Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal • Hacker News Board

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#761

Post by quickthrowman » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:22 PM UTC

scoot wrote: post #403

pjc50 wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Report on a smaller event in the UK: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/investigation-9-august... (see linked pdf) That started from a combination of a lightning strike and generator trip, but turned into a local cascade failure as lots of distributed generation noticed that the frequency was under 49Hz and disconnected itself. I suspect the Spanish situation will be similar - inability to properly contain a frequ…

Is 50Hz really that important these days – i.e. more important than maintaining power? (Honest naive question.)

Yes, maintaining frequency is the most important thing, provided you want your rotating power generation equipment not to explode.

In reality, power generation equipment will disconnect itself if the frequency is too low/high to avoid catastrophic failure.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#762

Post by timhigins » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:23 PM UTC

One guy simulated Australia's electrical grid for 3 years to show that the entire grid could run off of >98% renewable energy using the installed renewables with just a small amount of storage (e.g. 5 hours of average demand, ~10% of demand over the entire period).

To me this indicates that in many energy markets where renewables are sufficiently built out, the only factor for why we aren't using them more is the storage capacity and grid infrastructure to handle their variability -- and instead just running stable but dirty energy systems.

There are a lot of cool mechanical grid systems like gravity batteries (e.g. weights on a pulley system) [2] or compressed or liquid air storage systems [3] which provide cheaper storage at higher capacities and durations than electric batteries

1. https://reneweconomy.com.au/a-near-100-per-cent-renewable-gr... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trA5s2iGj2A 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjERw-Ol-_s

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#763

Post by m000 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

red_admiral wrote: post #486

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…

Update: BBC news says something something hot weather, EU council says it doesn't look like a cyber attack.

Might as well mean that they suspect the culprit, but they're not going to do anything anyway for this specific culprit, so let's all pretend it was an accident. Why make yourself look like a fool?

They already became a laughing stock once for promising the "strongest possible response" for the Nord Stream 2 sabotage [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-sees-sabotage-nor...

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#764

Post by marai2 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:27 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #653

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…

> hand-crank a tiny air compressor Is that what Dr. Sattler is doing in this scene from Jurassic Park ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoW4vXnkhJw

How did you remember this scene?!

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#765

Post by brewdad » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:28 PM UTC

citrin_ru wrote: post #669

the_duke wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to highlight this: the last significant power outage in Western/middle Europe was 2003. [1] That's 20 years without any significant problems in the grid, apart from small localized outages. It's not hard to start taking things for granted if it works perfectly for 20 years. Many people don't even have cash anymore, either in their wallet or at home. In case of a longer power outage a significant part of the popu…

> Many people don't even have cash anymore, either in their wallet or at home. Even if you have cash many shops would not sell anything in case of a mass outage because registers are just clients which depend on a cloud to register a transaction. Not reliable but cheap when it works.

In a multi-day event like we are talking about here, couldn't a shop owner revert to a paper ledger? I mean, it would suck and transactions would take much longer but if the alternative is people starving or having your inventory looted by a desperate mob, a nineteenth century solution seems preferable.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#766

Post by worldsayshi » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

timhigins wrote: post #762

One guy simulated Australia's electrical grid for 3 years to show that the entire grid could run off of >98% renewable energy using the installed renewables with just a small amount of storage (e.g. 5 hours of average demand, ~10% of demand over the entire period). To me this indicates that in many energy markets where renewables are sufficiently built out, the only factor for why we aren't using them more is the sto…

It makes intuitive sense to me that a small amount of storage would make a big difference. Outside of peak use there has to be a huge amount of potential effect that never gets generated because lack of demand at that time.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#767

Post by lr1970 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:29 PM UTC

oilman wrote: post #475

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…

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…

bringing islands together requires one to synchronize both -- frequency and phase. It is super difficult for large generators and transmission lines. transient heat dissipation can be a real bummer.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#768

Post by seb1204 » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:35 PM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #624

red_admiral wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Update: BBC news says something something hot weather, EU council says it doesn't look like a cyber attack.

Hot weather? Huh? It's spring

Spring is nowadays the best time for the grid and renewables. Low consumption as heating period is coming to and end, air conditioning is not required yet and the sun can be strong already providing lost if solar power output. I can imagine with a grid and a huge growth of solar generation that there are a myriad tripping stones that can upset the balance.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#769

Post by userbinator » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:35 PM UTC

rini17 wrote: post #664

the_duke wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to highlight this: the last significant power outage in Western/middle Europe was 2003. [1] That's 20 years without any significant problems in the grid, apart from small localized outages. It's not hard to start taking things for granted if it works perfectly for 20 years. Many people don't even have cash anymore, either in their wallet or at home. In case of a longer power outage a significant part of the popu…

There are now ubiquitous wireless POS terminals for card payments that can be recharged from emergency sources of electricity(like cars). As long as the mobile internet works it's possible. Of course this only little alleviates the disruption.

As long as the mobile internet works it's possible.

If we're talking about a situation where the grid goes down, the mobile internet is most definitely not working.

Re: Widespread power outage in Spain and Portugal

#770

Post by quickthrowman » Mon, Apr 28, 2025, 10:36 PM UTC

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.

There are plenty of places that still have district heating and cooling.