Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The Spanish grid operator implicated in the Iberian blackout in April has issued an urgent warning over fluctuations in the power system that could again threaten electricity supply.
Red Eléctrica, Spain’s grid operator, has sent an “urgent” request to its regulator seeking permission to change its operating procedures to “strengthen” the tools it can use to manage surges in voltage.
The extraordinary request is a sign that just over five months since the devastating blackout, which left nearly 60mn people without power across the Iberian peninsula, Spain is yet to eliminate the risk of a repeat.
The April blackout was caused by a series of voltage surges that system managers were unable to control. They triggered the collapse of the entire system as a cascade of power plants disconnected from the grid automatically to protect themselves from damage.
The CNMC, a regulator that oversees the grid operator, said late on Wednesday that Red Eléctrica had reported that “over the past two weeks it has observed sharp voltage fluctuations in the Spanish mainland electricity system, which could affect the security of supply if the proposed changes are not implemented”.
The regulator has initiated a one-week public consultation before deciding whether to allow the changes.
In its own report on the blackout, Spain’s Socialist-led government blamed both “bad planning” at Red Eléctrica and errors at power plants for the failure to control a surge in voltage that should have been manageable.
Since the blackout, Red Eléctrica has increased its use of conventional gas and nuclear plants, whose large spinning turbines are supposed to provide more stability to the system than wind and solar plants.
An official at Spain’s energy and environment ministry noted that the voltage fluctuations in recent days had occurred “even with a high number of conventional units connected”. The official added that the fluctuations were “within the established limits”.
A Red Eléctrica official said the changes it was seeking would enable it to better manage power plants that “change their output very quickly” and would “incentivise generators involved in voltage control to improve their response”.
On the day of the blackout a key voltage surge originated from one of Spain’s largest solar power plants, but investigations into the incident found the grid had experienced a series of unusual fluctuations in preceding days.
Spain’s government failed to get an anti-blackout package of legislative reforms through the country’s fractious parliament in July. Now it is seeking to make similar changes by modifying the regulatory regime.
The ministry noted on Thursday that the CNMC was already rolling out a new operating procedure “that will allow all technologies to contribute to voltage control”.