Actually this is typically an issue for grid batteries.
Spinning generators can easily briefly go to 10x the rated current for a second or so to smooth out big anomalies.
Stationary batteries inverters can't do 10x current spikes ever - the max they can get to is more like 1.2x for a few seconds.
That means you end up needing a lot of batteries to provide the same spinning reserve as one regular power station.
What causes the Iberian blackout is excessive reactive power and a lack of compensation at a given time (due to multiple factors).
Compensation of reactive power has strictly nothing to do with localization of generation. It barely even can be assimilated to oscillations
That's complete garbage and it shows mainly you do not seem to know much about Electricity power in general.
Misaligned oscillation can occurs under ANY load.
I'm very suspicious of this, because it would also imply 10x overcurrent on the associated transmission gear. There's limits on how much you can overcurrent a transformer before the core magnetically saturates, for example. Also I would expect protection systems to trip out at such a huge divergence from rated current. Do we have a citation?
Basically I'm dubious. I'm sure there are grids somewhere that have misprovisioned their inverter capacity, but I don't buy that battery facilities are inherently unable to buffer spikes. Is there a cite I can read?
Australia's largest power plant has 2.9GW of inertial generation assuming all generators are running at 100%. As in the small battery substation alone comes close to the countries largest power station. I'm not sure where the idea that lithium ion can't dump power quickly comes from. They are absolutely phenomenal at it. Australia's building dozens of these substations too since they are so cheap and reduce overall power costs. It's a win from all points of view.
Large spinning masses can provide several seconds of inertia. For 2GW of traditional turbine, you would have between 10-20 gigawatt-seconds of energy that is instantly available at any moment to resist RoCoF.
The whole point with actual inertia is that you get a large multiple of your maximum capacity without any redundant parts or added system complexity.
Keeping around 10x+ more semiconductors than you need to cover a tiny fraction of operational scenarios is difficult economics.
A semiconductor device cannot be overloaded like a spinning generator or transmission infrastructure can. You cannot trade temperature and maintenance schedule for capacity in the same way. Semiconductors have far more brittle operating parameters.
More inverters in parallel will achieve the same end goal - fast frequency response.
(And "reactive power" could be good too but not absolutely necessary to understand at first...
That equivalent inertia can only be done for short periods but that's exactly what grids need in stability - there's generally no lack of total generation, just a need to jump in and smooth out spikes.
You can't build a dam for that price, nor could you do it in under 100 days from contract signing as that battery was built. Batteries are definitely the answer here. The 'more spinning mass' answers don't make sense since Australia literally solved the above problem in a much cheaper way already.
Is it that common that dams are already existing in nearby-ish pairs with the sufficient height difference? And that we haven't done this already?
Doing this is good where we can. But it has geographical limitations. Batteries don't so much.
You can always use a ton more concrete and force new locations, but the best locations have already been utilized and scaling law of batteries has brought them to the point where they're more competitive than new hydro for this kind of use.
That's because Australia has a moderate amount of renewables and prefers to burn fossil fuels. Right now, around 25% of the electricity in Australia is generated by solar or wind.
Spain is past 50% of renewable generation, and their problems are much bigger.
> That problem may not have been entirely Spain’s fault, El País said. “Interconnections with the rest of the continent continue to be much fewer than the European Commission recommends, not because Spain isn’t interested, but because France has for years resisted expanding them.”
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electrici...
[2] https://www.theenergymix.com/massive-blackout-in-spain-shows...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Australian_blackout
Completely solved with lithium based grid storage at key locations btw. This grid storage has also been massively profitable for it's owners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve#Revenu...
Australia currently has 4 of the 5 largest battery storage systems under construction as a result of this profit opportunity; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_energy_storage_system#...
You can also read numerous stories of how Australia's lithium ion grid storage systems have prevented blackouts in many cases. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-big-battery-south-australia-... The fact is that the batteries responsiveness is the fastest of any system at correcting gaps like this. 50/60hz is nothing for a lithium ion battery nor are brief periods of multi-gigawatt draw/dumping as needed.
There's even articles that if Europe investing in battery storage systems like Australia they'd have avoided this. https://reneweconomy.com.au/no-batteries-no-flexibility-spai...