I’m a power engineer. The Iberian grid collapse makes me very afraid for Britain - Capell Aris

The Iberian blackout was complete within a few seconds.

• Last Monday, the Iberian grid suffered a disturbance in the south-west at 12:33. 
• In 3.5 seconds this worsened and the interconnection to France disconnected. 
• All renewable generation then went off-line...

The Iberian blackout was complete within a few seconds.

At the time the grid was producing 28.4 GW of power, of which 79 per cent was solar and wind. 

This was a problematic situation as solar and wind plants have another, not widely known, downside – one quite apart from their intermittency and expense.

• This is the fact that they do not supply any inertia to the grid...