[HN Gopher] Miscalculation by Spanish power grid operator REE co...
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Miscalculation by Spanish power grid operator REE contributed to
blackout
Author : croes
Score : 97 points
Date : 2025-06-17 16:54 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| tux3 wrote:
| They've now presented the report, but the report itself hasn't
| yet been made public.
|
| The press release is here:
| https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/prensa/ultimas-noticias/2025/ju...
| kragen wrote:
| That's fantastic information, thanks! When will the report be
| made public?
| diggan wrote:
| Last I heard they were aiming for sometime between July and
| October to have the full technical report ready and shared
| with the parlament and the EU commission.
| tux3 wrote:
| My understanding is that it was supposed to be released later
| today. It's 8PM in Spain right now.
| riedel wrote:
| Interesting read. I reminded me of some stories a German guy
| who used to work for a Spanish utility told me (the guy lost
| his job at one of the first closed German nuclear facilities
| and now worked at the museum of a pumped storage power plant):
| he told us that the Spanish utility he worked for waited far
| too long to kick in gas power plants waiting for prices to rise
| further making tons of money by risking stability. I also
| learned from him that a lot German nuclear facilities are still
| running there generators only as weight to stabilize the
| network. (Actually he also told us that some utilities legally
| abuse the pumped storage to trade energy between networks). So
| it seems there are some strange incentives and necessities in
| today's system , that might explain the failures to react in
| time.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I also learned from him that a lot German nuclear
| facilities are still running there generators only as weight
| to stabilize the network.
|
| We aren't. Pretty much the first things that get dismantled
| is the turbines and machinery that has no radiation exposure
| because you need space to maneuver, buffer, dismantle and
| decontaminate everything else that's coming out of the
| innards of the plant and actually is contaminated.
|
| Maybe you can get some remaining use as reactive power
| provider done during the ~1 year that it takes for the
| bureaucracy to process the actual permit for dismantling [1]
| - but even during that time, restarting it again is
| practically impossible after the main coolant pipes have been
| flushed [2] (that happened shortly after the plant had been
| formally taken offline and all the uranium pellets were
| removed from the core, although I can't find out how many
| months that took - but it did happen in the same year as the
| shutdown, so less than 8 months).
|
| The only thing that's being kept connected to the grid after
| that is the small portion that supplies the cooling for the
| cooldown pools where the freshly removed uranium pellets
| deplete enough material that they can be stored in CASTOR
| containers [3]. In addition, the high-voltage switching
| equipment is being kept alive in Landshut's case as the area
| of the former NPP is planned to be the end point of the
| SudOstLink national grid expansion link and the power is
| supposed to be transferred from Ohu to the wider
| regional/state grid using the existing tie-ins of the former
| NPP [4].
|
| If you want I can try to contact the utility handling the
| teardown about specifics, I live a few kilometers from there
| after all, but I doubt they're going to share much
| information given the obvious threat of Russian espionage.
|
| It's also a workplace safety issue. You absolutely do not
| want electricity anywhere where you do not vitally need it,
| particularly no high voltage.
|
| EDIT: Thanks to @closewith, indeed Biblis A's genset was
| converted for a "second life" as power regulator in 2011/2012
| [5], but that's (at least from a cursory research) all I
| could find.
|
| [1] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/genehmigung-fuer-
| rueckb...
|
| [2] https://www.bayerische-
| staatszeitung.de/staatszeitung/politi...
|
| [3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_(Kerntechnik)
|
| [4] https://www.br.de/nachrichten/bayern/tennet-stellt-
| suedostli...
|
| [5] https://www.amprion.net/Presse/Presse-
| Detailseite_2667.html
| closewith wrote:
| Biblis A is used for syn-con, which I presume is what the
| person the GP spoke to was talking about.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Ah, that explains things - I only looked at the history
| of the last three in Emsland, Neckarwestheim and Ohu
| because I assumed that everything else was far too much
| dismantled to still be operational in any form or shape.
| Thanks!
| b3orn wrote:
| > I also learned from him that a lot German nuclear
| facilities are still running there generators only as weight
| to stabilize the network
|
| The term for this is synchronous condenser. According to the
| system stability report 2023 [0] there were three of these in
| Germany in 2023 (source is in german, the term you're looking
| for is rotierender Phasenschieber). It is not clear if these
| are converted generators, most likely they are not former
| nuclear power plants, but likely located at the sites of
| former coal power plants because of the existing grid nodes.
| For the future this is a concept that is investigated to
| provide reactive power, in that case from former coal power
| plants.
|
| [0]: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Fachthemen/Elektrizi
| taet...
| narag wrote:
| Disclaimer: I can't really vouch for any of this, but let me tell
| you what's being discussed in the press over here.
|
| This is Government's version and it shows.
|
| REE boss was put there by the ruling party. Still they try to
| paint REE as a private operator now. It's not. Like many other
| orgs, it's a mix of private and public capital, ultimately
| controled by the government.
|
| It's suspected that the blackout was caused because she overruled
| technicians' opinion, looking for a solar % record.
|
| Not "enough thermal power stations" carefully avoids mentioning
| nuclear, that they want to erradicate.
|
| Private companies are requesting the records of CECOEL
| conversation to be published, some have leaked their logs. In one
| of those, REE technicians readily admit that oscilations are
| caused by not enough nuclear in the mix.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Doesn't have to be nuclear, can be anything that provides
| reactive power and grid services, i.e. grid forming battery
| storage. The problem is this service is needed on the Spanish
| grid, but isn't paid for in the market. Pay for it and the grid
| services will be provided. Resources below. Mind you, doesn't
| have to be a Tesla battery, just has to be a battery with power
| controls (grid forming) and some lithium cells for fast
| response (vs sodium for longer duration discharge).
|
| _China launches world's first grid-forming sodium-ion battery
| storage plant_ - https://www.ess-news.com/2025/06/03/china-
| launches-worlds-fi... - June 3rd, 2025 ("With a total
| investment of over CNY 460 million [$63.8 million] and
| occupying 34k square metres, the Baochi plant is designed for
| an installed capacity of 200MW/400MWh. Based on a dual daily
| charge-discharge cycle, it can regulate up to 580 GWh annually
| -- enough to power 270,000 households, with 98 per cent of its
| energy sourced from renewables. The facility supports more than
| 30 local wind and solar power stations, alleviating the impact
| of intermittent supply and facilitating the integration of high
| shares of renewables into the grid.")
|
| _Tesla Megapack in Texas Supports the Grid and Keeps the
| Lights On [Gambit Energy Storage]_ -
| https://www.tesla.com/videos/gambit-megapack - September 30,
| 2021
|
| _Tesla's giant battery in Australia [Hornsdale Power Reserve]
| reduced grid service cost by 90%_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051066 - May 2018
|
| _Tesla Powerpacks Balancing the Grid in Terhills, Belgium
| [video]_ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVHQFrGzThg - May
| 14, 2018
| spspeaker wrote:
| Grid forming services are indeed paid for, according to this
| very same article:
|
| > Power plants "should have controlled voltage and, moreover,
| many of them were economically remunerated to do so. They did
| not absorb all the reactive power that was expected," Aagesen
| said.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It is possible I misread or misunderstood something on the
| topic with regards to compensation for grid services in the
| article. With that said, before jumping to solutioning
| (although I am a strong proponent of batteries based on
| their performance, capabilities, and cost as of this
| comment), I would like to see more information and data as
| to which generators were signaled to change their output
| when the grid started to fault and were unable or unwilling
| to (failure to appropriately manage output and/or field
| excitation to absorb reactive power, etc) and if
| improvements to the electricity market are required.
| Without root cause, we cannot effectively solve.
| gred wrote:
| > REE boss was put there by the ruling party.
|
| Yeah, these public / private entities can get ridiculous. Her
| background is legal and political: Secretary of Women and
| Equality, Spokesperson for Housing, Minister of Housing, State
| Secretary of Housing and Urban Construction, etc. But she's a
| party loyalist and she took a few business classes, so it's all
| good.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I mean it could be good enough, as long as she listens to the
| experts and doesn't think that "these nerds are preventing me
| from making history and breaking records" (assuming what
| parent comment says is true).
| gred wrote:
| Sure, but even better would be if she had experience in the
| industry to judge tactical advice she is given and set
| strategic direction. Otherwise the best she can do is "not
| get in the way".
| 7952 wrote:
| Well nuclear is a thermal power station.
| mocmoc wrote:
| 100% this. In the conversations , it's cristal clear
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > Private companies are requesting the records of CECOEL
| conversation to be published, some have leaked their logs. In
| one of those, REE technicians readily admit that oscilations
| are caused by not enough nuclear in the mix.
|
| And where are those leaks, if one may ask?
|
| French-side the only generation station that actually was
| ejected from the network that day was, precisely, a nuclear
| power plant. [1] A non-specific "moar nuclear!" cry seems
| therefore a bit hard to believe.
|
| [1] https://www.edf.fr/la-centrale-nucleaire-de-golfech/les-
| actu...
| Etheryte wrote:
| This doesn't make the point you think it makes. Nuclear power
| plants are _supposed_ to go offline in unstable grid
| conditions. This ensures they don 't overheat, equipment
| isn't damaged, and that they can be taken offline in a safe,
| rather than unsafe manner.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Your point is not really a point either: _every_ power
| plant can be ejected from the network in such cases, and
| not just nuclear ones. The remark here is that it precisely
| happened to a nuclear first.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Nuclear can't ramp up or down fast. As the grid loses
| generation capacity the load on the base-load type
| capacity becomes too variable and that capacity has to be
| brought offline. It's that simple. Nuclear wasn't ejected
| because there was too much of it but because there was
| not enough capacity of all types, especially of the gas-
| fired type that can most readily respond to solar and
| wind drop-off.
| cryptonector wrote:
| This doesn't show what you think it does. It shows that there
| was not enough gas-fired (and battery) capacity to offset
| solar and wind drop-off. Nuclear was driven off because
| nuclear is strictly base-load only and cannot ramp up fast
| enough to cope with the variability of peak-load -- under
| those circumstances nuclear _must_ disconnect from the grid
| (or part of the grid must be isolated from the rest).
| btilly wrote:
| I would think that a trivial solution for that is to create
| devices that can supply variable demand. (For example by
| heating up water somewhere in the ocean.) If the power
| created by nuclear exceeds base-line demand, create
| artificial demand to level out the valleys. By
| strategically wasting power, nuclear can supply a larger
| share of the demand.
| cryptonector wrote:
| That's the point of batteries, yes. They don't have to be
| chemical batteries. Sand (heated to charge, heat
| extracted to discharge) works too.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Yeah, this is a miscalculation, a miscalculation of the -you
| know- _political_ sort. It's not some junior employee's math
| error. It was _policy_. It blew up in the policy maker's face.
| robocat wrote:
| > REE technicians readily admit that oscilations are caused by
| not enough nuclear in the mix
|
| Any argument using the words "nuclear" or "inertia" are
| incorrect (I suspect often downstream of misdirection caused by
| the incumbents).
|
| A power network is supposed to be reliable, and it is up to the
| regulator to create the internal incentives and restrictions
| such that the network remains reliable as new generation is
| added.
|
| Other countries have successfully designed their electricity
| market incentives so that solar provides synthetic inertia, and
| manages reactive power, and so that voltage cutoffs (over or
| under) don't destabilise the grid.
|
| The regulator failed to design a stable network. If they were
| told to run it in an unstable manner, it is up to them to cover
| their arse.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > If they were told to run it in an unstable manner, it is up
| to them to cover their arse.
|
| With you up to this point. Screw that ass covering. Admit the
| [policy] error and drop the idiotic policy and get back to
| normal. No need to ass-cover.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Nuclear isn't the only issue. It's the lack of sufficient
| online gas-fired and hydro and battery peak-load capacity.
| There might not have been enough base-load capacity either, in
| which case all the peak-load capacity being online would not be
| enough -- in this case then yes, more nuclear (and coal) would
| have helped.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I think a gas plant lying about it's availability was eventually
| discovered to be a root cause of the South Australia blackout a
| few years back.
| Rygian wrote:
| For me the keywords are "capacidad de control de tension
| insuficiente" (insufficient voltage control capacity) which was
| already a known issue for years.
|
| REE asked back in 2019/2020 to create a new real-time dispatch
| mechanism for reactive power, because Spain still relies on fixed
| dispatch based on emails, phone calls, even snail mail. There was
| a pilot project in 2022 which was successful (dispatching in less
| than 5 seconds) but proved to be very expensive, and therefore
| incompatible with the European Union's directives on creating
| market-ready regulation processes [1].
|
| [1][ES] https://www.eldiario.es/economia/competencia-reconocio-
| julio...
| demarq wrote:
| Wasn't it supposed to be Russia
| b3orn wrote:
| No, it was supposedly induced atmospheric vibration.
| Dr_Knows wrote:
| @narag excellent recap. "carefully avoids mentioning nuclear" --
| the nuclear operator/s decided not to supply electricitiy on that
| day.
| cryptonector wrote:
| > REE did not have enough thermal power stations switched on when
| surge occurred
|
| That's.. that's a miscalculation alright. But it's not likely
| that it was just a small math error. It must have been policy to
| live on the edge.
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