You should read the report, its a good description of a complex system failing complexly. (well the reasons leading up to it failing were complex)

The interesting thing about spain's grid is that it doesn't have that much battery compared to say the UK (the uk has about 11 gwhr which is about enough to power the entire uk for around 20mins)

The Iberian grid has <100Mw (I know mixed units) battery at the moment. This is interesting because the economics of the iberian grid means that most solar plants are in curtailment (ie told to turn off) at solar mid day prices are normally negative, at 18:00 prices are very high.

There is currently a large lucrative market in grid scale batteries being paid to charge at solar noon and getting a 30-50% premium to release the power at peak.

There are only a few companies that are able to vertically integrate solar and battery, so it'll be interesting to see how the prices shape up in the next 5 years. I expect a bunch of batteries to be built and then sold as the market changes shape.

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whatever1 2 days ago | parent [-]

Spain is a leader in Hydro. Why they don’t use their dams for storage ?

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Because you'd have to have engineered the whole thing for that purpose right from the get go. In theory you can run the generators in reverse and push water up the hill into the basin. In practice this may not work for a multitude of reasons (priming, encasement, rotation reversal, cavitation, impeller and impeller housing design).

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elmolino89 2 days ago | parent [-]

Also missing in vast majority of the dams is a lower reservoir. Pumping up the water from a river/canal below the dam would result in a dry river bed just below the dam rather quickly

*edit* spell

	▲	jacquesm 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, excellent point. Cruachan dam is a nice example of such a double storage setup. https://www.visitcruachan.co.uk/

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elmolino89 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Spain does have few (probably 4 according to ESP Wikipedia) pumped-storage hydroelectricity plants. Supposedly these are being used nowadays to store excess of energy produced by fotovoltaic plants. No idea how fast these can switch from storing energy to producing it and if these were used to help during the blackout.

	▲	gwbas1c 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> No idea how fast these can switch from storing energy to producing it and if these were used to help during the blackout. Typically ~10 seconds. The bigger issue is if these have blackstart capability. (IE, if they can switch to generation when there is a blackout, or if they need power from the grid to start.)

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KaiserPro 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reconfiguring dams for storage isn't easy, quick or possible.

Non-storage dams don't have lower lakes to pull from, and the surrounding area might not be able to support it.

plus they also need water when there are droughts, which spain is also prone to.

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marcoalopez a day ago | parent | prev [-]

they do it all the time