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Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

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Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#151
post #118
post #110

I saw it on twitter and had to go to BBC to make sure this isn't some joke or hoax. 2025 and we have National level power cuts? I know it may be rare but I think some day we really need to move or mandate every single flat / home / apartment / living places to have a 12 - 24 hours backup battery included. Something that has 10K+ Cycles, durable and non-flammable. Not only does it make sure our modern lives without su…

Sounds like an incredibly expensive solution to a problem that could be tackled more efficiently at a larger scale.

I’ve read discussions about preparing for a strong solar flare basically simply involves having on hand spare equipment stored unconnected and that then would also immediately improve repairs and maintenance for regular issues. I don’t know the details but I believe the US is looking at providing funding to the utilities companies to acquire the duplicate extra equipment.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandate a battery backup. Instead of requiring the power suppliers to build and maintain reliable energy. That is just shifting someone else's mistake into being my responsibility.

“How to waste money and valuable resources” in a nutshell. Like it or not but we are a species of social animals, you cannot live without relying on others. That's just delusional.

There are degrees of dependence on others, you make it sound as if it's a binary choice.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#153
post #142

Europe still has many megawatts of solar with inverters that disconnect when detecting any grid disruption. This is the absolute worst thing to do when there is a shortage of power - you immediately make the shortage worse and more grid disconnects. The real fix is a grid with second by second pricing based on system frequency, and every individual user allowed to set a daily 'spend cap' of euros/dollars, letting the…

This sounds more like a dystopian novel, where only the wealthy can afford stable power and everyone else is left without.

The current system is that everyone pays equally for X amount of stability, and for some people they don't get as much stability as they desire (eg. These people in Spain), whilst others pay more money and than they'd like when they would be fine with 5 minutes outages once a year.

That made sense before technology became available for everyone to make their own choice - but that is no longer the case.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#154
post #111
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-> Power outage -> Wild guess that Russia has been doing it, 0 proof or even hint -> "This is a war of agression, we should respond" Are you suggesting to attack Russia, based on absolute thin air?

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Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#155

Europe still has many megawatts of solar with inverters that disconnect when detecting any grid disruption. This is the absolute worst thing to do when there is a shortage of power - you immediately make the shortage worse and more grid disconnects. The real fix is a grid with second by second pricing based on system frequency, and every individual user allowed to set a daily 'spend cap' of euros/dollars, letting the…

Texas had a pretty free market, with many users on a floating price, didn't work that well either a few years ago when their grid went dawn.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#156
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the time, the grid is reliable. How much investment do we actually want to prevent a few hours of downtime once in a blue moon? And even if we do want to invest in large amount of grid storage (which we would need to anyway, if we want to transition to renewables), I'm not sure pushing this down to the individual house is sensible. Its a great way to limit economies of scale and make maintenance/inspection ha…

> I'm not sure pushing this down to the individual house is sensible. why not? Having distributed buffers ought to make the system more resilient in most cases wont it? Not to mention that these home level batteries can be used to smooth out power usage and lower peak loads. In fact, having an EV car act as this same battery would be an even more efficient use of resources.

because installing and monitoring 1 million small batteries is vastly more work than 100 huge batteries.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#158
post #116

Apparently this spans more countries? Very strange. Possibly a cyberattack or sabotage? Growing up in Spain I've never experienced anything like this (not there at the moment, but friends have told me over WhatsApp).

Continental Europe Synchronous Area [1]

The whole Europe power grid are somewhat interconnected I wont be surprise if this knock on effect start knocking out other surrounding countries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“How to waste money and valuable resources” in a nutshell. Like it or not but we are a species of social animals, you cannot live without relying on others. That's just delusional.

There are degrees of dependence on others, you make it sound as if it's a binary choice.

I don't, the comment I'm replying to does.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#160
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like an incredibly expensive solution to a problem that could be tackled more efficiently at a larger scale.

I’ve read discussions about preparing for a strong solar flare basically simply involves having on hand spare equipment stored unconnected and that then would also immediately improve repairs and maintenance for regular issues. I don’t know the details but I believe the US is looking at providing funding to the utilities companies to acquire the duplicate extra equipment.

Rich countries should have a strategic transformer stockpile since they have a long lead time and should last forever in storage.
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