Spain's Government Blames Huge Blackout On Grid Regulator and Private Firms - companies were literally paid to control voltage but decided "nah, we're good" when tensions ran high. Two months of investigation to discover paid professionals... didn't do their job! 🔌⚡
#powergrid
Miscalculation by Spanish #PowerGrid operator REE led to massive #blackout, report finds
"Spain's #power grid operator REE miscalculated its power capacity needs on the day that a surge in voltage caused a massive blackout across the Iberian peninsula in April, a government #investigation has concluded."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/investigation-spains-april-28-blackout-114027604.html
Miscalculation by Spanish power grid operator REE contributed to blackout
#HackerNews #Miscalculation #Spanish #blackout #REE #powergrid #investigation #energy
Ah, the defective Moss Landing batteries are Tesla, that explains a LOT.
Okay, I really want to know about the opinions that #Fediverse and anyone else who finds this has on #NuclearEnergy.
Tell me what you think about it, I’m curious to see what replies I get!
In my opinion, I think it’s a great source because it’s reliable, secure, and a staple of current #Energy!
Please #Boost this post so it gets to more people, thanks!
#Nuclear #NuclearPower #NuclearPlants #Electricity #ElectricityGrid #Power #PowerGrid #Science #Physics #Fedi #Mastodon #BoostPlease
Europe's grid planning requires realistic assumptions on prosumer behaviour and weather – operator
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/grid-planning-requires-realistic-assumptions-prosumer-behaviour-and-weather-operator #powergrid #electricity #energytransition
10 #Surprising #Truths About the #PowerGrid You Were Never Told
https://listverse.com/2025/05/27/10-surprising-truths-about-the-power-grid-you-were-never-told/
When I say outage I mean, down for 1 second then back up. At least once it browned out then came back.
I have my core network gear and one wifi AP on a UPS that can provide me about 90 minutes of uptime. Long enough for me to fire up the generator. That one had its batteries replaced with LiFePo4 batts and is proving its worth. I just had to buy a second UPS because I can't be working in the middle of the day and have this happen during a meeting or other critical work.
The fact that this is becoming a regular occurrence makes me wonder what's going on with the grid. It is very possible this is isolated to my area but if others in #ercot controlled #texas has a similar experience, I'm very curious.
Post 3: The Power Grid Reality Check
⚡ Virginia datacenters (25% of US capacity) nearly triggered cascading blackouts in July 2024
60 facilities consuming 1,500 MW disconnected simultaneously
ONE equipment failure almost took down the regional grid
US datacenter power demand: 4% → 9% of national grid by 2030
Ireland: Already at 21%, heading to 32% by 2026
#PowerGrid #Infrastructure #Risk
#Development #Explorations
Grid-aware websites · Are they the future of sustainable web design? https://ilo.im/163pfa
_____
#Business #Website #Sustainability #Energy #PowerGrid #Server #Hosting #CDN #WebDev #Backend
The image shows a silhouette of a power line pole against a clear blue sky. The pole has several insulators and power lines extending from it. There are also trees visible on both sides of the pole.
#UtilityPole #Silhouette #Electricity #PowerGrid #UrbanLandscape #PowerLines #Engineering #SkyView #Infrastructure #ElectricLines
At my previous full-time role I worked on a simulator for just these sorts of black start events. The US has come very close to having regional outages of this scale several times in the last decade, and our black start capability is largely untested to my knowledge (by which I mean largely untested in real-world scenarios).
Spain is about to face the challenge of a “black start”
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/why-restarting-a-power-grid-is-so-hard/
#ElectricPower #power #PowerGrid #BlackStart
Spain is about to face the challenge of a “black start”
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/why-restarting-a-power-grid-is-so-hard/
#ElectricPower #power #PowerGrid #BlackStart
April's #BGStats #BoardGames 25 plays of 22 games. I finally got round to playing #PowerGrid - it was interesting, would certainly play again. The #Tablescope app for scoring #Cascadia quickly was probably my fave discovery of the month though!
Power grids can fail from various reasons. Natural events and disasters and human made events cam cause large blackouts https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/02/blackouts-energy-outage-risks-europe-worldwide-spain-portugal-france
#powergrid #spain
Search for the causes of the #blackout in #Spain and #Portugal are ongoing, will likely take some time, and (I suspect) will result at least one PhD thesis. Because major disasters like this never have a _single_ cause - several things have to go wrong for them to happen.
The _easy_ answer which I know is already going to be shared by The Usual Suspects is:
" #RenewableEnergy is too intermittent and our power grids cannot cope with them! We need to switch off #PV and #WindPower and return to a centralized power supply!"
And as usual, the easy answer is at the very least misleading, if not outright wrong. It _is_ true that renewable energy is more intermittent. But power grids can be made more robust to cope with that intermittency.
I don't know how this is done in Portugal and Spain, but here in Germany the #Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA, Federal Grid Agency) is in charge of regulating the German power grids. One of their recent efforts to make the German grid more stable is called "Redispatch 2.0".(*)
Under this scheme, the regional grid operators (Distribution System Operator, DSO) have to submit forecasts about their grids to the Transmission System Operators (TSO) - the companies that run the high- and ultra-high voltage power grids that connect different regions and countries with each other. These forecasts have to be submitted for 72 hours in advance, in 15 minute intervals, and be refreshed for every 15 minutes.
The TSOs can then aggregate all those forecasts and react in order to stabilize their grids. Options include:
If there is too much power generation, they can either reduce power generation or add some loads.
If there is too little power generation, they can either increase power generation or shut down some loads.
This should make it much more unlikely to trigger massive blackouts on that scale, or even smaller ones.
Another problem is that many PV installations, especially smaller ones, do not have the physical infrastructure to shut down if there is an excess of production - they just send their electricity into the grid, whether or not the grid can handle it. But this, too, is in the process of changing - it is now mandatory to install so-called Smart Meter Gateways with all such installations, and these gateways also have secure channels that can send control signals to the PV installation.
All this is still a work in process and not trivial by any means, but it _is_ possible to make power grids more resilient for renewable energy. And this is desperately needed for the #EuropeanUnion - we have little fossil fuels of their own, and most suppliers are increasingly authoritarian if not outright hostile to us. The sooner we get independent from outside energy sources, the better.
(*) Full disclosure: Redispatch 2.0-related products are a major product line for my employer.
#Renewables #PowerGrid #SolarEnergy
https://www.kyon-energy.de/en/glossar/redispatch-redispatch-2-0
German grid agency projects lower need of grid management, reserve capacity next winter
Agency cites grid expansion progress as key reason
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-grid-agency-projects-lower-need-grid-management-reserve-capacity-next-winter #powergrid #energytransition
Grid regulator says Iberia-like power outage unlikely in Germany as Europe investigates causes
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/grid-regulator-says-iberia-power-outage-unlikely-germany-europe-investigates-causes #blackout #electricity #Spain #powergrid
'Induced atmospheric vibration'
The way to avoid such catastrophic risks is clear: we must embrace innovative solutions such as community #microgrids. These are decentralised, flexible and resilient energy networks that can operate independently when needed.
Just like #Fediverse.
Detailed article on the Spanish electrical grid failure and the "black start" procedure that they need to follow to bring the network back online.
Black start is essentially the opposite of a cascading power failure – a carefully planned and sequenced cascading reconnection of generators, circuits and loads.
https://jkempenergy.com/2025/04/28/iberian-peninsula-hit-by-mass-blackout-and-attempts-black-start/
#Spain #PowerGrid #BlackStart
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