The cause of the losing power that remains Millions of people in Spain and Portugal have no electricity On Monday, it has not been fully determined, although the service has now been restored over 99 percent of the Iberian peninsula. Red Eléctrica, a university company in charge of operating the transmission infrastructure of Spain, has preliminary excluding a cyber attack, human fault or abnormal weather or atmospheric conditions is the cause of stopping. The company pointed out that the incident could originate from two generations of disconnection, which could be related to the inherent fluctuations of Renewable source.
Experts emphasize that the total type of power outage is a special and irregular event, which is also a security mechanism of the electric system itself. In order for a mesh to operate stably, energy production must be balanced with consumption; The imbalance can cause power outages as well as the potential to damage the infrastructure.
Maintaining a mesh balance is the responsibility of the system operator, the person who follows the parameters such as electricity frequency, voltage and load from transformer stations in real time. When there is a significant difference between the generation and the need, the automatic disconnection is activated in specific areas of the grid to avoid imbalance. In the most serious situations, the effects of these activated disconnects may expand for the entire network.
This general power failure occurs because, in just five seconds, more than half of the power has been lost Science Communication Center (SMC) in Spain. The grid, cannot balance such a sharp decline between the generation and the need, self -protection by automatically disconnecting both inside and from the rest of the European grid.
In the comments for SMC, Miguel de Simón Martín, a professor of electrical engineering at León University, explained that the balance on the grid is often guaranteed by three things. The first is a complex network of lines connected to each other, called mesh, distributing electric current on the grid to prevent overload. Secondly, there are connectivity to the netes of neighboring countries, allowing energy to be imported or exported when necessary to balance creation and demand.
Finally, there is something called mechanical inertia. Synchronous generators, large cameras that produce electricity in power stations, also store a lot of energy in their very large rotating parts. Imagine, suppose, a coal -burning power plant. Even if it stops burning coal to generate more energy, the huge, heavy turbines that it uses to generate electricity will continue to rotate for a while because the energy is stored in them. Known as mechanical inertia, this phenomenon can act as a buffer against sudden fluctuations in the net. When there is an imbalance between creating energy and needs, synchronous generators can accelerate or slow their rotation speed to balance everything, basically acting as a shock absorber in the net by absorbing or releasing energy when necessary.
A large network, well connected, with strong connections and rich synchronous generators, will be more stable and less errors, according to De Simónón Martín, the Spanish peninsula has its weakness. Geographical barriers of Pyrenees.