but there they also have something to say. Colombian researchers asked INAH members about their experience in the project of Our Lady of Juncala ship that shipwrecked in 1613 in the Gulf of Mexico and with which there are parallels in the case of the San José expedition. In addition, between Colombia and Mexico there are archaeologists support programs that are formed in a cross way in both countries, as if it were an Erasmus of archeology. Digitize everything. Therefore, Mexico is advising Colombia, but it is these who, using submarine robots, are exploring San José and its surroundings in a program consisting of four phases: First phase (it began in May 2024): an underwater research ship comes into play with dynamic and acoustic positioning technologies, as well as a remote operating vehicle with sensors that has the mission of reaching the site. Second phase: generation of images of the site with which to prepare a record of the archaeological evidence for the classification of materials and their origin. THIRD PHASE: prediagnosis of conservation to establish starting points on the level of deterioration of the elements. Fourth phase: Digital documenting the archaeological context through photogrammetry techniques for informative purposes. It seems that Colombia’s plans are clear and, according to the details of the different phases, it does not seem that the goal is to get everything they find out of the water, but to catalog it so that we can see the state of the ship and its shipment 300 years later (in addition to the wealth it carried when it was sunk). Next steps. These last weeks, however, There have been important findings. The ICANH confirmed new “areas of interest” on the site, with Chinese porcelain, ingots, weapons and currencies that allow us to know more about the context of the sunken galleon. In addition, both INAH and the Ministry of Culture of Colombia have set October 2025 and the date on which they will detail the next steps of the mission. The idea is to profile that strategy of ‘towards the heart of the Galeon’ in order to exhibit tangible results before the end of the current presidential mandate in 2026. And, surely, it will be then when the controversy between Spain, Colombia, the indigenous community Qhara Qhara that demands Rights on the Treasury and the company that claims to have discovered the wreck to a new level. Images INAH, Wikipedia, ICANH In Xataka | Sunk ships … Read more

If Europe is beating solar energy records this summer, why has the price of light shot?

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Summer is a paradox season for the energy sector. On the one hand, renewables are reaching historical figures. June marked the month of greater production of solar energy ever registered in the European Union: Friolera of 45 twh22% more than the previous year. On the other, many Europeans saw how their light of the light doubled or even tripled. The question is inevitable: if we swim in solar energy, why do we pay more for electricity? The demand is triggered. The heat waves that run Europe They have put the thermometers around 40 ºC in numerous points in Spain, France and Germany. With air conditioning systems, working at maximum power, the electrical demand has shot. According to him Last Ember reportdaily demand grew by 14% in Spain, 9% in France and 6% in Germany during the month of June. A greater electrical demand, alone, already presses the prices of upward light. But the heat brought with it a second problem, this time on the offer side. Thermal plants are suffocated. The same heat that drives the demand for air conditioning puts traditional energy plants, especially nuclear. These facilities need huge amounts of river water to refrigerate their reactors. When the water temperature rises too much, its refrigeration capacity decreases, forcing to reduce production and, in extreme cases, to stop it completely. France It has been the most affected country. Its fleet of nuclear centrals, one of the pillars of the European interconnected network, is suffering capacity reductions in almost all its facilities. But it is not an exclusively nuclear problem. In Poland, the cooling of coal centrals is being a constant concern, and in Italy, the overheating of the network cables was the most likely cause of the blackout of July 1. At the time of maximum need, a crucial part of the generation of traditional energy is not available. Missing storage for the solar. The saving of this crisis is photovoltaic solar energy. In Germany, the Solar came to generate 50 GW peaks, covering between 33% and 39% of the entire electricity of the country. With a marginal cost close to zero, solar panels are doing exactly what is expected of them: maintain the stability of the network during the day with abundant and cheap energy, despite their Performance problems under extreme heat. The night is another song. At sunset, solar production falls to zero, but the refrigeration demand remains high. When the high temperatures persist until well into the night, Insufficient storage capacity (either in batteries or With pumping hydroelectric) forces to resort to gas and other fossil sources to cover the hole, shooting prices. The damn “Spred”. This temporal mismatch caused by the abundance of variable energy and the lack of resources to store it is what causes madness in prices. A daily price differential (the “spred”) of up to € 400/MWh in Germany and € 470/MWh in Poland. This night peak, and not the average price, is what triggers the final bill and makes the light through the clouds when more cheap energy is producing. The lesson is clear: the challenge is not only to generate cheap renewable energy, but manage it. More storage is needed to buy energy at low prices at noon and sell it at high prices in the afternoon. But also More European interconnections. The heat wave did not affect all of Europe with the same intensity and the same day. The biggest June peaks arrived in Madrid on Domingo, Paris on Tuesday and Berlin on Wednesday. The reinforcement of the interconnections will allow to distribute the cheap energy more and better. Image | Agrisolar Clearinghouse (CC) In Xataka | Spain and Portugal are tired of promises: they ask France to leave the electric alley

Goal has just remembered why we should never give all our photos to a light app

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I recognize that I am the type of person who, between allowing access to the entire photo reel or only a few, I usually choose the first, especially in apps that I use a lot as Instagram. Being able to access the entire reel and not having to take photo photo to photo is more comfortable. Total, if I don’t upload the photos, nobody can see them, right? It is not so clear. Meta wants the photos that we do not publish The news comes from Techcrunchwhere a few days ago they told how Facebook had begun to ask users for “cloud processing to obtain creative ideas made for you from your photo reel.” To create those ideas, They choose photos of the reel and upload them to their cloud. In addition, by accepting, he warns us that we also accept the terms and conditions of goal AI, which include the analysis of photos and videos, including the facial characteristics of everyone who appears in them. From The Vergethey contacted a goal to ask the question that you will surely be doing, and it is if they were using those unpublished photos To train your AI. Goal ensures that not currently, but They do not deny that they can do it in the future. Although for now this novelty only affects users of the United States, it could later reach more countries, so better to be prevented. Access yes, but better on accusagotas There are many apps that ask for access to our photos and videos and it is in our hand to decide whether we give them access or not. Both iOS and Android allow Choose what images we want to share with each app. In the case of iOS, it even reminds us periodically if we want to continue sharing our entire reel with certain apps. I am one of those who ignore warnings. Seeing cases like the goal I am clear to me that it is a bad idea. The option to limit access to photos in iOS (left) and Android (right). I have begun to limit access in apps that I use daily as Instagram and the truth is that It is not as tedious as I thought At first. When I want to upload something, I just have to give that something and that’s it. In the end it is to add another step, yes, but it is done quickly. If you want to do it you just have to go into adjustments and go to the app you want, for example Instagram and, within the gallery permission, choose ‘limited access’. The importance of the small print in the AI ​​era We take care with the photos and videos we share, but we do not think about what happens to everything we do not upload. It is normal, the logical thing is to think that, if you do not click on ‘Share’, no one except you can access that photo. This case shows the importance of reading the small print of apps, something that we are honest, very few people do. Maybe before it was not so worrying, but in the current context, with so many models, the thing changes. To train those models It takes a lot of content, very much. There has been Many controversies Around this: the use of Content protected with copyright, LinkedIn training its AI with user data almost without warning, AI models that draw platforms like Reddit And even others who train With photos of minors. If it was already convenient to be cautious, now much more. Image | Own in mockup of Freepik In Xataka | Spain wants to implement the “pajporte” for access to part of the Internet. China has a much more ambitious plan under

After the hottest June in the history of Spain, there is a minimum ray of light on the horizon: Vaguadas

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The heat wave It comes to an end, although the high temperatures will fad down gradually between today and Thursday. The heat wave has been the culminating point of a series of warm episodes that have been repeated since the end of May and, like so many of these episodes, has seen its end with the arrival of a trough and important associated storms. A record heat. Meteorologists advance that the month of June has been the hottest since we have records. And that It is not the only record that has broken during the last 30 days. The absolute temperature record was also broken for a month of June. It happened in the Huelva municipality of El Granado, where the thermometers They got to register a maximum of 46º. As if this were not enough, June He has also pulverized Another record, that of the greatest positive thermal anomaly, 3rd Celsius above what would be common during the sixth month of the year. All that despite the fact that a month with marked meteorological fluctuations in which extreme heat episodes with brief but intense storm episodes have alternated. It has been the tonic of recent weeks and everything indicates that once again it will be the storms that free us (for now) of heat. Summer troughs. Thermal relief will arrive pushed by arrival Of a series of troughs, the extensions of a area of ​​low pressures that will bring us cold air and atmospheric instability. It is expected that the arrival of the cold air associated with these troughs interact with the stagnant warm air mass on the peninsula and part of southern Europe. Storms and hail. THE RESULT: A NEW STORM REMESTING AND THE POSSIBILITY OF HEGHOE TO CHARGE STEPORS. The appearance of convective winds (resulting from the presence of warm and humid air that ascends to high layers of the atmosphere) is one of the key factors in this context. And what do the forecasts say? The State Meteorology Agency (Aemet) foresee that during the next few days the heat (still extreme in many areas) coexist with the proliferation of “locally strong” storms. Today these storms are expected in the mountains of the northern third and this peninsular; While tomorrow the mountainous areas of the entire northern half and surrounding areas could reach, as well as at northern plateau points, half north of the South Plateau and Sierra Nevada. Uncertainty. It is still early to foresee the weather tendency of the month of July but seasonal forecasts Aemet does not call optimism. A few weeks ago the agency spoke of a high probability that the summer of 2025 be remarkably warmer than usual. In Xataka | The first heat wave in Spain has brought a new epidemic in summer: deaths during working hours Image | ECMWF

Taiwan believes having found the mythical planet 9 of the Solar System. Instead of looking for his light, he has been looking for his heat

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The countless frustrated attempts to find planet 9, a hypothetical giant gas in the confines of our solar system, have aroused the ingenuity of some Taiwanese scientists. Short. For years, astronomers have swept the sky in search of the weak reflection of sunlight that should get to us from planet 9, a demonstratedly ineffective task. Now, a team of researchers has changed the rules of the game with an ingenious idea: instead of looking for it, they have tried to detect their heat. Well, they have found two very promising candidates. Context. Beyond the orbit of Neptune, in an icy and dark region known as the Kuiper belt, the orbits of several objects seem to be grouped in a way that challenges chance. The trajectories of these transneptunian objects (TNos) align as if an invisible hand were guiding them. The most accepted hypothesis to explain this behavior is the existence of an unknown massive planet, the planet 9. Of existing, this distant world would have a mass of between five and ten times that of the earth. The problem is that it would be more than 400 astronomical units, so its light would be incredibly dim. To put it in perspective, Neptune is “only” 30 UA or 4,496 million kilometers. If we can’t see it, maybe we can feel its heat. A team from the National University Tsing Hua in Taiwan believes to have the strongest track in years on the real existence of the most wanted object in our neighborhood. The results of their study are not final, but they reach two promising candidates. Every object with a temperature above absolute zero emits thermal radiation, that is, heat. But while the light decreases with the distance following a relationship of the inverse of the fourth power (1/d4), the heat only decreases with the square of the distance (1/d2). This abysmal difference is the argument used by researchers to focus their search on the heat signature of planet 9. A needle in a haystack. The team resorted to the data of the Akari Space Telescope of Japan. Throwed in 2006, Akari dedicated his useful life to sweeping the full sky in distant infrared light, the perfect range to detect the thermal brightness of the planet 9. And he did it from space, without the interference of the Earth’s atmosphere. Astronomers set out from a list of unprocessed Disssdl detections: more than 5.2 million signals with many false positives. After limiting the search zone, eliminating known objects, filtering sources contaminated by galactic dust clouds and excluding static objects, which seem to be at the same point in observations separated by months, the list was reduced to 393 candidates. Of 393 candidates for two. He touched his hands dirty. The investigators visually inspected the images of the 393 candidates. They ruled out weak detections, artifacts at the edges of the sensor and, above all, the impacts of cosmic rays that can be perceived as a specific source of heat. After this thorough process, there were only two candidates. Two heat points that appeared where planet 9 was expected, had the predicted brightness for the theory and showed the expected movement: they were detected in the same place in a period of 24 hours, but there was no trace of them in the same place six months later. All to demonstrate. The two candidates were baptized as FISSDL J0250422-15011 and FISSDL J0301112-164240. But to verify if these two heat points are really a single object moving in an orbit compatible with planet 9 will need new observations in visible light, with sufficiently powerful telescopes to detect its weak optical brightness and measure its movement with precision. If confirmed, the discovery would not only solve one of the greatest mysteries of modern astronomy, but would revolutionize our understanding about how our own system was formed and evolved. Everything is to be demonstrated, but at least we have a hot trail to continue hunting. Image | ESA, Hubble, M. Kornmesser, CC By 4.0

The light of the light has risen a lot and the electric ones blame it for the blackout. Facua has something to say about it

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May 2025 promised to be the cheapest month thanks to the renewable generation in spring. However, consumers They have ended up paying more In the light of the light for the blackout of April 28, since they have had to activate emergency mechanisms or reinforcement systems. Now it seems that that should not have been so high. Short. Facua-Consumnadores in Action has warned the electricity marketers of the free market, In a press releasethat they cannot raise their rates unilaterally for the blackout of April 28 if that change is not provided for in the contract. A specific case. The association has loaded directly against Energía, a commercialization of the Repsol Group that has notified a 6% surcharge (about 73 euros per year), alleging an “increase in technical costs of the system” for the electricity network reinforcement system. However, like He recalled Facuaadjustment services are not part of the regulated costs (such as tolls and charges) and, therefore, do not justify a rise in the price agreed in free market contracts. The law is clear. According to the Civil Code, contracts must be fulfilled as agreed and cannot be modified according to the will of a single part (Arts. 1256 and 1258). Exceptions would only be accepted if the contract explicitly includes a clause that allows the marketer to apply these increases by extraordinary situations such as the lived. From the other part. The employer who brings together Iberdrola, Endesa and EDP, AELEC, is pressing to distribute or contain the overrages derived from the blackout. Its proposal is to transfer these extraordinary expenses – given to operate the system in “reinforced mode” to avoid new blackouts – to other concepts of the invoice, such as regulated charges, where costs by renewable or extrapeninsular are also included, according to Finch access has had access. There are more. The employer has calculated that the reinforced security strategy has meant an extra cost of 200 million euros in just one month and requires that there be an extraordinary regulatory response, so that neither consumers nor marketers assume that impact alone. As has detailed Fifodies, are in search of a “transient and exceptional” measure that relies on operation procedures 8.2 and 14.4, already provided for in the current regulatory framework. So is it valid? Legally, the key point is the type of contract that each consumer has. In free market contracts, prices are agreed for a year and cannot be modified unless the contract expressly allows. If there is no clear and specific enabling clause, the climb would be illegal, and it could be considered an abusive clause, even if there is a notice. From Facua they support this thesis in the Civil Code and in Article 65 of Royal Legislative Decree 1/2007 on consumer defense, which establishes that contracts must be interpreted in favor of the user and according to the objective good faith. That is, although the company affirms that the surcharge is justified, if you did not sign it and is not in transparent conditions, it cannot impose it. Any forecast? Today, neither Red Eléctrica nor the Ministry for Ecological Transition have clarified how much this reinforced security operation will last, nor how its costs will be distributed. From AELEC and other associations, an intervention of the regulator or the Ministry to temporarily redesign the cost distribution is expected. The objective: avoid an irreversible impact on the electrical marketing market and contain the price escalation. Image | Seoane Prado Xataka | Broady in April, more expensive invoice in May: thus has affected the system reinforcement

The price of negative light is a problem. It is also the biggest opportunity to reindustrialize Spain in decades

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See the wholesale price of light to zero euros or even negative has ceased to be an anecdote for become a daily phenomenon In Spain. Symptom that renewables dominate the energy mix, is a growing obstacle to the profitability of electricity, but is still cheap energy. And as such, it is the best opportunity to reindustrialize Spain in a long time. Why it happens. “Zero or negative prices are a symptom of abundance of renewable resources to generate electricity,” analyst Pedro Cantuel, who works in Ignis’s energy management, explains to Xataka. In the central hours of the day, when photovoltaic production is massive, renewables flood the network with a practically null marginal cost, which collapses prices in the wholesale market. The time to reindustrialize. The abundance of cheap energy puts Spain in a competitive advantage position against its European neighbors. If Spain can offer clean energy to a very low cost, it becomes a magnet for industries that devour electricity, such as data centers, metallurgy or new green chemical industry. “In the European context, I think this can happen, since Spain could offer more competitive electricity than some of its neighbors,” explains Sergio Fernández Munguía, engineer of the renewable sector and author of Windletter. “In a global context, industrial electricity in Spain is still expensive because the invoice includes many other items beyond the cost of electricity.” Who has to adapt to who. The industrial model of the twentieth century was based on a premise: the energy was available 24/7 at a more or less stable cost. The renewables have broken this scheme: their production is intermittent. The traditional solution is to store that energy with batteries or pumping centrals, but the high cost of these facilities has dragged their deployment. Fernando Rodríguez, an industrial engineer of the energy sector, believes that the true revolution is not only to attract the usual industries, but to create those of tomorrow. The solution, according to Rodríguez, is that the industry adapts to energy until there is economic storage, and not vice versa: “The industry of the future will have to work with greater inventories, as was the case before the imposition of the imposition of the Just in time“ Flexible and modular manufacturing. The idea is to design industrial processes that can operate in full load when energy is almost free and reduce its activity or stop when it is expensive, without losing efficiency. It is already happening in adaptable industries such as recycling, large -scale 3D printing or desalination, which can program their consumption peaks for maximum solar generation hours. Concrete cases? In the United States, the Alcoa Warrick aluminum giant already adjusts its production to the available renewable generation. In Germany, the School of Engineers of Munich and Linde have designed an ammonia plant that works both 100% and 10% of its capacity, adapting to the production of Hydrogen Grandolytic. The industry will be where renewables are. Rodríguez believes that an industrial relocation will be necessary, and gives as an example the failure of the German “electric highways, a project to carry wind energy from the north to the industrial south that will end up costing more than 140,000 million euros. “Industrial companies must relocate near the new centers of gravity of electric production,” he explains. In Spain, this means taking factories to areas with more sun and wind, creating development poles in places that until now were not industrial foci. If energy is free, who will build the central? The cheap energy avalanche has an inevitable counterpart that puts the entire system at risk. If prices are zero, producers’ income are also. “Negative or zero prices discourage new investments,” confirms Sergio Fernández. “Especially in photovoltaic, those who are making numbers for new plants will see that their expected income in the market is lower than a few years ago and, therefore, also their profitability.” A nipe castle. This problem not only affects future renewable plants, but also the support that guarantees that we have light when there is no sun or wind: combined gas cycles. “As the price of the wholesale market falls,” says Fernando Rodríguez, “the growing opportunity cost will leave investments to generation, transport, distribution and marketing without investors and without financing.” The long -term danger is evident: a total break in the investment that leads us to an obsolete and unable to meet future demand. Without a robust system, there is no possible competitive economy. To take advantage of the industrial opportunity, Spain has to strengthen its nipe castle, and it is not enough to touch the prices artificially. The attack plan. The first bottleneck is the electricity bill. Although energy in the wholesale market is cheap, the invoice is still expensive. For Pedro Cantuel, the solution goes through a “drastic reduction in the final invoice eliminating taxes, bringing system charges to the general state budgets and reduce regulated costs.” The second problem is oversupply. How is demand increased? Cantuel proposes to “encourage electrification to replace the consumption of winter gas with electricity.” And at an industrial level, support great consumers “with the same mechanisms that our German or French competitors have, facilitating the connection of new demand to the network. Spain before its historical opportunity. A turning point that can allow the country to reindustrialize sustainably and become an energy power in Europe. But time runs, and it is essential to “create a national long -term plan that provides stability and certainty to the sector,” claims Cantuel, who defines as a priority “set clear rules for storage and new vectors, such as hydrogen.” The relationship between electric and the government is enquisted by the 7% tax on the generation. Consumers complain that the distribution toll “far exceeds real network costs.” Defining the rules of a competitive New Spain requires a country plan that puts all interested parties to row in the same direction. Without an ambitious and coordinated plan, today’s abundance could become the precariousness of tomorrow. In Xataka | The light price is … Read more

The light of the light has risen because of it

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May 2025 was on its way to becoming the cheapest month in the recent history of the Spanish electrical system. The combination of abundant renewables – hydraulics, wind and photovoltaic in full spring boom – pushed wholesale prices to minimal. According to the countryin one in three hours of the month, the price was even negative. Against all forecast, consumers have ended up paying more. A higher invoice. To avoid a collapse, a series of emergency mechanisms were activated: The so -called adjustment services. These are energy reserves that allow the network to balance at times of extreme mismatch between supply and demand. However, May’s bill is now reflecting that extra cost. It does not matter that the average market price was among the lowest of the year: these adjustment services fired the regulated part of the receipt, more expensive consumers paid, especially those welcomed by The regulated rate (PVPC). The data confirms it. According to data collected by The avant -gardethe Light receipt rose on 11% in May. A increase that anticipates that May’s bill will be even higher than June, although in June market prices are rebounding. This situation has put the marketers regulated against the strings. Some are supporting losses and alert that they cannot assume this type of mismatch without structural changes in the model. A realistic example. To understand it better we have made a simulation with the Official comparator of the CNMC For average domestic consumption (221 kWh per month) it shows that in May, the PVPC bill was 46.42 euros. However, in the free market, the cheapest rates began at 48.79 euros, and many exceeded 55 or even 70 euros. Most of the analyzed offers were fixed price rates, reviewable annually, suggesting that some marketers are already impacting additional costs due to the reinforcement of the electrical system after the April blackout. At the highest end, some invoices exceeded 80 euros: more than 70% more than PVPC, for exactly the same consumption profile. A problem that will follow. Red Electrica continues to operate with an extra safety margin after the blackout of April 28. This implies keeping backup centrals, even when they are not being used, which makes the system more expensive. But beyond the conjunctural moment, the incident has once again put on the table the structural deficiencies of the Spanish electrical system, such as the absence of distributed storage, the lack of micro -redes capable of temporarily disconnecting from the main system and a little capacity for local response to disturbances. Although the official report is still pending, everything points to a structural problem rather than punctual: a centralized system unable to contain waterfall failures. The April blackout was not just a scare. He has increased the invoice and has exposed the fragility of a system that needs more decentralization, more storage and a greater capacity for local response. Meanwhile, consumers are already paying the bill. Image | Pixabay Xataka | Saving the network after the blackout has had a side effect: more expensive light and marketers to the limit

more expensive light and marketers to the limit

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It has been a month since the great blackout that left the entire Iberian Peninsula. Since then, the national electrical system has been operating under a new extreme surveillance protocol: “reinforced operation.” Its goal is simple, but ambitious: avoid another total collapse. Its effect, however, begins to feel in the pocket of companies, marketers and consumers. Reinforced operation? Electricity and the Government have chosen to contain renewables and activate backup technologies such as gas, hydraulics or nuclear to gain stability. These sources, although more predictable, are also more expensive. But this operational turn has a price: renewable energy is being left out, cheaper, in favor of more expensive conventional technologies. As He has collected Five days, this new strategy has triggered the participation of traditional plants in the so -called adjustment markets or technical restrictions. So is there a contradiction? After the blackout, many pointed to the low inertia of the system, associated with the high penetration of renewables, such as the great culprit. However, like has collected this medium In an analysis by Matías Zavia, the peninsular electrical system counted in the moments before collapse with an “according to European recommendations” levels: 2.3 seconds, above the minimum threshold of 2. Both Minister Sara Aagesen and Secretary of State Joan Groizard have confirmed this data in parliamentary headquarters. The technical explanation that gains force points to a chain of failures: anomalous oscillations, Almost simultaneous generation surgeons and disconnections. It was at that critical moment, with the peninsula already isolated from France, when the low inertia aggravated the final fall. It was not the cause, but the collapse accelerator. In the absence of the official report, planned for the coming months, the blackout is emerging as a complex structural failure, not as a simple excess photovoltaic. The real problem: a shooting price. Since this reinforced operation was activated, the costs of the electrical system have shot. According to El Confidencialthe so -called restrictions techniques and Adjustment services – requirements necessary to maintain the stability of the network – have been remarkable. The problem is that these costs are initially assumed by marketers, especially the smallest and independent, which do not have their own generation capacity and have to buy this energy in markets managed by Red Electric. According to data the Independent Energy Marketers Association (ACIE), collected by the confidentialthe average cost of technical restrictions has gone from € 11/MWh in April to € 24/MWh in May, and at specific times it exceeds € 30. This pressure has led to several marketers, such as totalenergies, Moeve or Factorenergy, to send a letter to Red Eléctrica requesting clarity and a temporary forecast of these extraordinary measures. It has already been seen in the light bill. Starting with the almost 10 million consumers host of the regulated rate (PVPC) that have seen how their receipt At least four euros rose in May. And what began as an extra cost for companies, also begins to move to private clients and companies of the free market. In B2B contracts, some marketers have begun to introduce an “antiapagon rate”. As it picks up fiftiesthe client assumes up to € 12/MWh in adjustment costs, and what exceeds that figure is impact at the end of the month. In the case of households, where contracts cannot be modified easily, companies choose to raise the price of the megavatio in renewals or new offers. The dilemma is clear: raise prices or assume losses. A market to the limit. Independent marketers denounce that Red Electrica has increased costs without offering clarity on how they are calculated or until when they will be maintained. This uncertainty prevents planning and leaves those who do not have financial muscle to cover this volatility, According to El Confidencial. The pressure of the sector has also reached the institutional level. Acie, which brings together 20% of the market, has sent formal letters to Red Eléctrica and the Ministry for Ecological Transition asking for explanations and collaboration, such as He explained Fifodies. To date, they have not received a response, which increases the tension between the operators of the system and the most vulnerable actors in the electricity market. With an ignition system … The risk is not only a more expensive invoice, but a more concentrated and less competitive market. If independent marketers continue to carry costs without certainty or regulatory support, many will not survive. And if they disappear, consumers will have fewer options, more dependence on large electricity and less power to negotiate prices. The reinforced operation maintains the system on, yes. But it can also be extinguishing an essential part of the market: its diversity. With the technical report even on the horizon, what happens in the coming months will mark not only the stability of the network, but also who can continue to compete in it. Image | Pixabay Xataka | The more you know about the blackout in Spain, the less guilty the lack of inertia seems to be renewable

divide Spain into three price areas for light

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It has been a month since a mass blackout left millions without electricity on the peninsula. What caused it It is not yet clear. What has emerged again is an uncomfortable question for the electrical system: should you continue working with a single price zone? The current model. The blackout made it clear that the current model of a single price zone does not always conform to how electricity is generated, transported and consumed. Following this, proposals have sounded again They ask to review the price fixing system. Among them, a strength gains: divide the territory into several areas with differentiated prices, as already do other European countries. The Nord Pool case. One of the most cited examples, the electrical market of the Nordic and Baltic countries. This system divide its territory In offer areas (Bidding Zones), which may have different prices based on local generation availability, demand and capacity limitations in the transport network. In other words, if there is abundant renewable generation in an area (for example, in northern Norway) and very remote demand (for example, in southern Sweden), but the transport network between the two is congested, the price of electricity will be lower in the generating and higher area in the consumer. This difference pushes batteries where it is already consumed to improve the network where it collapses. According to Nord Pool’s own official siteprices are calculated every day depending on the balance of supply and demand in each area, taking into account the physical restrictions of the system. The result is a more realistic market, where prices are not artificially uniform and bottlenecks are directly reflected in the price. And is it possible in Spain? The proposal to divide in several areas has not been officially raised by the Government or by Red Electric (REE). Even so, the imbalance is evident: Much of the renewable generation is concentrated in rural areas of the southern and interior (such as Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha or Aragon), while consumption triggers mostly on the Mediterranean axis and in Madrid. This asymmetry generates bottlenecks, cost overruns and, as has been seen in the blackout, critical vulnerabilities. In fact, Spain could be pressed to change its model if these structural limitations persist. Besides, Ree report data On the electrical system they show that only in 2024, the cost of adjustment services – which include redisarking and other measures to balance the network – amounted to 2,668 million euros. These costs represented 15 % of the final average price of energy, with an impact of € 11.43/MWh. That is, they are invisible cost overruns for the consumer, but that could be reduced if the system offered more realistic and differentiated price signals. Future scenarios. The recent electrical crisis has only underlined a reality that many experts have not been warning: the Spanish electrical system, as designed, is not able to absorb renewable growth No structural adjustments. The question about whether we must move from a single price zone to a zonal model is not only technical, but deeply political and territorial. Faced with a model that artificially uniforms prices and hides network imbalances, a well -designed zoning could become a useful tool to direct investments, reduce system costs and increase their resilience. But it also raises a complex political challenge: how to explain to a community that its electricity will be more expensive than that of another region? How to guarantee that the transition is fair and that does not increase territorial inequalities? Image | Pexels Xataka | The more you know about the blackout in Spain, the less guilty the lack of inertia seems to be renewable

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