The Spain/Portugal power outage is fascinating to me, as an energy storage professional.
Lots of theories flying around about the cause. Atmosphere, cyberattack, renewables.
Power grids keep balance via their AC frequency. In the US, it's 60Hz. If the frequency is a little above 60, then there is a surplus of generation. If the frequency is below 60, there is a surplus of demand. Generators and loads respond to this - it's called frequency response.
Last year in Virginia, in data center alley, there was a frequency disturbance that caused a large number of data centers to drop off the grid onto backup power, leaving a huge surplus of generation. It almost collapsed PJM. (I'm actually working on a project to mitigate this using very large batteries).
Spain lost 15GW of generation in seconds. My speculation is frequency went out of spec, for whatever reason, which caused a ton of solar and wind generators to island themselves, and the situation amplified itself. #theory #spain #poweroutage