Spain changes rules for controlling electrical voltage

Renewable energy units (solar or wind) will now be able to control the voltage of the electricity grid in Spain on an equal footing with other conventional production technologies, the country's regulatory body announced this Thursday.

Spain's National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) reported the change and said it approved the review of the regulatory framework for voltage control obligations on the electricity grid on June 12, before the first official conclusions were known on the causes of the blackout in the Iberian Peninsula on April 28.

According to these conclusions, the blackout occurred due to a voltage overload that the Spanish electricity system was unable to absorb due to planning failures by the company Red Elétrica — the Spanish grid operator — and due to failures to comply with obligations by energy producing companies using conventional technologies that had been requested to control the voltage.

Currently, explained the CNMC, both synchronous production (thermal and hydraulic) and asynchronous production (solar or wind) already have voltage control obligations – since 2000 and 2014, respectively – but with the review of the regulatory framework now announced, they will be treated by the operator in a similar way and under equal circumstances.

This “homogeneous treatment” translates into similar incentives for all production technologies when they are called upon to activate units to control tension.

According to the CNMC, all units continue to be required to provide a basic service, but they will now all also be able to participate in voltage control planning, under guidelines defined by the system operator.

The review of technical standards approved on June 12 aims to modernize and provide a remuneration framework for the Spanish electricity grid's voltage control service, Spain's competition authority said.

With this change, the Spanish authorities intend to introduce dynamism into the electricity grid voltage control service and also encourage the development of more capabilities across all technologies.

The review now approved resulted from an initial proposal by the Spanish electricity system operator in June 2021 and in 2022 and 2023 “demonstration projects” were launched, which proved the ability of renewables to provide the voltage control service dynamically and with “high economic efficiency”.

The Spanish Photovoltaic Union (UNEF) welcomed the approval of these changes by the CNMC this Thursday, highlighting that renewables have had the technical capacity to contribute to controlling voltage in the electrical system “for many years”, but could not do so until now due to regulatory frameworks.

According to UNEF, the participation of renewables in voltage control will also help to control costs associated with this service, which in Spain have increased tenfold in recent years.

The association highlighted, on the other hand, in comments sent to the EFE news agency, that voltage control has a strong geographical component and, in this context, photovoltaics is “particularly well adapted” to contribute to this service.