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Posted on 05/13/2025 1:53:25 PM PDT by karpov
Across Spain and Portugal, more than 50 million people recently experienced the largest blackout in modern European history. Thousands of commuters stood stranded on the concourses of Spain's transit system. In the span of five seconds, 60 percent of the country's electricity supply vanished. This wasn't caused by a storm or a cyberattack—just bad policy and the most underappreciated force in modern engineering giving way: inertia.
When a power plant trips offline or demand suddenly spikes, the power grid has no cushion; it must respond instantly or it unravels. That's where inertia comes in. In coal, gas, and nuclear plants, massive turbine rotors spin at thousands of rpm. Even when power is cut, they keep turning, releasing stored energy that slows frequency shifts and buys precious time—seconds to a minute—for backup to kick in. It's not backup power, it's breathing room. Like the flywheel on a Peloton, it keeps things steady even when input falters.
Once frequency drops too far, automatic protection kicks in. Plants shut down. Substations isolate. The grid severs its own limbs to survive. If imbalance spreads faster than recovery can respond, the collapse cascades. Entire regions go dark—not for lack of power, but lack of time. Even the right answer, a minute late, is no answer at all.
That's what happened in Spain. On April 28, solar energy was generating nearly 18 gigawatts of electricity—more than half of the national demand. Within an hour, more than two-thirds of it disappeared due to what authorities called a "technical fluctuation." Grid frequency plummeted. France tried to send emergency power across the intertie, but the imbalance tripped the connection. In five seconds, the entire Iberian grid collapsed.
Experts/government regulators are unsure if solar power alone caused the failure.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
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Who cares how quick the onset of the power outage was?
The total duration of the black-out is more important!
Regards,
Probably Germany or U.K. will be next. US grids don’t have the depth of intermittent energy penetration these countries do. And we have a lot more spinning reserve for inertia.
I blame the Spanish government for not immediately rushing the world’s leading energy authority - Greta Thunberg - to the scene.
She’d know what to do, you betcha.
💡
The effect of inertia as it relates to electric power generation is new to me. Until last week, anyway. It adds a more-than-interesting lump to the mix.
this may have been done to open the Mediterranean to ships and subs.
I think the total smell of the black-out is most important. And then the width. Later on, the flavor, then overall Feng Shiu...
Oh, and stickiness and ennui.
ROFL
Experts/government regulators are unsure if solar power alone caused the failure.
—
add wind power and there’s 98% of the failures
>> I think the total smell of the black-out is most important...
Shame on you for not taking this eco-catastrophe Sirius Lee... This is hugh!
“Across the U.S., we’re replaying the same mistakes. Texas, through the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), now gets more than 35 percent of its energy from wind and solar—spiking past 80 percent on the right day. But ERCOT is a grid on an island; it can’t import help or borrow stability. “
Calm down Francis...
This is ERCOT right now.
Frequency
Current Frequency 59.976
Instantaneous Time Error -1.678
Consecutive BAAL Clock-Minute Exceedances (min) 0
Real-Time Data
Actual System Demand 73426
Average Net Load 34604
Total System Capacity (not including Ancillary Services) 91998
Total Wind Output 16560
Total PVGR Output 21608
Current System Inertia 284272. <<<< you see this that’s 284+ gigawatts of inertia simmer down Francis.
Waiting on the gulf of America windfarm off Texas. 30 million acres I hear. 😆👍
I should point out inertia is not just rotating generators it also is all the rotating synchronous motors attached to the system that’s why you have so much inertia as those motors also spin down to the new grid frequency they push power back too the grid using their kinetic to do so for a few seconds to a minute just like power turbines.
Bkmk
You should look at the wind field data now, 300 miles if coastline is getting 25+ mph winds at surface level they are stronger at 100 meters.
https://zoom.earth/maps/wind-speed/#view=28.085,-96.289,6z/model=icon
West Texas is getting 20+ mph too right now. Wind is throttled down because solar has priority on the grid right now, and the gas turbines spinning are doing so for inertia not because they are cheaper than wind. I can see real time ERCOT data with my LLC grade login.
Besides which, ERCOT has interconnections with the next grid to the north. It is not, as the media has said, somehow isolated from he rest of the country.
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