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Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

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Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#711

Post by avree »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #701
Karawebnetwork wrote: post #659

What caused it? The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said that the issue originated in Spain. Portugal’s REN said a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” had caused a severe imbalance in temperatures that led to the widespread shutdowns. REN said: “Due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 kV), a phenomenon known as ‘induce…

[flagged]

What? Every single major power outage on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_power_outages has taken between a day to a week to diagnose. You can read about the list of detailed theories if you click through to any of them, here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Sri_Lankan_blackouts

Even your minor power outages take 30 minutes to an hour for your local power company to determine what failed.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#712

Post by sgt101 »

emporas wrote: post #682
genewitch wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a significant part of the population might not even be able to buy food for days. And who's fault is that? Why did europe allow this? Why will the US allow this, eventually?

We will use better technology for electronic transactions. Most of banks worldwide still use COBOL for most (all?) their software infrastructure. You can do as many electronic transactions as you wish without internet or electricity, provided you have something with charged battery. Problem is the transaction cannot be verified without internet, but when internet gets restored, all transactions can be applied. That t…

> Most of banks worldwide still use COBOL for most (all?) their software infrastructure.

Nahhh - some banks have some parts of the infrastructure in COBOL. Specifically larger retail banks often have their ledgers in COBOL. Most of them want rid and are actively getting rid. Most places have had programs to root COBOL out since before 2000, but there are residual implementations remain. The ledgers are the hardest place to deal with because of the business case as well as the awkwardness. Basically there's not much of an advantage (or at least hasn't been) in modernizing so keeping the thing going has been the option. Now people want to have more flexible core systems so that they can offer more products, although not so sure that customers want this or can consume it. Still - it supports the idea of modernisation so not many people are keen to challenge.

The most common big implementations I come across are in Java.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#713

Post by bombcar »

throwup238 wrote: post #641
zymhan wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably not > A black start is the process of restoring an electric power station, a part of an electric grid or an industrial plant, to operation without relying on the external electric power transmission network to recover from a total or partial shutdown.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start

The key part of the phrase is actually "electric power station, a part of an electric grid or an industrial plant." Note how the definition doesn't include an entire grid. Only the first power plant in a black-start (like a hydroelectric dam or gas plant started by a backup generator) is truly "black started." The rest don't fit that definition because they depend on an external power source to spin up and synchroniz…

That’s not necessarily 100 true, as you could have multiple plants black start and then synchronize later.

In fact, if you’re not sure which will start first, you might go that way. They’re all disconnected from the grid at that time anyway.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#714

Post by bsder »

mike_hearn wrote: post #319

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…

>It's one reason it's a good idea to always have some cash at home.

Most places are so dependent upon electricity that they can't even take cash during a blackout. And they don't even have the mechanical machines to take a credit card imprint anymore.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#716

Post by tpmoney »

lenerdenator wrote: post #610
oilman wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another life I worked as an engineer commissioning oil rigs and I’ve seen how tricky even a small-scale black start can be. On a rig, we simulate total power loss and have to hand-crank a tiny air compressor just to start a small emergency generator, which then powers the compressors needed to fire up the big ~7MW main generators. It's a delicate chain reaction — and that's just for one isolated platform. A full g…

I remember talking to my ex's dad about his job, which involved planning refuels of a large nuclear-powered generation station in the Lower Midwest. The words "it's a miracle it works at all" routinely popped up in those conversations, which is... something you don't want to hear about any sort of power generation - especially not nuclear - but it's true. It's a system basically built to produce "common accidents". I…

> The words "it's a miracle it works at all" routinely popped up in those conversations, which is... something you don't want to hear about any sort of power generation - especially not nuclear - but it's true.

Funny thing is, those are the exact words I use when talking to people about networking. And realistically anytime I dig deep into the underlying details of any big enough system I walk away with that impression. At scale, I think any system is less “controlled and planned precision” and more “harnessed chaos with a lot of resiliency to the unpredictability of that chaos”

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#717

Post by mensetmanusman »

oceanplexian wrote: post #456
mensetmanusman wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that stores enough energy to bake cookies will always somehow be flammable.

Gravity storage of water. Not flammable, but could definitely bake cookies.

The things that convert that energy as part of the full water gravity battery unit will have flammable bits :)

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#718

Post by ars »

k7sune wrote: post #526
wongarsu wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A synchronous interconnect provides not just a source of truth but also stabilizes your grid frequency. If you have an isolated grid you have to match generation to demand to keep the grid frequency stable. If you have a 1GW interconnect that means you can mismatch generation and demand by up to a gigawatt and still be fine. I imagine that makes for a much faster startup procedure

If the isolated grids all each synced to a source of truth first (GPS?), would it be possible for them to immediately connect afterwards?

It's a bit difficult in another way: Obviously 50/60hz is not such a high speed that it's difficult to synchronize.

The harder part is this: To pump power into the grid you lead the cycle ever so slightly, as if you were trying to push the cycle to go faster. If instead you lag the phase the grid would be pumping power into you.

That lead is very very small, and probably difficult to measure and synchronize on. I would imagine that when the two grids connect everything jumps just a little as power level equalize, it probably generates a lot of torque and some heat, I would assume it's hard on the generator.

From a physics point of view, by leading the cycle you introduce a tiny voltage difference (squared), divided by the tiny resistance of the entire grid. And that's how many watts (power) you are putting into the grid.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#719

Post by isolli »

mike_hearn wrote: post #319

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…

What does synchronization mean in this context, and why is it needed?
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