Did solar power cause Spain’s blackout?

Some key questions here are still unanswered. The order matters, for example. During that drop in generation, did wind and solar plants go offline first? Or did everything go down together? Whether or not solar and wind contributed to the blackout as a root cause, we do know that wind and solar don’t contribute to grid stability in the same way that some other power sources do, says Seaver Wang, climate lead of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research organization. Regardless of whether renewables are to blame, more capability to stabilize the grid would only help, he adds. It's not that a renewable-heavy grid is doomed to fail. As Wang put it in an analysis he wrote last week: “This blackout is not the inevitable outcome of running an electricity system with substantial amounts of wind and solar power.” One solution: We can make sure the grid includes enough equipment that does provide inertia, like nuclear power and hydropower. Reversing a plan to shut down Spain’s nu ... Read full article.