Having such interdependent grids seems like a market or political problem not a physics problem to me.
Interdependent grids are usually good: they allow you to average out the effect of a single power station failure over a much larger area, and to amortize prices from a wider area of suppliers.
Sure but if you can't cut off failing parts in a sane way it seems like a liability.
Like, what can you do, use some 1000 of MW to melt iron rods or something to give the power stations time to slow down? Free wheels?
This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…
The frequency aspect of a black start is presumably a bit easier in Europe because there's an interconnected synchronous grid so they can bootstrap it from France essentially.
It's far more problematic for the UK because all the interconnects are DC.
I'm going with: never attribute to malice what can be explained by ... an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid. I would want very strong evidence before I believe this is an attack. There is precedent for major power outages, a huge majority of which are not malicious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages I remember the day when the Swiss railway power networ…
I'm going with: never attribute to malice what can be explained by ... an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid. I would want very strong evidence before I believe this is an attack. There is precedent for major power outages, a huge majority of which are not malicious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages I remember the day when the Swiss railway power networ…
I hope somebody building and selling microgrids and energy storage systems is ready to take advantage of this situation. Mass deployment of batteries at the grid edge is a great idea for a lot of reasons, but none more immediately compelling than "the power won't go out if the grid goes down."
It should be mandatory for critical infrastructure like ATMs to have 24hr batteries installed. And some sort of power backup to maintain internet access as well - even if it's just a matter of everyone being allocated a small amount of starlink data or public wifi.
These things have relatively small costs, but make the system much more resilient.
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…
Something that stores enough energy to bake cookies will always somehow be flammable.
Yes, something similar happened in the UK a while back. Full info here: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2020/01/9_... Key points that started it were (you can see the chain of events in the doc): 2.4.1. At 16:52:33 on Friday 9 August 2019, a lightning strike caused a fault on the Eaton Socon – Wymondley 400kV line. This is not unusual and was rectified within 80 milliseconds (ms) 2.4.2. The fault af…
Curious question for someone familiar with power at grid-scale -- How granular is load shedding? And how is this measured / tracked? In my head, I'm thinking of generators/plants, connected by some number of lines, to some amount of load, where there are limited disconnection points on the lines. So how do grid operators know what amount of load will be cut if they disconnect point A123 (and the demand behind it) vs…
I can speak for the GB case. Low Frequency Demand Disconnection (LFDD) occurs automatically and in stages when the frequency drops until it stabilises. The substations or feeders that are tripped off are not currently determined by real-time metering - instead they are pre-allocated based on their typical demand. This means that the system operator does not really know how much demand will be disconnected at any given time. If it's sunny, you could easily trip off a lot of solar generation connected on the low voltage network, causing the frequency to drop further. It is far from optimal!
This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…
The frequency aspect of a black start is presumably a bit easier in Europe because there's an interconnected synchronous grid so they can bootstrap it from France essentially. It's far more problematic for the UK because all the interconnects are DC.
I was recently told by an electrical engineering lecturer that the black start plan here in Ireland is to use the DC interconnectors with the UK to provide startup power to a synchronous generator.
This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…
cash is all well and good but if the tills dont work most stores wont be able to serve you. corner shops, vape shops and barbers will be ok though
This sounds big enough to require a black start. Unfortunately, those are slow and difficult. If an entire nation trips offline then every generator station disconnects itself from the grid and the grid itself snaps apart into islands. To bring it back you have to disconnect consumer loads and then re-energize a small set of plants that have dedicated black start capability. Thermal plants require energy to start up…
Practical Engineering did a really great video a few years ago on why black starts are hard, complete with a tabletop demo about the physics of synchronizing large spinning generators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOSnQM1Zu4w