What Caused the Recent Power Outage in Spain, Portugal, and Southern France?

[Fisherman199]

when it happened i was sent some frequency captures from a friend and the frequency went far below any tolerances for dynamic stability of synchronous machines. I'm having trouble locating the picture now but I'll keep trying.

i have not kept with the latest, but I have heard more over time and it seems there were a couple generation loss events. first from tripping a transmission tie line and second from some IBR. the combination of generation loss into a system weakly coupled to main-land Europe created slow inter-area frequency oscillations. These are rarely seen in modern times because systems are usually strong and highly meshed/interconnected. but, when frequency begins to deviate, it traverses entire interconnections very quickly. it's fortunate the Iberian peninsula was the only thing to blackout and this should be seen a victory. It could have easily been far, far worse.

my personal opinion is, not knowing the official statement, that there's a difference in managing IBR generation and modeling generation portfolio costs with IBR and spain learned that difference. mismanagement of IBR (either in real-time or in planning or in commissioning stages (perhaps all three)) was ultimately to blame.

 

[tech99]

I think the view is that small events occurred and there was insufficient stored energy in the system to cope with it, so more rotating machinery (or electronic equivalent ) will be required.