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Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

bbc.com

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Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#201

Post by ajsnigrutin »

londons_explore wrote: post #130

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…

Oh god.

Let's skip the technical problems in your theory and focus on the social.

People need power to survive. You know, food, hot water, light, work, internet, mobile phones, entertainment, etc. This requires stability, not second by second pricing.

When you put a chicken in an oven, you want to cook that chicken and eat it, feed your family. Electricity price rising in the next few minutes would mean that you either have to risk disease (chicken staying in the dangerous temperatures until the electricity price drops) or being hungry and throwing food away. This is not how you want society to function.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#202

Post by michaelscott »

lpapez wrote: post #189
pmlnr wrote: post #167

> "I currently don't have any internet service and just €15 in my wallet - I can't withdraw any money from the ATM," she added. from: https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal... This is literally the whistleblowers about cashless society have been warning everyone about for well over a decade now.

Cash is not really relevant to this particular discussion. When the power is out one cannot pay with cash either - because the cash register is offline.

Store owners just make out paper receipts in this case, like businesses used to do back in the day

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#205

Post by kortilla »

mschuster91 wrote: post #183
pmlnr wrote: post #167

> "I currently don't have any internet service and just €15 in my wallet - I can't withdraw any money from the ATM," she added. from: https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal... This is literally the whistleblowers about cashless society have been warning everyone about for well over a decade now.

> This is literally the whistleblowers about cashless society have been warning everyone about for well over a decade now. Indeed but it stands to reason that this outage will last maybe a few hours until the grid has recovered. A nationwide full blackout is a scenario that's on a "once a quarter century" level, and the last one in 2006 was resolved after two hours. It's Europe, not the US - our grids operate on much…

> our grids operate on much, much stricter requirements and audits on resiliency,

None of that changes the difficulty of a black start. If there is a full outage, it will take a while to get going.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#207

Post by bradly »

lpapez wrote: post #189
pmlnr wrote: post #167

> "I currently don't have any internet service and just €15 in my wallet - I can't withdraw any money from the ATM," she added. from: https://news.sky.com/story/large-parts-of-spain-and-portugal... This is literally the whistleblowers about cashless society have been warning everyone about for well over a decade now.

Cash is not really relevant to this particular discussion. When the power is out one cannot pay with cash either - because the cash register is offline.

The gas station I worked at used a paper bag when offline. Good, not great.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#208

Post by doix »

0xTJ wrote: post #142
londons_explore wrote: post #130

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.

That is basically what happens in South Africa today. There are rolling blackouts and rich people with backup generators and batteries are unaffected. It's gotten to the point where richer cities (like Capetown) have their own power sources to mitigate the problem.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#210

Post by hoseyor »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #115
benob wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Parts of France also appear to be affected, according to Spanish media reports, which said Seville, Barcelona and Valencia were hit by the outage. The wording in the article makes it look like Seville, Barcelona and Valencia are in France.

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