Power outage in Spain, Portugal and other countries of southern Europe

[Ben]

Are we still heading for net zero and ready to abandon fossil fuels? This is how the grid was restarted in Spain.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1917188610228715701

Update: A day after the major blackout that hit Spain and Portugal, the Spanish TSO REE has confirmed that demand has been completely restored. While the root cause of the outage is still unknown, we can already analyze how the grid restoration unfolded — and what it tells us about system resilience.

How do you restart a power system after a total blackout?
This is known as a black start, and it must be carried out in carefully managed stages to keep grid frequency within safe limits. In the case of Spain, the following resources were used to get the grid back to capacity:

- Hydro and gas resources were among the first to restart the supply.
- The interconnection between Spain and France has also been crucial: More than 4 GWh were imported from France between 14:00 and 18:00 CEST. Imports from Morocco also contributed to the restoration of power supply in the evening, between 19:00 and 20:00 CEST.

Why not nuclear?
Nuclear plants were automatically disconnected for safety reasons and are typically among the last to rejoin the grid during restoration.

And wind and solar?
During the blackout, some wind and solar generation remained online and continued to support the grid in isolated areas, helping to prevent a complete system collapse. However, these sources currently do not support black start operations. Most solar PV systems lack grid-forming capabilities, meaning they cannot independently contribute to restoring the system after a total shutdown.

 

[Ellipse]

My daughter is in Madrid visiting her friend. Got caught in middle of Madrid with all public transport shut down. It took her two hours by foot to the place where she's staying. Fortunately she had some cash with her and was able to buy candles, matches and extra water and only store where she found candles was near her friend's flat, owned by Chinese. She has returned in the afternoon and stayed at home. I've spoke with her this morning and she said that was really surreal experience especially during the night because police was cruising through the streets in patrol car and informed citizens to stay at home thru PA speaker. Helicopter was flying during the night over neighborhood with search lights on. She should return to Zagreb late tomorrow flying from Málaga, but it's still unclear whether or not her flight is on schedule plus she has to go to Málaga on the train. She took this picture yesterday from Madrid where you can see people listening to the news on old fashioned battery powered radio.
Plus we had too couple of minutes power outage here in Zagreb on the same day although in the morning hours.

Great your daughter was safe.

In a case of a long outage, I wonder for how long the PTB would be able to patrol. I mean, once you have exhausted the oil of your car or helicopter, you need to refill it. And without electricity, pumps will not work. I guess they have some generators but not so much. Tanker trucks from the army then ?

 

[Nević Nenad]

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, be sure that is mosad and cia.

Probably to send some message to government of Spain and to probe could they do it and the consequences on scale that large.

 

[loreta]

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, be sure that is mosad and cia.

Probably to send some message to government of Spain and to probe could they do it and the consequences on scale that large.

A message for other countries. What it is clear is that, supposedly, at no point in his two TV appearances did he mention a cyberattack. So possibly that could be it because this president is a big liar. He says red, you have to see black. He says black, you have to see red.

 

[ryu]

A message for other countries. What it is clear is that, supposedly, at no point in his two TV appearances did he mention a cyberattack. So possibly that could be it because this president is a big liar. He says red, you have to see black. He says black, you have to see red.

I doubt the president has the liberty to say it like it is. Maybe it’s due to the sun, maybe it’s due to Intel agencies not being happy about how Spain called out Israël on their treatment of palestinians. It sure is a weird coïncidence, as it happened shortly after the explosions in Iran.

Maybe I'm deluded, but I don’t think we will get too many intentional black-outs, our government needs it as well for controlling the plebs.

 

[vulpes]

Interesting that something similar has happened in UK just hours before Spain. Spain at that moment had large share of PV energy source thus couldn't probably effectively balance the frequency.

Mystery of Britain’s unexplained power outages hours before Spain and Portugal blackout

Britain’s electricity grid operator is investigating unexplained power plant failures that hit the UK’s system hours before Spain and Portugal were affected by mass blackouts.

www.lbc.co.uk

 

[Chu]

Interesting that something similar has happened in UK just hours before Spain. Spain at that moment had large share of PV energy source thus couldn't probably effectively balance the frequency.

And there was one in Greenland too, albeit partial:

Partial telecoms blackout in Greenland 'possibly linked to Spain'

Parts of Greenland were deprived on Monday evening of phone, SMS and internet connections, possibly linked to a massive power outage on the Iberian Peninsula, the operator said.

www.thelocal.dk

As far as I saw this morning, they were trying to link to to Spain, but they couldn't even be sure?

Sabotage a bit all over the place? Or natural causes?

 

[Deneb]

I will add some more comments from the same source from facebook:
" North Wales, my meters are going crazy

View attachment 108088
"


accorging to Al:

USVh" is an abbreviation for "microsieverts per hour" (µSv/h). A microsievert (µSv) is a unit for measuring the equivalent dose of ionizing radiation, and "h" stands for hour, so USVh is the radiation dose rate in microsieverts per hour. This is a unit that shows how quickly the body is exposed to radiation.
How much is normal USV per hour?
The maximum permissible radiation dose for humans is 1000 µSv per year. However, this dose does not include the natural radiation background. Adding the average radiation background, we get 1500-2000 µSv per year. The natural radiation background usually ranges from 0.05 to 0.10 µSv per hour.

Just checked mine, 20uSv/hr so just standard background

 

[Tristan]

This news could be interesting in the light of events, but is only speculation.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1916959886656635150

 

[naorma]

Just to add: There was a small blackout in Linz (Austria) as well. Did not last long, but trams stopped, supermarkets had no light etc. The said that a problem at the St. Martin substation might be the reason for the power cuts!
Cashmashines were also affected:
When talking to my participants today about that blackout in Spain I learned that in Viennas 22nd district people often have to deal with having no electricity - sometimes for hours.

 

[Wandering Star]

I will add some more comments from the same source from facebook:
" North Wales, my meters are going crazy

View attachment 108088
"


accorging to Al:

USVh" is an abbreviation for "microsieverts per hour" (µSv/h). A microsievert (µSv) is a unit for measuring the equivalent dose of ionizing radiation, and "h" stands for hour, so USVh is the radiation dose rate in microsieverts per hour. This is a unit that shows how quickly the body is exposed to radiation.
How much is normal USV per hour?
The maximum permissible radiation dose for humans is 1000 µSv per year. However, this dose does not include the natural radiation background. Adding the average radiation background, we get 1500-2000 µSv per year. The natural radiation background usually ranges from 0.05 to 0.10 µSv per hour.

The authorities took many hours to come out with an explanation, but in reality, they didn't give one.

A hypothesis with little basis to explain the 60 percent loss of electricity consumption in five seconds followed by a nationwide shutdown.

4D bleeding or small swell of "the wave"?

 

[vulpes]

Sabotage a bit all over the place? Or natural causes?

My thesis is, let's say in general, that "green" power sources started to be sensitive to phenomenas that was not previously been noted due to traditional power plants. However this requires more research.

Here in Poland this problem is also visible locally where there is growing number of small PV but grid infrustructure is very old and oftenly is not capable to balance peaks. Although, the source is not something "from the air" but rather tech and well understood challange.

Nevertheless, back to Spain/UK, the real source is indeed mystery but vulnerability I think tells the direction. Will be interesting to learn about past problems in places where solar power is dominant from couple of years perspective

 

[mabar]

From spaceweather.com, beats me more for possible trial as future lockdowns for the convenience of their nefarious interests than the usual suspect, because would Isarael be so urgent to need Spain for what?

IBERIAN POWER OUTAGE: The sun was not to blame. Officials are still scrambling to understand the cause of yesterday's mysterious power outage in Spain and Portugal. It is already clear that space weather didn't do it. There were no solar flares, no geomagnetic storms, and no suspicious fluctuations in the solar wind before or during the outage.

---

This news could be interesting in the light of events, but is only speculation.

Just saw your post Tristan.
Although, is Israel's usual modus operandi to coerce countries, seems to me is not enough.

 

[Mrs. Peel]

The Space Weather News YouTube channel correlated data from SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory), with the event, and think it was caused by a solar flare which seeped in through the weak magnetic field.

 

[EmeraldR]

<< ""They said this was related to a "rare atmospheric phenomenon", namely "extreme temperature variations".

Due to these variations in the interior or Spain, there were "anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), which is a phenomenon known as 'induced atmospheric vibration'".

"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network.">>>



well in my musings I considered on a metaphoric/4 D level that the anomalous oscillations of many human beings who are collectively fed up and dissillusioned with the current grid(control system,elite etc) induced an atmospheric vibration/frequency resulting to a shut down of the current power structures in the European sector !!!!

me thinks that things on all levels are heating up bigtime ;)