How to Meet New Requirements After Iberian Blackout?
By Julia Tsui | August 11, 2025
More than three months have passed since the major blackout on the Iberian Peninsula. As news coverage gradually fades, we should recognize that this event has brought a new requirement to the photovoltaic power generation industry: how to make new energy more grid-friendly.
The official report attributed the main cause of the blackout to the grid’s own management and stability, and did not directly link it to new energy integration. However, with the rising solar penetration rate, such incidents highlight the potential for systemic grid fragility. For the healthy development of the industry, we should not only focus on the scale and efficiency of PV power plants but also strive to make the system more grid-friendly. To achieve this, we can improve the design of PV power plants in the following ways.
Enhancing Grid-Tied Inverter Functions
PV grid-tied inverters are critical devices connecting PV power plants to the grid, and their performance directly affects grid stability. The improvement directions include the following three points.
Providing Virtual Inertia: Traditional synchronous generators have physical inertia that can automatically dampen grid frequency fluctuations. PV inverters can simulate this inertia through advanced control algorithms (such as Virtual Synchronous Generator, VSG), responding quickly to changes in grid frequency and providing temporary power support to slow down the rate of frequency change.
Fault Ride-Through (FRT): As the number of new energy connection points increases, the short-circuit ratio (SCR) in some grid areas decreases, making the grid weak and unstable. Inverters need to improve their control algorithms to operate stably in a weak grid environment and avoid disconnecting due to oscillation or harmonic issues.
Increasing the Application of Solar Trackers
The primary function of a solar tracker is to increase power generation and smooth the power output curve. This is precisely its contribution to grid stability.
Smoothing the Power Output Curve: Solar trackers allow the PV system to generate power efficiently from sunrise to sunset, rather than peaking only at noon. This makes the PV power plant’s daily power curve smoother and more sustained, reducing the impact of a sharp increase in output in the afternoon and a rapid drop in the evening. Grid operators can adjust the output of other generating units more smoothly, making it easier to balance supply and demand.
Improving Predictability: Compared to fixed-mounted PV systems, solar trackers have a more predictable power output pattern. Through precise astronomical algorithms, we can more accurately forecast the power generation of a tracking PV power plant, thereby helping the grid dispatch center make more precise scheduling arrangements.
Advancing PV + BESS Design
Combining PV power generation with bettery energy storage systems is an effective way to address the volatility and intermittency of new energy, and its benefits are clear.
Smoothing Output Power: During peak PV generation, surplus energy can be stored in the energy storage system; in the evening, when PV generation declines or grid load is at its peak, the stored energy can be released, thereby smoothing the output curve and reducing the impact on the grid.
Providing Frequency and Peak Regulation Services: Energy storage systems can provide millisecond-level power response, quickly absorbing or releasing energy to provide precise frequency and peak regulation services for the grid, effectively coping with short-term power fluctuations.
In conclusion, the Iberian blackout not only served as a wake-up call but also as an opportunity for us to improve product functions and design concepts. Of course, upgrading the grid itself is also very important, such as smart dispatching and using AI for forecasting, but these methods are not strongly related to PV power generation, we can continue to discuss them in the future.