Mike Swearingen and I did a webinar for the IEEE Consultants Network on the Spanish Outage and associated grid issues. The webinar can be found on YouTube.
As the final results of the Spanish outage are not finalized, our discussions were based on our experience. The initial discussions were on two questions: Could the Spanish grid collapse happen in the U.S., and was it a renewables problem?
The answer to the first question is yes as can be seen from my June 9, 2021, blog. The answer to the second question is maybe. Depending on the concentration of renewables, it is possible to have insufficiently damped oscillations that can affect the reliability of the grid like with the Spanish outage. However, the Florida case was a grid disturbance caused by grid oscillations arising from fossil plant issues (a process sensor system failure).
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A question was asked if the Spanish outage was a cyberattack. Based on what I know, it was not. I then was asked if a cyberattack could shut down the grid. The answer is most likely yes. The discussions extended beyond the Spanish outage and included discussions on education, sensor issues and other control system cyber issues.
