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Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

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Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#81

Post by tomatotomato37 »

pmlnr wrote: post #54

Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating... I was saying this won't be nice for a long time. Example: my house, a 1954 built semi-detached - the official average unit in England - has a single phase 100A main cutout. Hob 32A, 2x sockets circuits 2x16A, 2x light circuits 2x6A, oven 16A. That's already 92A at total theoretical capacity. If I was to add FIR panels, that's bare minimum +32A, plus water…

I live in a tropical climate so I'm completely clueless on heating systems but has municipal steam heating been completely abandoned? It seems more efficient than both individual gas or electric heaters once you take conversion loses into account

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#82

Post by avianlyric »

johncessna wrote: post #33
cjdell wrote: post #29

Am I naive in assuming that many grid stability issues could be fixed by mandating all electric heaters automatically cut off at, say below 49.9Hz? It is my understanding that modern home EV chargers have the capability to do this to some extent, but I'm not sure if it's actually utilised?

It seems like a better solution would be batteries and/or the allowance of dirtier power generation (in emergencies). I can't even wrap my head around the regulatory nightmare of shutting off everyone's heat at night in January.

It’s all about speed. A power grid must be perfectly balanced at all times, there no natural storage in a power grid.

If large power supplier disconnects without warning, that impact propagates at the speed of light. Other suppliers will respond by reducing their frequencies to keep voltage up, this is caused by generators physically spinning slower and converting their physical momentum into electrical energy. As you can imagine the momentum of a generator is large, but the stored energy is small compared to the rate of consumption.

So you need systems that can respond within milliseconds to restore some stability. Batteries are actually one of the few technologies that can do that, but mostly your looking at shedding load. Disconnecting a consumer can happen in milliseconds, after all you just need to flip a switch (admittedly they’re very large switches).

Once you shed load, then you have the time you need to spin up you “dirty” power supplies. But even the fastest response suppliers take minutes (think Hydro), not milliseconds to respond. So they’re not viable for dealing with the initial shock to the grid.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#83

Post by GekkePrutser »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #27
jaywalk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that, too. But I'm at a loss trying to think of how that much load could be added so suddenly.

Maybe somebody connected woodpecker [1] to the European grid? But I guess even that does not need enough power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar

I know your joking but it's been dead for more than 30 years :) Only the antenna remains (and the only one still standing was the receiver, not the transmitter).

Though people have hooked up amateur radio equipment to it AFAIK.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#84

Post by littlestymaar »

tosh wrote: post #3

> If I haven't miscalculated, then this waste means the #Netzfrequenz that there was a sudden drop in power of over 4.5GW. That would be a lot more than a power plant. So junction could get there. https://twitter.com/netz_frequenz/status/1347537615097049101...

CNPE Graveline[1] (a French Nuclear powerplant) Cattenom, and Paluel are >5GW, so it could actually come from a single plant (not that I think this is the case, this is just for the sake of argument)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Stati...

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

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

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#86

Post by sorenjan »

pmlnr wrote: post #54

Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating... I was saying this won't be nice for a long time. Example: my house, a 1954 built semi-detached - the official average unit in England - has a single phase 100A main cutout. Hob 32A, 2x sockets circuits 2x16A, 2x light circuits 2x6A, oven 16A. That's already 92A at total theoretical capacity. If I was to add FIR panels, that's bare minimum +32A, plus water…

That's strange, here in Sweden electric heating is seen as old and wasteful. In cities most use district heating, others use heat pumps or some kind of bio fuel. At least for new houses, but it's also common as a retrofit.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#87

Post by tremon »

fulafel wrote: post #52

There's no single "Europe" grid.

All of Europe's national grids are interconnected, and most of them import or export more than 10% of their power budget (some both, depending on the time of day). A large power fluctuation/blackout in one country can easily spread to neighbouring countries, the junctions can't absorb the sudden shift in network load.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#88

Post by posix_me_less »

OnACoffeeBreak wrote: post #7
alexgmcm wrote: post #2

As someone who doesn't speak German and has only a cursory understanding of the electrical grid - how significant is this?

In general, slowing frequency is an indicator of a heavily loaded grid. I don't have an appreciation how much the frequency can practically be off the nominal 50 Hz (in Europe) before it indicates grid failure.

Under 49Hz they start disconnecting consumers. If that does not stabilize the dropping, under 47.5 Hz they disconnect the power plants and the network fails. [1]

[1] https://www.netzfrequenzmessung.de/abschaltung.htm

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#89

Post by stinos »

danielovichdk wrote: post #50

I like these stories because they make me remember that things like electricity and water are not free. Water and electricity should be a lot more expensive, then people would start to understand that having an Electric car, 10+ devices in the household, a washer, a drier, lights, tvs and all that shit is expensive for the lot. But people don't really care, as long as our things work and we are not bothered by anyone…

Water and electricity should be a lot more expensive, then people would start to understand

In combination with educating people not to waste these sources, perhaps. Even then, just a fixed rate might not actually do it: don't recall the exact numbers but just like some small percentage of the entire population earns most, there's also a certain percentage who spend (or waste, depending on how you look at it) more of these sources and because they have the money anyway, making things more expensive will not hit them at all. Instead the lower end of society will take a hit. Which is of course part of the idea, but for some of them that might actually be the extra costs leading to not being able to pay all bills anymore or worse. tldr; I'm not entirely convinced yet, but it seems that to solve problems like this a system where those who use most pay extra (think: you wanna fille your huge pool with drinking water? you'll pay)

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#90

Post by raverbashing »

littlestymaar wrote: post #48
lispm wrote: post #30

France seems to have problems generating enough electricity for the current winter demand. https://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/electricite-pour-eviter-des-co... https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/People-in-France... Britain, too: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/britains-national-grid-issues-warn... German press reports about cold temperature and of not enough nuclear power online in France. Reason: maintenance backlogs…

While true, it's very unlikely to be the reason for what we're seeing here (a sharp drop at 14:05), it's most likely related to a plant failure (likely a nuclear / hydro plant) somewhere in Europe. Edit: according to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25685833 it means that there's more than 4GW went missing, which rules out a hydro plant failure and make nuclear plant failure unlikely (only three plants, all of th…

The weirder part to me is that small peak right before it started going down. Maybe some overreaction by the grid (or a plant failure as speculated)?
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