Spain Says Failure to Control Voltage Caused April Blackout

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(Bloomberg) — Spain’s government has identified the causes of the country’s historic April blackout, splitting the responsibility between the grid operator and power generators.  

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The grid lacked the capacity to control voltage surges, Environmental Minister Sara Aagesen said in a press conference Tuesday. This was not only because the network operator failed to properly schedule power generation for the day, but also because a group of plants that would have helped stabilize the grid weren’t operating as they were meant to, she said.

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Spain’s power network collapsed in less than a minute on April 28, leaving more than 50 million people without electricity across the country and neighboring Portugal. The government had previously identified three plants that tripped in southern Spain, and said that disconnections could have been caused by “overvoltage” — a surge of power on the network that exceeds standard limits.

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On Tuesday, Aagesen said utilities “that should have controlled voltage — many of which are paid to do so — didn’t absorb all the” voltage swings that they were expected to, Aagesen said. This means that “according to the grid operator, they didn’t contribute to voltage control,” she added.

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Aagesen also said that there were unusual changes in frequency on the grid across Europe prior to the outage. There were no signs the grid suffered a cyberattack, she said.

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Both the government and grid operator Red Electrica have repeatedly denied claims that the blackout happened because too much renewable energy was being generated, and not enough from sources such as nuclear and combined-cycle gas plants, which offer more stability.

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