Just as a heads up, Spain and Portugal’s electrical power net has collapsed shutting down almost everything. I am on the island of Mallorca which (duh) has an independent grid. Captain, can you post whether and when you are up?
It is not a good sign, whether in Texas or New York or Europe when grid management is not up to critical tasks.
Although the cause of the massive power outage in Spain and Portugal is not yet clear, there are “no indications” of a cyberattack, said Antonio Costa, president of the European Council.
Translation: We have no clue what caused it but we DO KNOW it was NOT a cyber attack.
Reportedly in Spain power now comes gradually back online. Fwiw, the independent regions seemed to have suffered a lot less.
A “rare atmospheric phenomenon” is being blamed. I’m not an electrical engineer, so I don’t understand what an “induced atmospheric vibration” is, or how temperature variations can cause a blackout. There might be an imprecise translation from the Spanish (or Portuguese).
The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns.
REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induced atmospheric vibration’. These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.”
NYT article on the outage. Gift link:
It appears they still don’t have a good explanation as to why the power grid collapsed in Spain and Portugal on Monday.
A few news articles…
“We must not rush to (conclusions) and (commit) errors through haste,” Sanchez said on Tuesday. “We will find out what happened in those five seconds.”
REE said it had identified two incidents of power generation loss, probably from solar plants, in Spain’s southwest that caused instability in the electric system and led to a breakdown of its interconnection with France.
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I never understood the “induced atmospheric vibrations” or “extreme temperature variations” explanations they were using yesterday. They seem to be backing down from that wording now.
From the AP:
Eduardo Prieto, director of services for system operations at Spain’s electricity operator, noted two steep, back-to-back “disconnection events” before Monday’s blackout. He told journalists that more investigation was needed.
Spain’s meteorological agency, AEMET, said it hadn’t detected any “unusual meteorological or atmospheric phenomena,” and no sudden temperature fluctuations were recorded at its weather stations.
Also:
Investment bank RBC said the economic cost of the blackout could range between 2.25 billion and 4.5 billion euros, blaming the Spanish government for being too complacent about infrastructure in a system dependent on solar power with little battery storage.
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Apparently, three people might have died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a running generator.
_ Pete
Yeah, extreme temperature variations doesn’t fit very well with a pleasant spring day.
DB2
It sounds like someone was motivated to think up some BS explanation, but then I‘m not an expert.
Today, a Russian hacker group has claimed authorship.
May be we‘ll get something more credible in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, the memes are spreading…
The Repsol oil company’s refinery in Cartagena, one of Europe’s largest diesel producers, had to shut down a few weeks ago due to power problems. The blackout occurred at 12:32 p.m., but the system began to fail at 11:30 a.m. With the sun shining, operators began to notice fluctuations in the grid with photovoltaic production at full blast. This excess sunlight caused the gas-fired combined cycle plants to reduce their production to make way for photovoltaic power.
In that sense, nuclear power didn’t enter the market to avoid losing money, and there was no need to rely on hydroelectric plants to avoid water loss. Without firmness technologies, the voltage became more fluctuating and vulnerable than ever. And then the incident happened. The 5-second voltage drop is an eternity in the electrical system and tripped the “system differentials,” shutting down everything at once: the photovoltaic, the cycles, the four remaining nuclear plants.
The industry insists we were lucky because the transformers didn’t burn out, which would have caused a blackout lasting more than 24 hours. ” Red Eléctrica miscalculated the risks and allowed the closure of three nuclear power plants that would have provided stability (voltage) to the system,” the industry claims.
DB2
