The report by the committee for the analysis of the circumstances surrounding the power outage on 28 April on the Iberian Peninsula, presented by the Spanish government on Tuesday 17 June, revealed “multifactorial origin” of the incident, with a higher than usual voltage level on the day of the incident, which led to “a chain reaction”.
In particular, it describes a lack of planning and foresight on the part of the electricity grid operator Red Eléctrica, and errors on the part of companies in voltage management.
On 18 June, Red Eléctrica presented its own analysis “complementing” the report presented by the government, stating that, just before 12.03pm, “the system was within acceptable voltage and frequency values”. It also points out that many energy production facilities “have not complied with their obligations”.
Contrary to Red Eléctrica’s analysis, the report presented by the Spanish government returns to the events of the day before 28 April, indicating that voltage control capacity was insufficient, since the number of synchronous power plants with regulation capacity was the lowest since the beginning of the year.
The government also referred to the role of certain companies in disconnecting certain power plants “in an apparently inappropriate manner” to protect their installations from power surges.
Among its recommendations, the report proposes strengthening the monitoring and verification of compliance with obligations by all players in the electricity system, as well as taking technical measures to strengthen control of system voltage and protection against fluctuations. The government also stresses the need to increase the level of interconnection with neighbouring countries.
Following the Spanish government’s presentation, several players in the energy sector were pleased to note that clean energy was “not to blame” for the incident.
“The government’s report confirms that it can rely on renewable energies. However, systems and resources need to be updated to take full advantage of this”, explained Vilislava Ivanova, Research Manager at E3G, who placed an emphasis on grid modernisation.
To see the report published by the Spanish government: https://aeur.eu/f/heu ; and the analysis by Red Eléctrica: https://aeur.eu/f/hev (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)