6 ms·

As an aside, one of the most stunning proofs of how successful the European Union is happened with the grid. On 8 January 2021, the synchronous area of Continen

by chx 3y ago

As an aside, one of the most stunning proofs of how successful the European Union is happened with the grid. On 8 January 2021, the synchronous area of Continental Europe split into two, the system separation resulted in a deficit of power (approx. -6.3 GW) in the North-West Area and a surplus of power (approx. +6.3 GW) in the South-East Area, The reaction speed was something to behold. The event happened at 14:05 CET, at 14:09 CET the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) were in teleconference but by then some 1.7GW capacity in France and Italy was dropped and 420 MW and 60 MW was activated in the Nordic and Great Britain. Customers barely felt it: only 70 MW in the North-West Area and 163 MW in the South-East Area were disconnected. By 15:08 the event concluded. Yes, there was a mistake in the processes which led to the event in special circumstances but , I believe , the respected readers of HN know this all too well , the big question is what happens when an emergency hits. And those processes held up spectacularly.

jnsaff2 3y ago
https://www.netzfrequenz.info/allgemein/aufteilung-des-synchronnetzes-am-08-01-2021.html https://www.netzfrequenz.info/allgemein/aufteilung-des-synch...
PartiallyTyped 3y ago
I found this article from bloomberg on the event! > Europe’s grid, which is usually connected from Lisbon to Istanbul, split into two as the northwest and southeast regions struggled to keep the same frequency. The problem originated in Croatia and led to the equivalent of 200,000 households losing power across Europe. Supply to industrial sites was cut in France and Italy. > Transmission grids need to stay at a frequency of 50 hertz to operate smoothly and any deviations can damage equipment that’s connected. Had the frequency swings not been reduced within minutes, it could have caused damage across the entire European high voltage network, potentially causing blackouts for millions. > A fault at a substation that caused overloading on other parts of Croatia’s grid has been identified as the cause of the issue, network operators concluded Tuesday. > “The problem isn’t posed by growing green electricity directly but by shrinking conventional capacity,” said Eglantine Kuenle, chief electricity systems modeler at the EWI Institute of Energy Economics at Cologne University. “The upshot is a gap in secure power generation and grid balancing that must be fixed.” https://web.archive.org/web/20230621192146/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/green-shift-brings-blackout-risk-to-world-s-biggest-power-grid#xj4y7vzkg https://web.archive.org/web/20230621192146/https://www.bloom... ---- Personal thoughts. I knew we had an interconnected grid, but I had no idea it span from Portugal to Türkiye, nor that the rest of Scandinavia wasn't connected. For a system as critical, and as complex, it seems like a feat of engineering on all sides involved.
- halper 3y ago
  Apologise to pick nits, but if it is not Turkey it is Türkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English.
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    Oh, sorry, my bad!
  - sgjohnson 3y ago
    > if it is not Turkey it is Türkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English. Not according to the Turkish government. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/turkey-changes-name-to-turkiye-as-other-name-is-for-the-birds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/turkey-changes...
    - brnt 3y ago
      Fortunately they are not in charge of English. Not even the English government is. At most they are in charge of their respective versions and advocacy of it. Alphabets and certainly diacritics are used differently in different languages, so insisting on a certain way of writing can only lead to inconsistent pronunciation.
  - type0 3y ago
    I just hope they don't go back to Arabic alphabet, it would be a pain to write. Btw when will China start demanding we refer to it as Zhōngguó, or better yet 中國 /s
    - halper 3y ago
      I think this illustrates the point well: if they were to write it in another script completely, English would adopt some transliteration of the name, i.e. an exonym.
- chx 3y ago
  You don't need that, the official report is good https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/07/15/final-report-on-the-separation-of-the-continental-europe-power-system-on-8-january-2021/ https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/07/15/final-report-on-the-se...
TMWNN 3y ago
>As an aside, one of the most stunning proofs of how successful the European Union is happened with the grid. On 8 January 2021, the synchronous area of Continental Europe split into two The European grid has nothing to do with the EU. The grid includes non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway. The UK did not leave the grid after Brexit; its interconnections with Ireland and the continent still exist. The US and Canada's grids are interconnected without the two nations being integrated as closely as the EU member states are.
- chx 3y ago
  ENTSOE-E exists because of the 2009/72/EC directive. It's an EU entity. As with many such, they also allow / work with entities outside of the EU but that doesn't change the fact this is an association existing under and because of the EU legal framework.
- helloooooooo 3y ago
  US and Canada grids are split east-west, and then there is a third grid restricted entirely to the geographic region of Texas
  - salamandersss 3y ago
    Texas is connected to Mexico and some other exceptions. The fed though would rather frozen dead Texans than deregulate and allow ERCOT to connect as they do to Mexico. Fed basically holding some of the poorer rural Texans hostage to influence some rich ERCOT bureaucrats to change their regulations -- pretty fucked up IMO.
    - chx 3y ago
      say what Texas has made a conscious decision since 1935 when FDR signed the Federal Power Act to stay away because they didn't want the feds to mess with their grid. The feds have no power here because the Texas grid does not cross state lines. When West Texas Utilities did connect through state lines in 1976 (called the Midnight Connection) both HL&P and Texas Electric Service Company immediately disconnected from them to avoid falling under federal regulation. It was not the feds. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/connecting-past-and-future-history-texas-isolated-power-grid https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/connecting-past-and-...
rbanffy 3y ago
The EU itself is a thing to behold. Just managing to prevent wars between their members for so many decades is a remarkable accomplishment, unheard of in the continent's troubled history. Not perfect, and certainly not invulnerable to bad actors, but still a beautiful accomplishment of will and politics.
- chx 3y ago
  Almost all of us in Europe have never known anything but this peace so it almost feels a given. (I doubt a lot of readers are above eighty years old.) Yet a lot of kvetching about regulations happen and so it's good to remind people they have their own use.
  - tuukkah 3y ago
    Surely you mean this peace that ended when Russia started a full-scale invasion in Ukraine.
    - Dalewyn 3y ago
      I've come to think that the so-called "most peaceful era in human history" as the post-Cold War era has been often called is more aptly "most peaceful era in western history". Plenty of strife and conflict can be and are found where most western eyes generally don't look.
    - chx 3y ago
      This peace, by and large, is about the lack of entries with other Western European countries on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Germany By that measure, you'd consider the peace ended in 1956 when Russia -- then called the Soviet Union -- re-invaded Hungary after very briefly withdrawing. (As an aside, when the National Bank of Ukraine last year opened two donation accounts, I sent 1956 EUR to both. I am not subtle with my messaging.)
      - tuukkah 3y ago

by chx 3y ago

jnsaff2 3y ago

https://www.netzfrequenz.info/allgemein/aufteilung-des-synchronnetzes-am-08-01-2021.html https://www.netzfrequenz.info/allgemein/aufteilung-des-synch...

PartiallyTyped 3y ago

I found this article from bloomberg on the event! > Europe’s grid, which is usually connected from Lisbon to Istanbul, split into two as the northwest and southeast regions struggled to keep the same frequency. The problem originated in Croatia and led to the equivalent of 200,000 households losing power across Europe. Supply to industrial sites was cut in France and Italy. > Transmission grids need to stay at a frequency of 50 hertz to operate smoothly and any deviations can damage equipment that’s connected. Had the frequency swings not been reduced within minutes, it could have caused damage across the entire European high voltage network, potentially causing blackouts for millions. > A fault at a substation that caused overloading on other parts of Croatia’s grid has been identified as the cause of the issue, network operators concluded Tuesday. > “The problem isn’t posed by growing green electricity directly but by shrinking conventional capacity,” said Eglantine Kuenle, chief electricity systems modeler at the EWI Institute of Energy Economics at Cologne University. “The upshot is a gap in secure power generation and grid balancing that must be fixed.” https://web.archive.org/web/20230621192146/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-27/green-shift-brings-blackout-risk-to-world-s-biggest-power-grid#xj4y7vzkg https://web.archive.org/web/20230621192146/https://www.bloom... ---- Personal thoughts. I knew we had an interconnected grid, but I had no idea it span from Portugal to Türkiye, nor that the rest of Scandinavia wasn't connected. For a system as critical, and as complex, it seems like a feat of engineering on all sides involved.

halper 3y ago
Apologise to pick nits, but if it is not Turkey it is Türkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  Oh, sorry, my bad!
- sgjohnson 3y ago
  > if it is not Turkey it is Türkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English. Not according to the Turkish government. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/turkey-changes-name-to-turkiye-as-other-name-is-for-the-birds https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/turkey-changes...
  - brnt 3y ago
    Fortunately they are not in charge of English. Not even the English government is. At most they are in charge of their respective versions and advocacy of it. Alphabets and certainly diacritics are used differently in different languages, so insisting on a certain way of writing can only lead to inconsistent pronunciation.
- type0 3y ago
  I just hope they don't go back to Arabic alphabet, it would be a pain to write. Btw when will China start demanding we refer to it as Zhōngguó, or better yet 中國 /s
  - halper 3y ago
    I think this illustrates the point well: if they were to write it in another script completely, English would adopt some transliteration of the name, i.e. an exonym.
chx 3y ago
You don't need that, the official report is good https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/07/15/final-report-on-the-separation-of-the-continental-europe-power-system-on-8-january-2021/ https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/07/15/final-report-on-the-se...

TMWNN 3y ago

>As an aside, one of the most stunning proofs of how successful the European Union is happened with the grid. On 8 January 2021, the synchronous area of Continental Europe split into two The European grid has nothing to do with the EU. The grid includes non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway. The UK did not leave the grid after Brexit; its interconnections with Ireland and the continent still exist. The US and Canada's grids are interconnected without the two nations being integrated as closely as the EU member states are.

chx 3y ago
ENTSOE-E exists because of the 2009/72/EC directive. It's an EU entity. As with many such, they also allow / work with entities outside of the EU but that doesn't change the fact this is an association existing under and because of the EU legal framework.
helloooooooo 3y ago
US and Canada grids are split east-west, and then there is a third grid restricted entirely to the geographic region of Texas
- salamandersss 3y ago
  Texas is connected to Mexico and some other exceptions. The fed though would rather frozen dead Texans than deregulate and allow ERCOT to connect as they do to Mexico. Fed basically holding some of the poorer rural Texans hostage to influence some rich ERCOT bureaucrats to change their regulations -- pretty fucked up IMO.
  - chx 3y ago
    say what Texas has made a conscious decision since 1935 when FDR signed the Federal Power Act to stay away because they didn't want the feds to mess with their grid. The feds have no power here because the Texas grid does not cross state lines. When West Texas Utilities did connect through state lines in 1976 (called the Midnight Connection) both HL&P and Texas Electric Service Company immediately disconnected from them to avoid falling under federal regulation. It was not the feds. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/connecting-past-and-future-history-texas-isolated-power-grid https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/connecting-past-and-...

rbanffy 3y ago

The EU itself is a thing to behold. Just managing to prevent wars between their members for so many decades is a remarkable accomplishment, unheard of in the continent's troubled history. Not perfect, and certainly not invulnerable to bad actors, but still a beautiful accomplishment of will and politics.

chx 3y ago
Almost all of us in Europe have never known anything but this peace so it almost feels a given. (I doubt a lot of readers are above eighty years old.) Yet a lot of kvetching about regulations happen and so it's good to remind people they have their own use.
- tuukkah 3y ago
  Surely you mean this peace that ended when Russia started a full-scale invasion in Ukraine.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I've come to think that the so-called "most peaceful era in human history" as the post-Cold War era has been often called is more aptly "most peaceful era in western history". Plenty of strife and conflict can be and are found where most western eyes generally don't look.
  - chx 3y ago
    This peace, by and large, is about the lack of entries with other Western European countries on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Germany By that measure, you'd consider the peace ended in 1956 when Russia -- then called the Soviet Union -- re-invaded Hungary after very briefly withdrawing. (As an aside, when the National Bank of Ukraine last year opened two donation accounts, I sent 1956 EUR to both. I am not subtle with my messaging.)
    - tuukkah 3y ago