April 16, 2025: Spain Runs 100% on Renewable Power. April 28: Blackouts.
David Blackmon
Apr 28, 2025
I really don’t want to make light of the terrible situation with the power grid in Spain and Portugal today, but everyone simply MUST know about this report by PV Magazine dated April 22":

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On April 16, Spain achieved 100% renewable generation on its power grid. Five days later, on April 21, solar set a new record, providing 78.6% of all generation on the grid.

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Seven days after that, Spain’s grid collapsed as it was generating 78% from combined wind and solar, and just a little over 3% with spinning baseload generation powered by natural gas.

As I mentioned in my previous update, grid managers are trying to blame the blackout on what they’re calling “rare atmospheric phenomenon.”

Power grid expert Kathryn Porter speculated the blackouts could be the result of what she calls “low inertia” on the grid:


Low inertia is a condition that forms when a grid has too much electricity generated by non-rotational generators. In Spain, that would equate to too much solar generation.

At the time the blackouts happened, 61% of generation on Spain’s grid was being provided by solar.

How much you want to bet that we will find out in the coming days that that “rare phenomenon” boils down to some combination of “the wind stopped blowing” and “it got cloudy”?

https://blackmon.substack.com/...rue&utm_medium=email

There is already a thread on the blackouts this would have been better in.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
There is already a thread on the blackouts this would have been better in.

Yeppers...

Put it here...

here is the thread link