Stop These Things

With solar only available 8 hours out of 24 and wind producing under 10% of our electricity yesterday and today, where are renewables when you need them?

"Getting the energy market back on its normal footing is the best thing to do." Get the Strait of Hormuz open, urges the governor of the Bank of England.

Europe's official grid authority has released its report on the nationwide blackout that hit Spain last year. And while the report treads carefully politically, its data make the cause clear. Wind and solar triggered the collapse. Within the first 80 seconds, Spain lost 2.5 GW of generation, around 10% of its national supply, with every MW of that early loss coming from renewables. Gas and hydro remained stable until the cascade was already underway. The report calls it an unprecedented speed of blackout. This was a textbook inverter chain failure, with renewables dropping so fast that the grid's stabilizers never had time to react. By midday, Spain's grid had virtually no inertia, nothing spinning fast enough to hold frequency steady. But to admit that outright would mean questioning Europe's green transition itself, something the report appears unable to do. So the event is officially described as "a rare local disturbance," rather than what it actually was... A systemic failure of weather-dependent power.

"Green energy" company Vast Renewables, which took tens of millions from the taxpayer, will be wound up and sold off after collapsing late last year. One of its solar sites, in Jemalong NSW, has been abandoned and left half-demolished after a fire broke out there in December.

Europe's official grid authority has released its report on the nationwide blackout that hit Spain last year. And while the report treads carefully politically, its data make the cause clear. Wind and solar triggered the collapse. Within the first 80 seconds, Spain lost 2.5 GW of generation, around 10% of its national supply, with every MW of that early loss coming from renewables. Gas and hydro remained stable until the cascade was already underway. The report calls it an unprecedented speed of blackout. This was a textbook inverter chain failure, with renewables dropping so fast that the grid's stabilizers never had time to react. By midday, Spain's grid had virtually no inertia, nothing spinning fast enough to hold frequency steady. But to admit that outright would mean questioning Europe's green transition itself, something the report appears unable to do. So the event is officially described as "a rare local disturbance," rather than what it actually was... A systemic failure of weather-dependent power.