Spanish govt’s blackout report suggests similar event unlikely to occur in Germany – researchers

The findings of the Spanish government’s report on the causes of the massive nationwide blackout that hit the country in late April suggest that a similar event is unlikely to occur in Germany, energy system researchers told Süddeutsche Zeitung. The report, presented by ecological transition minister Sara Aagesen, found that the blackout on the Iberian Peninsula which also hit Spain’s neighbour Portugal had multiple causes, one of which being a lack of sufficient voltage control capacity. Overvoltage in the grid that could not be countered due to the insufficient control capacity thus had triggered a cascade in the system that ultimately led to the nationwide outage, Aagesen said, adding that poor planning by grid operator REE and the disconnection of power plants by several energy companies that were supposed to provide control capacity were responsible for the failure.

In Germany, the shuttering of nuclear and coal power plants has taken potential voltage control capacity offline. However, this would not make blackouts due to overvoltage more likely, said Albert Moser, energy system researcher at RWTH Aachen University. New compensation installations could replace this capacity in a system that is based on renewable power installations, Moser said. “It’s part of grid expansion to install these,” he said, which is why a similar event was unlikely to occur in Germany. “It’s daily business to prevent possible overvoltage,” the researcher said, adding that it was “unusual” that sufficient capacity had not been made available ahead of the blackout. “There doesn’t have to be a blackout just because you lose about 2,000 megawatts of generation capacity,” he added.

Energy researcher Veit Hagenmeyer of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology agreed that precautions were taken in Germany that make such an event unlikely to occur: “The necessary voltage control capacity is constantly being monitored,” he told Süddeutsche Zeitung. Grid operators use weather forecasts to assess the output of wind and solar plants one day ahead. By weighing this against expected demand and other factors, operators can then order the provision of adequate control capacity in the grid.