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• Lessons from the first blackout of the green era

  Spain’s blackout should not trigger a retreat from renewables, but an upgraded grid is urgently needed for the energy transition

  • By Javier Blas / Bloomberg Opinion
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  Over a century of running the power grid on fossil fuels, we learned many lessons about why, how and when blackouts happen. We now need to learn new lessons about when they are triggered by green energy. On Monday, Spain and Portugal — and a sliver of France — suffered what could come to be known as the first major blackout of the renewable-energy era. More than 50 million people lost power, and electricity did not return for nearly half a day.

  We do not yet know the full details, but Red Electrica de Espana, Spain’s state-backed grid operator, on Tuesday detailed a tentative timeline of the massive disruption. The company suspects that an initial power failure was “very likely” due to a solar plant producing less than expected, and seconds later there was a “massive” drop in other renewable-electricity production.

  Left unsaid is another critical factor: Spain and Portugal were running their grid with a generation mix that relied heavily on the weather — for more than 75 percent of output. Few of the old-fashioned generators powered by gas, nuclear and hydraulic force, which are key to ensuring a stable grid, were running.

  Spanish and Portuguese authorities have promised a root-cause analysis of the incident, and the lessons should be heeded around the world as most countries embrace solar and wind power — though perhaps not as aggressively as the Iberian nations. Authorities need to focus on how to better integrate growing renewable production into the grid to strengthen resilience, rather than retreat from and dismantle net-zero generation.

  Solar and wind-dominated grids are not bad per se, but they are typically more fragile that those dominated by traditional generation. Of course, they have a huge advantage: They do not pollute. Policymakers will need to make sure that the right mix remains in the system. That is likely to mean investing in more gas-fired plants as backup and keeping nuclear facilities on line. It means spending as much as US$100 billion across the EU to upgrade grids. It would also mean curtailing solar and wind generation at times of low demand, so space is given to generation that — while polluting — improves the stability of the grid.

  Countries like Spain might even have to consider hard limits on how much solar is allowed as a share of total generation at any given time — anathema among renewables supporters. That raises thorny questions about costs: Renewables receive generous subsidies and governments might need to pay them not to use the solar panels — a suboptimal use of taxpayer money.

  Accepting that reality is urgent, because power consumption is booming. Since 2010, global electricity demand has grown almost twice as fast as total energy use. The trend is likely to continue, in part because of electron-hungry new technologies, and in part simply because the world is getting richer. From this year to 2027, global electricity consumption is expected to rise every year by the equivalent of what Japan consumes today.

  Underscoring the twin-track approach is a confidential report from the International Energy Agency about the future of energy security. On one hand, “systemic challenges will emerge from balancing increasingly renewable-dominated grids” whose output is weather-dependent; on the other, “premature retirement of dispatchable generation without adequate replacements” increases the risk for the grid’s stability.

  Those dangers were well known in the industry, but largely ignored by the government in Madrid, as it pushed into renewable energy. In what today reads like a prescient warning, the parent of the Spanish grid operator in February wrote in its annual report that it faced challenges managing the system.

  “The high penetration of renewable generation without the necessary technical capabilities in place to keep them operating properly in the event of a disturbance [...] can cause power generation outages, which could be severe” it said.

  Yes, they knew. New technology could help: More batteries can contribute to stabilizing the grid, and new systems called synthetic inertia can replicate the role that old spinning plants did for the new solar and wind era. However, the deployment of both systems has been slow. Spain and Portugal need to improve their international connections. When it comes to electricity, the Iberian Peninsula is more of an island than Britain.

  The world did not walk away from fossil-fuel and nuclear power stations because New York suffered a massive blackout in 1977, and it should walk away from solar and wind because Spain and Portugal lost power for a few hours. However, we should learn that grid design, policy and risk mapping are not yet up to the task of handling too much power from renewable sources.

  Unfortunately, green activists believe such concerns represent little more than attempts to delay the shift away from fossil fuels. Instead, the renewable industry should lead the change with engineering and policy solutions. Failing to do so would undermine nothing less than the energy transition itself.

  Javier Blas is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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