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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

#371

Post by arccy »

everfrustrated wrote: post #361
ksec wrote: 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…

Spot a European at a hundred paces by their reflex that anything happens the _government_ must do something. If electricity is that important to you, buy your _own_ resilience. Tesla powerwalls and non-tesla equivalents have been available for ages.

unlike americans, people in europe don't just huddle in their own fortresses afraid to even take a step outside without riding in tanks.

power cuts affect more than just your home.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#372

Post by piva00 »

anonylizard wrote: post #368
davedx wrote: post #242

[flagged]

[flagged]

They could definitely just post updates on their website, the infrastructure is there, running, if they want to inform people on Twitter it's just a bonus to message it through the network that is Twitter.

But important/urgent updates only via Twitter is definitely a huge no-no.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#373

Post by Niksko »

everfrustrated wrote: post #361
ksec wrote: 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…

Spot a European at a hundred paces by their reflex that anything happens the _government_ must do something. If electricity is that important to you, buy your _own_ resilience. Tesla powerwalls and non-tesla equivalents have been available for ages.

Spot an American at a hundred paces proposing that you either have the money to buy batteries yourself, or else you should just eat it and suffer

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#374

Post by rich_sasha »

Grids are tricky, because the electric socket is kind of a leaky abstraction for heavy plant machinery in turbines of thermal plants, load balancing, synchronisation, and a gazillion other things I really don't understand.

Is a grid built on renewables and batteries somehow more resilient? Solid state things tend to be less fiddly, hence my question.

I remember reading at one point in the past that renewables were actually worse for the grid due to less predictable power generation or something, but that was a long time ago, certainly pre-battery storage.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#375

Post by anonylizard »

piva00 wrote: post #372
anonylizard wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

They could definitely just post updates on their website, the infrastructure is there, running, if they want to inform people on Twitter it's just a bonus to message it through the network that is Twitter. But important/urgent updates only via Twitter is definitely a huge no-no.

[flagged]

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#376

Post by mr_mitm »

everfrustrated wrote: post #361
ksec wrote: 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…

Spot a European at a hundred paces by their reflex that anything happens the _government_ must do something. If electricity is that important to you, buy your _own_ resilience. Tesla powerwalls and non-tesla equivalents have been available for ages.

A Tesla powerwall won't help with trains and traffic lights. Those are important to me as well.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#378

Post by leomca »

carlos-menezes wrote: post #147
EZ-E wrote: post #14

Looking forward to the postmortem

Who would be responsible for writing the postmortem? Are they required to?

I think it's ENTSO-E, here's their most recent report into an incident on 21 June 2024: https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/system-operations-reports...

For that incident, an expert panel was set up in July, the interim report was published in November, and the final report in Feburary 2025: so it'll take a few months.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#379

Post by input_sh »

nottorp wrote: post #55

4 years ago this almost happened: https://gridradar.net/en/blog/post/underfrequency_january_20... https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/day-europes-power-grid-almost... https://www.acer.europa.eu/news/continental-europe-electrici... I remember it because power went out in at least 1/3 of Romania back then.

A similar thing happened last June, with Albania, Bosnia, Montenegro, and most of the Croatian coastline losing power simultaneously.

Definitely felt surreal to first lose power to the degree that even traffic lights were no longer working, and then to hear it's also happening across the region just before mobile networks also went offline.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/power-blackout-hits-mon...

~90 page report: https://eepublicdownloads.blob.core.windows.net/public-cdn-c... (beware: PDF)

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#380

Post by Rygian »

jslakro wrote: post #180

A fire in the south-west of France, which damaged a high-voltage power line has also been identified as a possible cause: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/28/spain-portugal...

A power outage in 2021 was ultimately traced to a firefighting hydroplane that damaged a high-voltage transmission line in southern France.

The similarity between that event and this early-on report is striking.

[es language]: https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/espana/2021/07/24/aver...

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