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Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

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Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#611

Post by Scoundreller »

Calwestjobs wrote: post #163
soyyo wrote: post #56

I am currently in my work office in Madrid, main building has electricity so I guess they have some backup generators, the kitchen however is out of service. According to local newspapers metro network, airport and traffic lights are all down

most office buildings have gas(methane) generator backup.

Dunno about Spain/portugal, but in North America they’re usually just for elevators/alarms, partial hallway lighting & maybe water pumps (for firefighting).

Maybe a tech company with servers will pay extra for full backup, but it’s not typical.

Without fail, during every grid outage, some will fail to start and there will be elevator rescue calls throughout the city.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#613

Post by fulafel »

jvanderbot wrote: post #127
elric wrote: 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.

Didn't we used to pump steam around for heating and now homes have individual furnaces? If the cost for this were about the cost of a furnace I don't see why this wouldn't be viable. I bought a generator for just this situation.

First-gen district heating was steam, then moved to hot water. It didn't go away [1] but there's regional differences. In cold climates there are oil based simpler backup plants that can cover for the normal CHP[2] and elctric+heat pump based generation. It's a good way to buffer and use cheap energy in periods of cheap electricty from eg high wind production[3].

[1] https://www.wedistrict.eu/interactive-map-share-of-district-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogeneration

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#614

Post by skrebbel »

hirako2000 wrote: post #476
Ayesh wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A monkey took out the whole grid in Sri Lanka this year https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/13/asia/sri-lanka-power-outa...

If that's all it took to turn Srilanka off.Even if that country lags behind western Europe, what would it take for a few humans who intentionally cut off power. Trying to stay on the facts, this incident is likely accidental but some people even the very workers at energy companies could send a message for, I don't know. A pay raise?

Isn't it amazing? In movies, evil terrorists take out the grid all the time (or threaten to), to terrible consequences, and they need genius hackers to do so. In reality, it's easy peasy and still, people hardly ever do it (and nobody (ish) dies if they do). Humans are good!

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#615

Post by rawgabbit »

red_admiral wrote: post #253

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…

Having lived through the Texas electricity fiasco in 2021, I would blame cost cutting, the reckless drive for “efficiency”, and maximizing shareholder value.

In Texas, the electric providers cut staff and maintenance to maximize shareholder value. They will not have redundant systems and redundant plants out of the goodness of their hearts. The Texas marketplace actually allowed them in the odd event of an outage to charge astronomical spot prices thinking this will incentivize them to have redundant systems. This was a foolish fantasy.

Now in Texas, discussion of how to cost share redundancy have taken place. But no one wants to pay for it. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/01/texas-power-market-p...

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#616

Post by bonzini »

alickz wrote: post #469
red_admiral wrote: post #253

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…

>an incredibly complex system that can fall over even if no-one's being stupid I only have a layman's understanding of power grids, but I thought they were incredibly hardened, with backups and contingencies in depth Are the grids at this scale really this brittle? Would there be a death toll from this? I also wouldn't blame malice without corroborating evidence

Hardening focuses first on not damaging equipment and second on providing energy. If things go wrong quickly enough you don't have time to react, because after a power plant disconnects you get sudden bumps in load that can trigger a chain failure near the original point. The last time it happened in Europe was in 2003, which isn't too shoddy.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#617

Post by ksenzee »

scoot wrote: post #406
jcranmer wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't tree falling in Ohio, that was overloaded line sagged and shorted into a tree, compounded with several other factors that contributed to the grid instability and the inability of the grid operator to realize how unstable the grid was.

"Same difference" to use an Irish turn of phrase. If a short to ground takes out power to an extensive area does it mater what touched what?

Is “same difference” more common in Ireland than in Britain? It’s certainly common in the US and seems to have originated there: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/277142/etymology...

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#618

Post by MisterTea »

yannvon wrote: post #577

I experienced it first hand in Madrid. This was much scarier than I would have imagined. News travelled extremely slow: phone coverage was just barely enough to receive a couple text messages every 15 minutes or so. News spread on the street, I even saw a group of 20 people hunched around someone owning a hand-held radio in the streets. Just before power was restored, things started to get worse, as the phone coverag…

When the northeast blackout hit in 2003 in NYC I dont remember any panic. We still had house phones and they still worked in the blackout thanks to telcos being legally obligated to give a shit about reliability.

I stopped by a friends house and we then went on a walk. Some stores were open and cash was accepted. We hung out later that night and had a few beers. The sky was amazing as there was next to no light pollution. Next day was totally in the dark as well and again, no panic. More beers were enjoyed.

The choice to move to electronic everything without having to give a shit about reliability is a failure of modern government. Move fast and break society for a dollar.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#619

Post by exe34 »

Xelbair wrote: post #581
roughly wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is the turkey’s dilemma - life on a farm is a lot better than life in the wild for 51 out of the 52 weeks of the year. Most of our modern economy and systems are built to reduce redundancy and buffers - ever since the era of “just in time” manufacturing, we’ve done our best to strip out any “fat” from our systems to reduce costs. Consequently, any time we face anything but the most idealized conditions, th…

"Just in time" is a phrase I hate with vehement passion. You aren't optimizing the system, you're reducing safety marigns - and consequences are usually similar to Challanger. This is a solution that teenager put in management position would think of(along with hire more people as solution to inefficient processes), not a paid professional. Systems like electric grid, internal water management (anti-flood) shouldn't…

> You aren't optimizing the system

Of course not, they're optimising shareholder profit.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#620

Post by closewith »

scoot wrote: post #406
jcranmer wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't tree falling in Ohio, that was overloaded line sagged and shorted into a tree, compounded with several other factors that contributed to the grid instability and the inability of the grid operator to realize how unstable the grid was.

"Same difference" to use an Irish turn of phrase. If a short to ground takes out power to an extensive area does it mater what touched what?

Definitely not an Irish turn of phrase. An unfortunate import.
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