The annual report of the Chilean National Electric Coordinator included 10 minutes of analysis of February’s apagón, which concluded with this bland (translated and misquote-corrected) statement by then-coordinator, Ernesto Huber:
"everything indicates that in the not-too-distant future, generation will be 100% renewable, and to achieve this state, we must be certain that situations like this will not be repeated in the future, since it ultimately puts the security and reliability of the system at risk.
But worldwide experience, notably during Spain’s recent blackout indicates that 100% renewables is an unrealistic goal. The system inertia that stabilizes a national power grid requires a certain amount of conventional, ie turbine-based generation. The current rule-of-thumb indicates a 50-50 conventional Vs renewables mix is required to maintain the all-important frequency stability of the power generation network.
For those interested, this article exhaustively analyses the probable cause of the Spanish Apagón with conclusions that should be applied to the Chilean situation, and which contradict Ernesto Huber’s optimistic, and imho unrealistic statement:
“While we may not know the true cause of the Iberian blackout for some time, we have a reasonable idea about why it was so widespread. Full system-wide outages are rare, as are the black starts that follow, but with the growing reliance on inverter-based renewables, electricity grids are becoming less stable. No doubt system operators around the world will be reviewing their approach to maintaining inertia in the aftermath of this incident.”
Except in Chile, that is.