{"id":614,"date":"2025-04-30T18:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T23:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/?p=614"},"modified":"2025-06-02T18:21:43","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T23:21:43","slug":"renewables-and-reliability-a-reflection-on-the-power-outage-in-spain-and-portugal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/renewables-and-reliability-a-reflection-on-the-power-outage-in-spain-and-portugal\/","title":{"rendered":"Renewables and Reliability: A Reflection on the Power Outage in Spain and Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(LinkedIn: https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/renewables-reliability-reflection-power-outage-spain-portugal-benoit-3trle\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in Spain during the major power outage on April 28, 2025. And no, it wasn\u2019t my fault! Eleven hours without electricity is a memorable experience, even in a country with a modern grid like Spain\u2019s. Since then, several commentators have blamed the high levels of wind and solar generation present at the time. I believe this interpretation is mistaken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Events like this should not cast doubt on the reliability of renewable-rich grids. Rather, they remind us that such systems must be designed and planned differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A renewable grid is different\u2014not less reliable<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legacy power systems were built around large thermal or hydro plants that provided natural inertia, centralized control, and predictable output. Modern grids, enriched with renewable resources, require a different approach:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Frequency, voltage, and stability must be ensured through technologies like battery storage, dynamic controllers, and synthetic inertia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Planning must account for the production profiles of solar and wind, their variability, and their geographic complementarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Interconnections must be strengthened to allow the system to self-balance on a larger scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t confuse a grid outage with a technology failure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the April 28 incident occurred during high renewable output, that doesn\u2019t mean renewables were to blame. Major outages almost always stem from systemic issues: poorly coordinated protection systems, the loss of critical transmission lines, insufficient inertia due to equipment failure, or a poor response to a localized disturbance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What this really shows is that our planning approach must evolve. We can\u2019t simply add solar and wind to an architecture built for centralized thermal or hydro power. We need to rethink the foundations of the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Storage: a critical ally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large-scale storage, deployed intelligently, can serve several critical functions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Frequency support<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Black start capability<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Smoothing variable generation<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7       Fast-acting power reserve<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also worth noting that the sudden loss of a major load, such as a large data or AI center, can disrupt the grid as much as the shutdown of a power plant \u2014 a risk often underestimated in traditional planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Storage comes in many forms \u2014 pumped hydro, thermal, chemical (batteries) \u2014 and can be complemented by other flexibility sources like demand-side management. That said, batteries, with their rapidly falling costs and high operational flexibility, are likely to play an increasingly central role. They are a key element in a technological ecosystem capable of ensuring the stability, flexibility, and resilience required by a modern, renewables-rich grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not the presence of renewables that makes a grid fragile \u2014 it\u2019s the lack of adaptation to this new reality. Tomorrow\u2019s grids cannot be based on yesterday\u2019s models. They must be designed with the right tools, the right signals, and planning oriented toward resilience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reliability is not a legacy \u2014 it\u2019s something we build.<\/p>\n

\r\n Shortlink:\r\n https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/renewables-and-reliability-a-reflection-on-the-power-outage-in-spain-and-portugal\/<\/a>\r\n <\/div>\r\n\r\n
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(LinkedIn: https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/renewables-reliability-reflection-power-outage-spain-portugal-benoit-3trle\/) I was in Spain during the major power outage on April 28, 2025. And no, it wasn\u2019t my fault! Eleven hours without electricity is a memorable experience, even in a country with a modern grid like Spain\u2019s. Since then, several commentators have blamed the high levels of wind and solar generation present at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,22,9,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-practices","category-grid-operations","category-solar-energy","category-wind-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":615,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benoit.marcoux.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}