Spain operated for a whole day on renewable only power this week

I don't what that means.

Plainly means that you and 99% of the adult population are not qualified to design renewable power circuits. Quit voting for stuff you do not understand.

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I don't what that means.

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Most people don't. But yet, many of them vote to support 'green' initiatives, and don't understand the consequences.

'Spinning reserve' - pretty sure (I'm not cheating and looking it up, just going from some basic knowledge I have of power generation) is refers to actual steam (fossil and/or nukes) or hydro turbine power generators. They spin, and are massive, heavy machines, and when suddenly loaded, their inertia carries them through. Loads on the power grid can change very fast, and that inertia helps stabilize the grid. Exactly like a flywheel in a car.

Solar and wind don't have any 'inertia', nothing 'spins'. They need help (like big batteries), or from fossil/nuke/hydro turbines.

I don't think we have a root cause for the Spain outage yet, and renewables may or may not have played a part. But it isn't all rainbows and unicorns when solar/wind make up 30% of the grid power. You need those other sources, and it will be a problem w/o them.


edit: Just to prove I wasn't cheating, I went and looked it up, and I was off a bit. It refers more to having all those 'spinning' turbines on reserve, ready to fill in for renewables. My take was more on short-term inertia, but still correct in terms of providing stability to the grid. Intermittent renewables need help.