[robocat]

Individual generators monitor Voltage, Frequency, and reactive power (≈ how much current is out of phase with voltage) to make decisions about injecting more or less power into the network. This is just historically how they've always been doing it.

Due to interactions between different generators, there can be instabilities causing voltage or frequency or reactive power to deviate outside of spec. A simple example might be two generators where one surges while the other drops back, then vice versa. The measurement (by the network operator) of these effects is poor for Spain - shown by the simple example that they have large oscillations that they couldn't explain.

There's path dependent healing and correction of problems by different generators, which overall leads to network stability. However the network operator here is not actually resolving cause and effect, and does not have the insight to manage their stability properly.

In this case you can see them trying a few things to inject changes that they hope will bring stability - e.g. tying many connections hoping that adding generators together into one network will resolve to a stable outcome.

Are there countries that have a better design for their electricity network control systems?

Disclaimer: I don't design electricity networks nor electricity markets. And the above is ignoring loads (loads are mostly less problematic for control than generation).

[scrlk]

I suppose other system operators might have better a state estimator and wide area monitoring system. But real-time system operation is universally an engineer sitting behind a desk, looking at their screen, and trying to make the best decision with whatever data they have.

The actions that were taken did not strike me as out of the ordinary.