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Two articles for an in depth look at the blackout
Analysis by Daniel Lacalle (Madrid, 1967):
– PhD Economist and Fund Manager.
– Author of bestsellers “Life In The Financial Markets” and “The Energy World Is Flat” as well as “Escape From the Central Bank Trap”.
– Frequent collaborator with CNBC, Bloomberg, CNN, Hedgeye, Epoch Times, Mises Institute, BBN Times, Wall Street Journal, El Español, A3 Media and 13TV.
– Holds the CIIA (Certified International Investment Analyst) and masters in Economic Investigation and IESE.
“The Spanish Power Outage. A Catastrophe Created By Political Design and a Warning To The World”
– On April 23rd, I participated in a conference at the European Parliament on the future of nuclear energy with experts from all over Europe, where I warned that, with the current energy policies, blackouts will be the norm, not a coincidence. The shortsighted and sectarian policy of the activists who populate the government has led us to the worst blackout in the history of Spain. We have been without communication or electricity for nearly eleven hours.
– This blackout, with the immediate collapse of fifteen gigawatts of power in the system, is the consequence of a policy that penalizes base energy, key to providing stability to the system, and plunders the energy sector.
– Governments have been dedicated to closing nuclear power plants, making them unviable with abusive and confiscatory taxation; penalizing investment in distribution with absurd regulations; imposing a volatile and intermittent energy mix; and burdening energy with elevated taxes and administrative delays. What could go wrong? Everything.
– And it happened.
– Renewable energies, while essential in a balanced energy mix, cannot provide safety and stability due to their volatility and intermittent nature. That’s why it is essential to have a balanced system with base-load energy that operates all the time, such as hydropower, nuclear, and natural gas as backup. Destroying access to nuclear energy with unnecessary closures and confiscatory taxation has been part of the fundamental causes of the disaster and the blackout.
– Last week, they had to close the remaining nuclear power plants because their taxes are so high that they cannot cover their fixed costs. They have destroyed nuclear plants’ economics by political design. Moreover, those plants would have provided stability to the grid if national and regional governments, which use nuclear and hydroelectric power as cash cows for their revenue-hungry policies, had prioritized supply security over energy sectarianism.
– There is much more. Spain and Portugal produce electricity with more than 60% solar and wind energy. Hydraulic, nuclear, and combined cycle gas plants must cover the shortfalls in solar and wind production, which is intermittent. There is no possibility of having a stable and secure system with a continuous supply if the electrical grid is not balanced to avoid a total blackout.
– According to Euronews, “France sometimes produces too much electricity, leading the network operator RTE to disconnect solar or wind sites. The consumer pays taxes to cover the operator’s losses. This procedure prevents a general blackout of the grid.”
– In Spain, the president of Red Eléctrica, Beatriz Corredor, whose experience in energy is more than scarce, has never given a message or coordinated actions to prevent blackouts that were happening more frequently recently. We have been experiencing sporadic supply cuts to the industry for years, and just a week ago, the Chamartín station had a severe supply cut episode.
– The crisis was not only a disaster due to the shortsighted energy policy of the current and previous governments. It was a disaster due to the inaction of the Ministry of Defence. Similar to the recent floods, our security forces exhibited astonishment at their lack of mobilization. Trains and elevators blocked thousands of travelers for hours, while the army stood by, waiting for orders.
– Six days ago, the government, left-wing parties, and many media outlets celebrated that Spain’s power grid ran entirely on renewable energy for a weekday for the first time. Bravo. A week later, a massive blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of France. France quickly restored electricity because it has the largest nuclear fleet in Europe. In Spain, the government maintained a confiscatory taxation system that prevented nuclear plants from operating, resulting in nearly eleven hours of darkness and no communication.
– Red Eléctrica reported that the cause was a “strong oscillation in the electrical grid” that “forced the Iberian Peninsula to disconnect from the European system”. The collapse was immediate and long-lasting. It was the longest power outage in the history of Spain. The recovery efforts were in vain as they attempted to restore frequency control and stability with a system dependent on volatile and intermittent renewables.
– A system without physical inertia, provided by baseload energies that operate all the time – nuclear and hydroelectric – makes it impossible to stabilise the grid in the face of supply disruptions.
– When the collapse occurred, the Spanish electrical grid had almost 80% renewable generation, 11% nuclear, and only 3% natural gas. There was practically no base generation or physical inertia to absorb the shock that was generated.
– For years, experts have issued warnings. Experts from around the world have been accused of being mouthpieces for invented lobbies when they warned of the risk to the system from overloading with renewables and eliminating or limiting base-load energies. In 2017, the European Network of Transmission System Operators warned that the increase in renewables would raise the risk of cascading failures if urgent investment was not made in synthetic inertia and storage technologies. Moreover, even if investment is made in storage, hundreds of experts warned about the additional burden with the electrification of the mobile fleet. Despite the warnings from energy companies and operators, the European Commission maintained its bet on renewable development that was poorly planned and worse executed. This included a New Green Deal that ignored the importance of networks and backup and seemed designed by school activists.
– The Spanish government wanted to present itself as the top student of that so-called ecological sectarianism, which ignores copper and lithium mining, the importance of backup, and system stability. What have they achieved? They have created a disaster that has the potential to repeat itself.
– Blackouts, which should have been something obsolete and forgotten, have become the norm since politicians have ideologized energy. Other countries have suffered similar problems: Australia (2016), Germany (2017), and the United Kingdom (2019) experienced blackouts or near-blackouts due to insufficient energy reserves or grid stability measures. However, none of these incidents have been as dramatic or scandalous as the one in Spain.
– The governments of Spain have decided that the closure of all our nuclear power plants will be effective in 2035, despite all the technicians reminding us that they work perfectly and their lifespan could be extended by at least ten years. This action is going to increase dependence on renewables and Russian natural gas. In other words, Spain’s shortsighted policy is going to make the country more dependent on China and Russia for energy and face constant blackouts and supply cuts to the industry as if it were a third-world dictatorship.
– Propaganda told us that renewables would bring competitiveness and stability to the grid, but the reality shows that an over-reliance on certain renewables and a shortage of base-load energy sources indicate that the electrical grid increasingly depends on the few nuclear and natural gas plants that operate to maintain supply stability.
– The blackout in Spain was not caused by a cyberattack but by the worst possible attack, that of politicians against their citizens. It is urgent that Spain radically changes its energy strategy, that we maintain and expand the nuclear and base energy park, or we will depend more on Russia and China and, moreover, with blackouts.
Full article: https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-spanish-power-outage-a-catastrophe-created-by-political-design-and-a-warning-to-the-world/
Malaga blackout photos: r/Malaga
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Red Eléctrica deactivated a safety mechanism to prevent major blackouts: {Translation}
– Red Eléctrica eliminated the anti-outage safety mechanism during daylight hours. The SRAD, which has been activated up to five times in the last two years, was eliminated by the electricity manager this year.
– On September 20, 2022, Royal Decree-Law 17/2022 was published, adopting urgent measures in the field of energy, among many other measures, the Royal Decree contemplated the regulation of the Active Demand Response Service (SRAD).
– This mechanism is a tool that provides extra flexibility to the operation of the electricity system in specific moments of resource scarcity when it is necessary to adjust demand to production (something very similar to the old interruptibility service). Or translated into more colloquial words: Red Eléctrica rejected at the beginning of 2025 to maintain this shield during daylight hours since, in its opinion, it was unthinkable that a blackout such as the one that finally ended up occurring would take place.
– Industry sources told this newspaper that “no one in the company thought that a blackout could occur during solar hours”. An example of this is that the SRAD was modified in such a way that it is not applied in the central hours of the day. “They did not consider that we would have problems in the hours when the sun was shining,” they say.
– Thus, Red Eléctrica considered that there was zero risk of possible blackouts during the day and since this year the possibility that Spain, or part of it, would be without electricity was not considered. On several occasions, as mentioned above, the electricity manager applied this mechanism due to high energy demand. It usually happens that with the sun going away and when households need more energy to heat their homes in winter, public lighting starts to be switched on; consumption shoots up. It is at that moment when Red Eléctrica sends a shutdown order to large industry in order to avoid supply problems.
– Last December was the last time it was activated. At the stroke of 21.15 at night, the company ordered companies that require large consumption to stop their production. “The continuity of supply was not compromised at any time, being the objective of the activation order (which was applied for approximately three hours that establishes the regulations) to guarantee the reserve levels established in the operating procedures in response to a specific situation in which the resources available in the system were reduced,” REE said in a statement on December 15.
– But, could this mechanism have avoided the collapse? In this regard, the experts consulted differ because the SRAD is applied 15 minutes in advance. In other words, it is a programmed blackout. “It is true that at the speed at which the blackout occurred (five seconds) it would have been all the same and it would have been difficult to give time to prepare for it”, say sources in the sector in conversation with this newspaper.
– However, other sources agree that before the electric shock suffered by Spain there were signals in the market that could have alerted Red Eléctrica and could have activated the SRAD. Specifically, in the province of Malaga, an anomaly in supply and demand was detected half an hour before the collapse, according to sources in the know.
Weeks before, Repsol had already had to paralyze two of its plants due to a voltage problem weeks ago in Cartagena. In turn, Puertollano had a similar incident and the multi-energy company decided to pause its activity to avoid greater evils.
– In this context, the Government and Red Eléctrica have assured that, in spite of the major blackout, the replacement plans were activated and worked correctly. These plans are procedures designed to restore electricity in a safe and progressive manner after a massive blackout. This was the first time they had been put into operation.
– Redeia and CNMC alert. The idea of withdrawing the mechanism from the daytime slot is in line with the reports issued by Redia, Red Eléctrica’s parent company, which assured that there was no possibility of a major blackout.
The company chaired by Beatriz Corredor, which presented its annual report at the end of February, identified the risk that small generators or renewable energy self-consumption facilities would have difficulties in the “short or medium term” for “adequate behavior” in the event of disturbances. This model would mean, according to the company, “a risk for the safe operation of the electricity system”.
– In turn, in another report, Redeia warned that “there are risks due to the disappearance from the system of a firm generation such as nuclear, with the closure of the plants and the problems caused by the excess of renewables”.
20 days before the blackout, Red Eléctrica itself stated in social networks that “there is no risk of blackout and Red Eléctrica guarantees supply. The ERAA 2024 does not question any nuclear group. The main conclusion of this report is that a significant volume of combined cycle plants could be economically unviable in the coming years if incentives are not established”.
– On the other hand, the National Competition Market Commission (CNMC) has prepared several reports in which it refers to the exposure of the Spanish electricity system to renewables. Specifically, the agency indicates that the incipient rise of renewables in generation and the high oscillations in voltage levels “could cause blackouts”. Source, Spanish: https://www.vozpopuli.com/economia/red-electrica-desactivo-un-mecanismo-de-seguridad-para-evitar-grandes-apagones.html
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