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Monday’s devastating blackout in Spain is raising questions about the country’s massive reliance on solar and wind power for electricity — and whether the new power sources may have played a role.Spain’s socialist government has faced increasing pressure to explain what went wrong on Monday, when widespread power cuts saw railways, airports, and major sporting events grind to a halt across the country, as well as Portugal and part of France.However, the government has been quick to claim renewable power is not to blame — despite not yet having a full explanation of exactly what went wrong.Renewable energy accounted for almost two-thirds of Spain’s electricity production just before the system crashed this week, according to data from the country’s partially state-owned grid operator REE.The source of Monday’s blackouts has been narrowed down to two separate incidents in southwestern Spain where two substations experienced a loss of generation, according to REE, which is headed by socialist ex-lawmaker Beatriz Corredor.One key factor that experts have pointed to is that traditional gas and nuclear power plants have spinning turbines to generate electricity.
Those turbines have inertia — meaning they’re able to keep up their momentum even when they’re not being powered — and store certain amounts of energy to help regulate the power grid.With solar power, there is no such backup inherent in the design, thus, power grids must resort to using batteries and other methods to store energy.When solar plants go offline, output ceases immediately.The lack of inertia means that “imbalances must be corrected more quickly,” David Bayshaw, professor of climate science and energy meteorology at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, told the Wall Street Journal.“Outage events, when they occur, are likely to become more significant and widespread.”Experts have previously warned that Europe’s increasing reliance on renewable energy —...