European Power Outage 3

[davidbeach]

I heard on the news that there was a significant power outage in Europe Saturday night/Sunday morning; principally in France and Germany. Of course there wasn't much detail. Anybody know more about what happened?

 

[ScottyUK]

Hi David,

This is the best I could find - not much technical detail as yet.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1239721,00.html

The temperature in North-Western Europe has dropped about 10[°]C in the last week, so I guess the demand has surged as a result.


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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

 

[ScottyUK]

A bit more info:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6117880.stm

The French are blaming the Germans! Isn't politics great!!

 

[rmw]

The NIMBY's are winning.

rmw

 

[Skogsgurra]

And the Germans are blaming the Norwegians - who are not in the EU. So it seems the whole thing wasn't an EU affair after all...

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...

 

[eurocopper]

First facts about the European blackout (from UCTE):

http://www.ucte.org/pdf/News/20061105-Disturbance.pdf

 

[edison123]

The latest

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/business/6120212.stm

Apparently, a cruise ship is the villain.

A ship in hot waters

 

[itsmoked]

And a "knock-on power cut" is what? Weird terminology.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[ccjersey]

"knock-on" appears to be the "domino effect"

 

[itsmoked]

Oh man! I'd have never guessed that! Thanks.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[rbulsara]

I think knock-on refers to step load change or block load change.

 

[EEJaime]

Hello to any members in the affected areas,

Does anyone know if this UCTE which apparently has "guidelines" for operating the grid, but no centrallized authority to manage it, has the ability to isolate individual countries? It would seem to me that a country which has generating capacity to serve it's needs would be hesitant to give up the control of it's domestic power generating and distrubution grid to another country or organization. Are some of the individual European countries totally dependant on other EU members for power? I find it odd that the UCTE bulletin states that a wind power generating system in Germany, was actually delivering powere to countries in the "2nd Island". It also states that there was an "under generation" condition which dropped the frequency to 49Hz. Is not the power normally generated at 50 Hz? Is the system sensitive enough to this condition to initiate the alarms and shutdown sequences?

It seems this system is in an even more precarious condition than our system here in the Northeast US and Canada was back in '04. Out here in the western US, specifically California, we are facing a potentially disastrous condition. As demand keeps growing in Southern California, the transmission system from the Pacific northwest and northern California is becoming extremely close to it's maximum potential capacity. The utility companies keep railing about it, but the infrastructure upgrade cost estimates keep going up every year. Point of use generation and renewable source generation systems are becoming economically more attractive-as is the peace of mind they offer. The next few years are going to be very interesting on this front.

 

[davidbeach]

Actually if there was substantial restoration within 90 minutes of the outage this event was very different than the August 14, 2003 event in the Northeast US, Southeast Canada. But, yes, it looks from the map like the bulk of the European generation is in the east and the bulk of the load in the west; sort of like the north/south split of generation and load in the western grid (US & Canada). 49Hz on a 50Hz grid would be the same as 58.8Hz on a 60Hz grid.

 

[jraef]

Before we know it, we'll be reading our Eng-Tips by candle light!

JRaef.com
"Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems." Scott Adams
For the best use of Eng-Tips, please click here -> faq731-376

 

[itsmoked]

Odd that they had to turn off power for a cruise ship.. You'd think it would either be common or fixed.

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[waross]

Good one jraef.
LOL.
yours
Bill

 

[oldfieldguy]

itsmoked--

Just a guess, but likely that the HV power line spanning a ship channel has restrictions on clearance. The ship can physically pass under, but the clearance isn't enough to guarantee that there will be no ground fault due to the nearby and very well grounded ship underneath it.

old field guy

 

[itsmoked]

I recognize that. My point it somewhere a cruise ship goes is usually a regular event and other ships may pass too. I'd think they'd raise the lines to stop semi-regular outages and the risk of the eventual "ship that didn't notice".

Here; A bridge wasn't noticed.

M/V Karen Danielsen -- her entire command bridge, mast, radars & 2 cranes are missing!

From:

http://www.cargolaw.com/2000nightmare_singlesonly8.html#Karen-Danielsen

Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.-

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[ScottyUK]

In partial answer to EEJaime,

I find it odd that the UCTE bulletin states that a wind power generating system in Germany, was actually delivering powere to countries in the "2nd Island". It also states that there was an "under generation" condition which dropped the frequency to 49Hz. Is not the power normally generated at 50 Hz? Is the system sensitive enough to this condition to initiate the alarms and shutdown sequences?

The European grid is very heavily interconnected with significant power flow between nations. I'm pretty sure the German grid separated within the German national boundary, effectively splitting the country, as a result of cascaded failure of lines tripping on overload. The intentional removal of one line to allow the ship to pass caused overload of the remaining lines which then began to trip in turn. The Western section appears to have had a generation deficit at the time of separation causing the under-frequency. The falling frequency would initiate load shedding of large industrial users who pay a reduced tariff in return for accepting the possibility of a load-shed in order to prevent a system collapse. Europe's grid, in common with the UK's, does not have a huge amount of rotating reserve - plant in service and synchronised but floating idle on the system instead of generating - to draw upon. Loss of a major infeed from a distant part of the grid and limited local spare capacity would force the network operator to shed load in order to protect remaining customers. I'm unsure what is written into European grid codes, but below 49.5 Hz a British generating station is permitted to deload to protect the turbines down to 95% rated power at 47 Hz (i.e. 2% reduction / Hz). A CCGT station must maintain continuous operation down to 48.8 Hz and allow five minutes grace between 48.8 and 47Hz before under-frequency relays trip the unit. 48.8 Hz is the point at which the UK network operator may initiate automatic load disconnections to maintain system stability. The UK's heavy dependence on CCGT generation makes this a real possibility because without automatic disconnection of load, the result is automatic disconnection of generation.

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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

 

[EEJaime]

Thank you Scotty UK, an excellent explanation. It is sometimes difficult to digest the critical nature and built-in instabilities these massive yet sensitive systems exhibit. It was also noted that a large proportion of the power generating capacity in France is Nuclear. Is that also common in other parts of Europe and the UK?