RT info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis
T1 Analysis of the April 28th Blackout in Spain
A1 Gómez Carnero, Iker Diego
A2 Universidad de Valladolid. Escuela de Ingenierías Industriales
K1 Red Eléctrica
K1 Apagón
K1 Regulación
K1 Servicios no energéticos
K1 Energías renovables
K1 3310 Tecnología Industrial
AB As the future of electric energy takes shape, many countries are accelerating the energy transition by promoting renewable technologies and pursuing ambitious targets that seek to combineeconomic competitiveness, rapid deployment, and deep decarbonization.The frequently questioned, yet inevitable, energy transition is being propelled by the rapidexpansion of renewable energy sources, introducing operational challenges that are reshapingboth, the technical, and economic foundations of modern power systems. As inverter-basedrenewable generation becomes increasingly predominant, system operators face a dual challenge:integrating large shares of intermittent, non-dispatchable resources into existing grids whileensuring security of supply in a context where cost-effective ancillary services still dependheavily on conventional synchronous generation.Historically, technologies such as gas, nuclear, and large hydropower plants have providednot only active power, but also essential non-energy services, which include inertia, frequencyresponse, and dynamic voltage control, services that are now progressively diminishing as theseunits retreat from the generation mix.As Spain aims at a net-zero energy system by 2050, the potential role of traditional energysources as nuclear energy and combined cycles remains highly debated. Many studies generallyfocus on the technologies themselves, e.g. carbon footprint, construction time, commissioningor payback period or individual wholesale prices, often aiming to demonstrate the advantagesof fast and low-cost installation of renewable technologies. The share of renewable energy inthe generation mix has grown continuously, delivering significant benefits such as lower prices,increased competitiveness, and progress in electrification. However, renewable deployment hasbeen regionally uneven, leading to imbalances between regions. Moreover, because this growthhas largely relied on replacing conventional generation, some areas now lack crucial synchronousgeneration, which has historically provided the services necessary to maintain system stability.Although the European grid expansion targets to address this problems, there are scenarioswhere the physical expansion of interconnections is constrained, problem usually found on theperiphery of the Continental Europe Synchronous Area. This is worsened in the case of theIberian Peninsula, due to the French reluctance to expand interconnection capacity aiming atshielding its centralized electricity market from the competitive pressure of the Iberian market.iIn this cases, ensuring a stable power output and a reliable contribution to overall system performance becomes a critical concern. Renewable technologies, while essential to decarbonization,present intrinsic limitations due to the mismatch between their nominal capacity and theireffective system contribution. Furthermore, their limited inertia and controllability exacerbatethe complexity of solving frequency and voltage events, incurring into higher ancillary servicescosts and renewables market share reduction.To address these challenges, technological innovation is indispensable. Advances such as synthetic inertia, grid-forming converters, reactive power control and dynamic, agile grid operationto enable renewable and storage technologies to participate more actively in system stabilityand ancillary service provision. However, technological progress alone is insufficient withoutcorresponding regulatory and market progression. The evolution toward high-renewable electricity systems demands a reframing of market design, from a primarily focused on energytransactions to one that systematically integrates resilience, flexibility, and the secure deliveryof system services [1, 2] . These attributes must be recognized as fundamental components ofcost-effective and sustainable decarbonization, as the electric system is the cornerstone of theenergy transition and the electrification of industry and transport.The analysis of unprecedented events, as Spain’s April 28th blackout illustrates the criticalimportance of resilient system, highlighting vulnerabilities linked to the reliance on emergencybalancing actions unable to compete with power electronics effects, and the need to still relyon intrinsically secure generation technologies, whose stability is based on physical principles,such as nuclear [3, 4], combined-cycle, and large hydro power
YR 2026
FD 2026
LK https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/83319
UL https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/83319
LA eng
NO Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica
DS UVaDOC
RD 05-mar-2026