Without electricity

[martin007]

Today in Spain we have lived a historic day.
At 12:25 (someone) has knocked out the power grid of the Iberian Peninsula and the French Basque Country.
Something similar had never happened in Spain.
59 Million people without electricity.

No one believes the official version.


I'm betting on a cyber attack.


P.S. Where I live the electricity has not returned until 9:00 PM

[Burgerman]

And belgium and a few other countries.


Let me tell you what really happened as I have been following this.

All AC generators - every coal, gas, nuclear and even solar all generate AC in most cases from a heavy spinning turbine at a specific AC frequency. Each is connected to the grid one at a time once the 50 or 60 cycle per second frequency is reached. All the 3 phases, and the peaks and valleys MUST align... Or smoke happens! And enerything will trip of fail.

Now because of solar, wind etc theres a big problem. These things have zero flywheel affect that a large turbine driven by steam has. So much less mass to stabilise the AC frequency they just copy whats there with mosfets. And because wind and solar comes and goes, they linked up all the european countries... So that if the sun disapears or if the wind blows strong in one place and not another they all share the resources.

Now...

If theres a big demand. Or a big drop in power usage, or a failure or disconnect of a large area, on a particular generator its electrical load drops, and required power (steam? Gas, nuclear etc) changes. If the load disapears fast, because say an entire country disconnects, or theres a big fault, then theres too much power being generated. That causes the generators to accelerate beyond the 3000rpm or 3600rpm needed to stay in phase with the AC grid.

So as soon as they cant stay in phase, they also disconnect or smoke! So this happens across the network... Now the demand is higher or lower everywhere and the AC frequency gets all out of step and everything trips out and shuts down. You get huge problems and there is a "wave" of AC frequency that doesent match across a huge grid.

So you lose entire countries. Restarting it all up again is also very hard. You are trying to match the AC waveform exactly across hundreds of different generators. And so you can only do this by adding one at a time. So town by town, or small areas, some factories, add another generating station and continue.

So no not an attack by someone, the result of a fault triggering a fragile system into getting out of its ideal frequency range. Aided by less rotating mass, from solar etc. And joining an entire continent together.

[Burgerman]

Also. Once a generator is on the grid synchronised with AC waveform, you can then add POWER. It tries to push the waveform. If you could add enough power it would speed up the AC wave as the generator RPM rose.

My multimeter reads the AC frequencies. If I look at the wall AC, then I can tell if the country is generating more power than is being used as the AC frequency will be slightly faster than that 50 cycles per second. Maybe 50.013 or similar. EVERY generating company or nuclear plant can see that too. They then try to reduce the power they add to the grid. With nuclear that means lowering control rods, waiting to lose some of the steam pressure etc. So too slow. Coal very similar. Gas power stations are really the only ones that can reduce output quickly. Solar and wind cant do a thing. They use complex inverter and mosfet technology and just "match" whatever AC exists, then add as much power as they are producing at that time to the grid. So sun goes in? Less added to grid.

Likewise 49.0072 cycles per sec tells me that the grid needs more coal added/ more power! Somewhere there will be a man with a shovel piling on more coal! Or a hamster in a wheel trying harder. If this drops or rises too much the grid shuts down. Everything disconnects. Thats what caused the power failure across many countries.

[martin007]

If your theory is correct, what happened will happen again...

[Burgerman]

Right now, I can see the folowing...

Look at screenshot!

Demand is very low! Summer, late at night.
And frequency is really high! So the system is generating much more than the consumers are using. So in varous places in the country power stations will be throttling back power or shutting down.

I also see that solar is ZERO...
Wind is just 6% of the total (often its worse!).
And that we are buying power from various countries via interconnects.

[iainsherriff]

Let me tell you what really happened as I have been following this.

I heard the Spanish Power Minister calling that as a possible explanation as well ..........

[martin007]

I heard the Spanish Power Minister calling that as a possible explanation as well ..........

The prime minister of Spain lies more than he talks.
His word is worth zero.


Just today, a brother of the prime minister was indicted by a judge...
The prime minister's wife is in a similar situation.

[Burgerman]

If your theory is correct, what happened will happen again...

Yes.

[martin007]

And belgium and a few other countries.


Let me tell you what really happened as I have been following this.

All AC generators - every coal, gas, nuclear and even solar all generate AC in most cases from a heavy spinning turbine at a specific AC frequency. Each is connected to the grid one at a time once the 50 or 60 cycle per second frequency is reached. All the 3 phases, and the peaks and valleys MUST align... Or smoke happens! And enerything will trip of fail.

Now because of solar, wind etc theres a big problem. These things have zero flywheel affect that a large turbine driven by steam has. So much less mass to stabilise the AC frequency they just copy whats there with mosfets. And because wind and solar comes and goes, they linked up all the european countries... So that if the sun disapears or if the wind blows strong in one place and not another they all share the resources.

Now...

If theres a big demand. Or a big drop in power usage, or a failure or disconnect of a large area, on a particular generator its electrical load drops, and required power (steam? Gas, nuclear etc) changes. If the load disapears fast, because say an entire country disconnects, or theres a big fault, then theres too much power being generated. That causes the generators to accelerate beyond the 3000rpm or 3600rpm needed to stay in phase with the AC grid.

So as soon as they cant stay in phase, they also disconnect or smoke! So this happens across the network... Now the demand is higher or lower everywhere and the AC frequency gets all out of step and everything trips out and shuts down. You get huge problems and there is a "wave" of AC frequency that doesent match across a huge grid.

So you lose entire countries. Restarting it all up again is also very hard. You are trying to match the AC waveform exactly across hundreds of different generators. And so you can only do this by adding one at a time. So town by town, or small areas, some factories, add another generating station and continue.

So no not an attack by someone, the result of a fault triggering a fragile system into getting out of its ideal frequency range. Aided by less rotating mass, from solar etc. And joining an entire continent together.

For 5 seconds 15 gigawatts of electricity disappeared from the Spanish grid.
Almost all experts point to the problem of frequency.

Portugal has decided to disconnect (the management) of its electricity network.
Politicians look the other way and lie.
There are going to be more blackouts this summer...

[Burgerman]

Here is the issue in a nutshell.

The big heavy turbines have a lot of mass. They all run in synch at 50 or 60 cycles per second, at EXACTLY 3000 or 3600 rpms. That mass is what determines the stability of the grid frequency.

My solar system, takes its DC, convertes it to AC, and injects it into the grid. It first of all WATCHES the frequency, and then matches it electronically. It doesent determine the frequency it copies it.

All solar systems do that. If you then shut down all the big heavy coal or nuclear or gas heavy generators, there is no rotational mass to stabilise the frequency. And nothing to actually determine this frequency so it changes. And because of the vast differences in distance across interconnected europe it may end up with some parts trying to be at one frequency, and other countries at another one. It only needs to be a half a cycle different and you have a direct short on the whole grid!

And so everything shuts down or disconnects and we have darkness. And a huge job trying to restart it all with hundreds of generating stations all out of sync across many countries. So caused directly by solar and other renewable systems all feeding the grid. Parts of spain were attempting to run almost completely on solar / wind etc at certain times of the day. And then darkness and confusion!

[martin007]

There have been several nuclear standstills for a few weeks now.
The thermal power plants have been reduced to rubble.
The reservoirs (water) are full, but...

I have the feeling that something similar to Chernobyl has happened.
An experiment to find out how far you could go with solar and wind.

[martin007]

Today the price of electricity is 4.5 that of Monday.

[Bubbernator]

I hate to be the guy that says "I told you so"
simply because it doesn't solve anything (except possibly make people think a little bit before they make another huge mistake).

Here's a video of some folks in Spain celebrating the demolition of a nuclear power plant three years ago:

https://x.com/ada_lluch/status/1916961580790779924

Lesson: make darn sure that your new system is running and stable before destroying the old one. Better yet, keep the old system decommissioned but intact in case you need a back-up. Always have a Plan B.

[Burgerman]

In this case it wasnt about any lack of power but a lack of running (heavy rotating) AC stabilised physical mass. Once those flywheels are missing and not in the system theres literally nothing controlling the AC frequency. Other than thousands of solar systems that all have their own ideas!
If it gets out of sync in a matter of a few ms you have massive disconnections happening across the grid. Entire countries. By the time you switch in a SINGLE generating station to stabilise the AC frequency and get it accurate enough to connect its all 100 times too late. Then once THAT one is running you then need to start up another and fine tune its position on the 3 phases, withing a degree of a rotation at the exact same RPM before you can then allow that to reconnect. Then you need to do the 3rd power station. Rinse and repeat to fully power and connect all the countries and areas. A simply massive problem.

Caused by not having adequate old style turbines (coal, gas, oil, nuclear) as flywheels in the system.

[martin007]

The Spanish dams (near where I live) are at 90% stored water.
I don't know because they were producing little electricity.

After the blackout occurred the first central to restart the system was Aldeadávila Dam

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldead%C3%A1vila_Dam

[Burgerman]

Cool. Thats a great source of reliable heavy mass turbine power. Those things and nuclear are great as steady state background suppliers of power. But they cant ramp power up and down fast. So unfortunately with solar that rapidly jumps up and down in power, varies day to day, does bugger all in winter, and zero at night we need some backup power that can be controlled in output fast. That means gas turbine power. Some are direct using exhaust gas like a jet engine. Some are almost as fast at throttling and use steam and boilers. Because you can turn gas down low, or up high in a few seconds. You cant do that with coal, nuclear, or dams!

The problem is that with a small amount of "green" renewable solar, wind added to the grid, it can cope. By turning the gas generating stations up/down to match load and keep a stable grid frequency. When you add too much intermittent green energy the system cannot compensate.

Worse its often claimed to be cheaper! Well once its all been paid for by huge subsidies, taxes on fossil fuel, etc and government funding, and governments taxing fossil fuel companues EIGHTY percent... Then yes it is... But we paid a lot for that "cheap" fuel.

But then its only cheap if thats ALL you needed. But at night or in winter, no sunlight. No power. And the wind doesent always blow. And thats usually also at night and in winter. Right when we want heat and light...

So for every gigawatt of green renewable "cheap" energy we also need a fosil fuel plant built, maintained, and fuelled up ready to take over. That and the infrastructuure is 60% of the cost of the fuel even if its not running... So the "cheap fuel" is utter bollox.

It shouldnt be called renewables ir should be called unreliables. And damned expensive. The UK pays FIVE TIMES more than the US for electricity, petroleum, gas, oil, etc. Its because we have adopted and gone mental with this "cheap" fuel...

People are just now, hundreds of billions of pounds, and the death of most of the manufacturing industry and sat in the cold in winter scared to heat the hous, are only just beginning to see this.

[Burgerman]

Hot today? Climate change.
Cold? Climate change.
Floods? Climate change.
Dry? Climate change.
Storms? Climate change.
forest fires? Climate change.

I am 65. I have seen wetter weather, floods, storms, droughts, hotter summers, longer summers, shorter colder ones, plagues of inseacts, ladybirds, and was warned about the coming ice age at school. Theres ALWAYS some doomsday nonsense doing the rounds. Remember the danger from the holes at the poles? We were all going to die from cancer. And all the CFC we had put into the atmosphere would keep them open for at least 50 to 100 years. You dont hear anything today do you... Again. Theres always another end of the world story to follow the last one when it fails to do anything. Its like the idiot with the billboards saying the end of the world is coming...

I studied the "climate" going back not 10k years but going back way further. The climate has always changed. C02 has been up to many percent not a few parts per million, its currently extremely low! Theres been trees - tropical forrests growing as far south and north as the poles. Thats why the US wanted alaska as its all coal and oil. Becaue once or 10 times in the past it was actually warm and the globe was green and lush with crap lods of CO2 and thats when life expands fast and flourishes. And cold times, most of it in fact with almost no life other than around the equator and literal miles depth of ice covering new york and the rest of the US for millions of years at a time. So yes. Its all mindless ysteria from retards that do not get how short the human populations lifetime has been.

So its all hersterical nonsense.

[martin007]

Today I heard that technology is being tested that makes it possible to balance the frequency of electricity generated by photovoltaic panels.

[Burgerman]

Sounds very odd.
What the solar inverters do is to WATCH the waveform electronically to see the exact angle (so that their sine waves exactly match the AC on the system they are about to connect to) and then they link up. So no bangs!

Then they try to add the power to the negative and positive peaks. So to push power into the grid. This has the effect of "pushing" the waveform faster. That solar system is now trying to speed up the frequency as it removes some load from all the other generating stations.

The whole problem is that with tens of thouands of windmills, and solar arrays all doing this same thing, and it being weather and wind/sun dependant that the grid may have say 10% difference in phase across europe. So then different parts of the grid are trying to push the AC frequency at different times (but correct for where they actually connect) So you get a load of power wasted trying to warm up the grid... This used to be stabilised by big iron rotors with huge rotational inertia. That controlled the frequency. By RPMs. RPms were controlled by how much coal you shovelled on...

Then what happens is that say a huge factory sub station goes bang in germany for any number of reasons. Or the sun vanishes in spain. Now its no longer drawing vast amounts of power or generating loads at oppsite ends of the grid. So he grid frequency initially drops during a big short. Then jumps up faster and stays high in that blown sub station area. Because no rotating mass damps it out. They closed all those!
So now we have one part of the grid at a higher frequency than the rest. That cant work... And everything sees an error and huge currents flow and soo the lot trips out bit by bit. The more parts that shut down the worse this jump in frequency becomes... And then cascading blackouts follow.

How is this new technology going to change that? Since it has to exactly match the grid where it connects. Or boom... Smoke.

[Burgerman]

My small system has been shoving 2kw plus, into the grid all day. Now the suns gone. So it had to connect to the gid, at the frequency it sees. It then once connected, added around 2 volts to the local AC in my street. And tried to push the frequency up. It cant do that as theres a huge north sea gas powered power station a couple of miles away. It is holding the grid steady at 50 cycles per second, and has high thermal mass. So instead it will reduce its output by my 2kw while I am generating it.

So grid stays at 50 cycles per second. Or the generator at exactly 3000 rpm.

What happens if the solar output of thousands of houses exceeds the actual load on the grid? Then the lasge generating power station would shut off ALL of its power. In an attempt to stay at 50 cycles per second. Once it disconnects, the grid frequency will attempt to increase since now the solar and wind are providing more than we are actually using...

And so now we have a stability problem... My area is now trying to speed up the AC frequency across the country...