CAUSE OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL CHAOS REVEALED – Not enough thermal power stations available at the time
The massive power cut that plunged huge swathes of Spain and Portugal into chaos earlier this year was caused by a miscalculation, the Spanish government has said.
Airports, trains and the internet were among the services affected by the blackout in late April, with traffic lights also down, causing huge tailbacks.
There was discussion about whether a cyberattack was to blame, but today Spain’s energy minister said the issue was a miscalculation by the Spanish power grid operator REE.
Sara Aagesen said REE did not have enough thermal power stations switched on during peak hours of April 28, when the surge caused a chain reaction leading to the power outage.
“The system did not have sufficient dynamic voltage control capacity,” she said.
To explain this convoluted play on words…. A thermal power station is a type of power plant that generates electricity by converting heat energy into mechanical energy, typically using steam turbines. The heat source can be from burning fossil fuels (like coal, natural gas, or oil), nuclear reactions, or even geothermal energy.
So Spain, potentially, didn’t switch on enough coal or gas Power stations to meet peak demand and ran out of power. So the chaos was caused by a failure to plan for peak capacity.
