The causes of THE power failure left millions in Spain and Portugal without electricity On Monday, it has not yet been fully determined, although the service has now been restored in 99% of the Iberian Peninsula. Red Eléctricrica, the public company responsible for the exploitation of the transmission infrastructure of Spain, excluded preliminary a cyber attack, a human error or the unusual weather or atmospheric conditions as cause of the failure. The company stresses that the incident could have come from two “generation disconnections”, perhaps linked to the inherent volatility of renewable sources.
Specialists emphasize that this type of total failure – an exceptional and infrequent event – is also a safety mechanism of the electrical system itself. For a grid to work stable, energy production must be maintained in equilibrium with consumption; The imbalances can cause power outages as well as potentially damaged infrastructure.
Maintaining the balance of the grid is the responsibility of the system operator, which monitors parameters such as electrical frequency, voltage and load from real-time substations. When there are significant differences between generation and demand, automatic disconnections are activated in specific areas of the grid to avoid imbalances. In the most serious situations, the impacts of these triggered disconnections can extend to the entire network.
“This general failure failure occurred because, in just five seconds, more than half of the generation of electricity was lost,” said Álvaro de la Puente Gil, professor of electrical engineering at the University of León. Science Media Center (SMC) in Spain. The grid, unable to balance such a clear drop between generation and demand, has protected itself by automatically disconnecting both internally and the rest of the European grid.
In comments to SMC, Miguel de Simón Martín, professor of electrical engineering at the University of León, explains that balance on a grid is generally guaranteed by three things. The first is a complex network of interconnected lines, called mesh, which distribute electrical flows through the grid to avoid overloads. Second, there are interconnections with the networks of neighboring countries, which allow energy importation or export if necessary to balance generation and demand.
Finally, there is something called “mechanical inertia”. Synchronous generators – Large rotation machines that produce electricity in power plants – also store a lot of energy in their very large rotary parts. Imagine, let's say, a coal -fired power plant. Even if he stops burning coal to generate more power, the huge heavy turbines he uses to create electricity will continue to turn for a while due to the energy stored there. Known as mechanical inertia, this phenomenon can act as a buffer against sudden fluctuations of the grid. When there are imbalances between energy production and demand, synchronous generators can accelerate or slow down their speed of rotation to balance things, essentially acting as a grid shock absorbing by absorbing or releasing energy if necessary.
“A large well -fitting grid, with strong interconnections and abundant synchronous generators, will be more stable and less subject to failures”, explains of Simón Martín “the Spanish peninsular electrical network has been historically robust and reliable thanks to its high degree of realization at a high and very high steering wheel, as well as its large capacity for synchronic production. Pyrenees geographic barrier. »»
