Most of you have probably seen that the Spanish electric grid went down, affecting Portugal and other parts of Europe as well. The technical excuse, which is somewhat dubious, is quite complex, but the real issue is that Spain is trying to rely 100% on supposed renewables and just last week claimed that the grid was running on renewables, largely solar. The country shut nuclear power, gas and coal. And what you get is a very unstable, unreliable grid. As I said there are technical explanations for exactly what happened, but the core reason is reliance on stupid power sources. Coming soon to California, Minnesota and other places. How would you like to be without electricity for a week. You will find out soon. Here is a good explanation. (MS Post)
I have spent the time to analyze the Spain grid failure, though –
The Texas Grid failure during the freeze of Feb 2021 was widely blamed on the lack of maintenance of the fossil fuel electric generation plants. While that was true, the reason for the maintenance failure was due to the pricing structure of renewables which undercut the margins where needed.
Secondly and more important –
Solar produced less electricity during February because the days are still shorter than during the summer – Duh.
Electricity generated from wind was down 60%-90% of 11 days across Texas and a similar 60%-90% drop in electric production from wind for 7-8 days across the entire north american continent. Compare that with the 40% drop in electric generation loss for 30 hours and another 20% electric generation loss for 48 hours. Renewables did significantly worse across Texas and the entire north american continent.
FWIW – the lack of wind during a major freeze during the winter when electric demand is at its greatest is pretty solid evidence that renewables are not the solution.