Re:Full power outage in Spain and Portugal
by ncruces on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @05:09AM
(#43830227)
Even then, the interconnect capacity with France is currently 2800 MW (was 1400 MW in 2015) with just 3 links, all on the NE.
If Portugal (on the West) had to wait for that, it would probably have taken even longer.
Re:Full power outage in Spain and Portugal
by LorenPechtel on Tuesday April 29, 2025 @07:12PM
(#43839176)
But even a "small" amount of input power makes the process much easier because it can be used to bring up the next source of power.
Sure. Portugal is in deed completely “isolated” if it loses Spain, so it needs black start capability if it wants some degree of autonomy.
As far as containing the issue, this was a disaster. On the flip side, this was as good an opportunity to test a black start as any, it went reasonably well, and the network operator was already in the process of contracting two further dams for the ability.
For Spain the external power and synchronization can come from France rather than generators which will help, but the process and complexities are still mostly the same. Call it a dark start, perhaps.