from Hacker News

Miscalculation by Spanish power grid operator REE contributed to blackout

by croes on 6/17/25, 4:54 PM with 46 comments

• by narag on 6/17/25, 5:43 PM

  Disclaimer: I can't really vouch for any of this, but let me tell you what's being discussed in the press over here.

  This is Government's version and it shows.

  REE boss was put there by the ruling party. Still they try to paint REE as a private operator now. It's not. Like many other orgs, it's a mix of private and public capital, ultimately controled by the government.

  It's suspected that the blackout was caused because she overruled technicians' opinion, looking for a solar % record.

  Not "enough thermal power stations" carefully avoids mentioning nuclear, that they want to erradicate.

  Private companies are requesting the records of CECOEL conversation to be published, some have leaked their logs. In one of those, REE technicians readily admit that oscilations are caused by not enough nuclear in the mix.

• by Rygian on 6/17/25, 7:52 PM

  For me the keywords are "capacidad de control de tensión insuficiente" (insufficient voltage control capacity) which was already a known issue for years.

  REE asked back in 2019/2020 to create a new real-time dispatch mechanism for reactive power, because Spain still relies on fixed dispatch based on emails, phone calls, even snail mail. There was a pilot project in 2022 which was successful (dispatching in less than 5 seconds) but proved to be very expensive, and therefore incompatible with the European Union's directives on creating market-ready regulation processes [1].

  [1][ES] https://www.eldiario.es/economia/competencia-reconocio-julio...

• by cryptonector on 6/17/25, 9:02 PM

  > REE did not have enough thermal power stations switched on when surge occurred

  That's.. that's a miscalculation alright. But it's not likely that it was just a small math error. It must have been policy to live on the edge.

• by tux3 on 6/17/25, 5:31 PM

  They've now presented the report, but the report itself hasn't yet been made public.

  The press release is here: https://www.miteco.gob.es/es/prensa/ultimas-noticias/2025/ju...

• by ZeroGravitas on 6/17/25, 7:21 PM

  I think a gas plant lying about it's availability was eventually discovered to be a root cause of the South Australia blackout a few years back.

• by mpweiher on 6/18/25, 9:30 AM

  "REE did not have enough thermal power stations switched on when surge occurred"

• by demarq on 6/17/25, 8:04 PM

  Wasn’t it supposed to be Russia

• by Dr_Knows on 6/17/25, 8:48 PM

  @narag excellent recap. "carefully avoids mentioning nuclear" -- the nuclear operator/s decided not to supply electricitiy on that day.