Apagón en España, última hora en directo hoy: Sánchez dice que "España, afortunadamente, está superando lo peor de la crisis y camina hacia la recuperación"
Electricity network requires that production and consumption are always equal. If there is too little production, the frequency (Hz) goes down and if too little consumption, the frequency goes up. If frequency goes too far every electric device pretty much breaks.
This is why there is automation in the network that tries to balance the network (reserve production and consumption). BUT if shit hits the fan, and frequency goes too bad, it automatically takes load off or production off the network. This often causes domino effect, you take load off, which causes over production, and again you take production off and loop is ready. In minutes the whole network falls like domino blocks, one by one.
There was lots of luck (and probably skill and preparation) that they were able to stop it. Main land Europe from Portugal to Turkey is one big network.
Cold starting whole Europe would have taken week. You need to start small islands, and connect them together slowly. Balancing load and production.
Source: I work in electricity production and distribution.
Main land Europe from Portugal to Turkey is one big network.
The connection between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of Europe isn’t all that high-capacity. That’s been a known weakness in the grid for a long time.
Electricity network requires that production and consumption are always equal. If there is too little production, the frequency (Hz) goes down and if too little consumption, the frequency goes up. If frequency goes too far every electric device pretty much breaks.
This is why there is automation in the network that tries to balance the network (reserve production and consumption). BUT if shit hits the fan, and frequency goes too bad, it automatically takes load off or production off the network. This often causes domino effect, you take load off, which causes over production, and again you take production off and loop is ready. In minutes the whole network falls like domino blocks, one by one.
There was lots of luck (and probably skill and preparation) that they were able to stop it. Main land Europe from Portugal to Turkey is one big network.
Cold starting whole Europe would have taken week. You need to start small islands, and connect them together slowly. Balancing load and production.
Source: I work in electricity production and distribution.
The connection between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of Europe isn’t all that high-capacity. That’s been a known weakness in the grid for a long time.
There are always some bottle necks on the network, but the frequency is same on all mainland Europe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous_Area
It is possible that this bottle neck saved the whole European grid coming down.