Large scale UK power cuts

[Itsallaguess]

It looks like some parts of the UK are currently seeing wide-spread power cuts -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49300025

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... st-england

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/0 ... onal-grid/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[gryffron]

Reading the title, I was expecting more Project Fear

[PinkDalek]

https://ukpn.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/fault-map

[mc2fool]

Yep, here in London we had a power cut for around 15 minutes around 5pm.

[bungeejumper]

Lets just hope it's not Stuxnet. What price the Northern Powerhouse now?

[monabri]

Ok in the sunny Midlands!

[Itsallaguess]

National Grid has said it will "learn the lessons" after nearly one million people across England and Wales lost power on Friday.

But director of operations Duncan Burt told the BBC that its systems "worked well" after the "incredibly rare event" of two power stations disconnecting. He said he did not believe that a cyber-attack or unpredictable wind power generation were to blame.

Regulator Ofgem has demanded an "urgent detailed report" into what went wrong. It said it could take enforcement action, including a fine, after train passengers were stranded, traffic lights failed to work and thousands of homes were plunged into darkness during the blackout.

In a video posted online, Julian Leslie, the head of national control at the the National Grid, explained the cut was called by "the loss of two generators that connect to the National Grid transmission network in order to export their power".

"As a result of this, and this rare event, the system needs to protect itself, and what was happening as the frequency was falling, the system could see this, and unfortunately the way the system protects itself is by losing some demand."

Some train services continued to be disrupted on Saturday morning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Dod101]

'Losing some demand'. NIce.

That means 'Cuts some people off'.

Dod

[Alaric]

But director of operations Duncan Burt told the BBC that its systems "worked well" after the "incredibly rare event" of two power stations disconnecting.

Is it that rare though, for the future? Shutting down the coal fired power stations has reduced the amount of space capacity. There's gas and wind, but wind power will shut down if there's too much wind or no wind at all. That's apparently what happened yesterday, and a gas powered one failed as well.

[jackdaww]

'Losing some demand'. NIce.

That means 'Cuts some people off'.

Dod

==========================

also called " shedding load"

[bungeejumper]

"But director of operations Duncan Burt told the BBC that its systems "worked well" after the "incredibly rare event" of two power stations disconnecting."

A once in a generation event, I expect. Or once in a thousand years. Or a million to one chance. Hmmm, where have I heard that one before?

BJ

[Dod101]

Anyway how long was the 'outage'? Not exactly the end of the world. I remember in my grandfather's house when they had Tilley lamps, and in fact before I moved to where I now live we were regularly cut off in periods of high demand. It was no big deal. I still have a small portable stove which we occasionally used.

Dod

[jackdaww]

"But director of operations Duncan Burt told the BBC that its systems "worked well" after the "incredibly rare event" of two power stations disconnecting."

A once in a generation event, I expect. Or once in a thousand years. Or a million to one chance. Hmmm, where have I heard that one before?

BJ

=============================

with more renewables (great) that can fluctuate , we must have some rapid startup generation capacity , gas turbines perhaps.

[redsturgeon]

Didn't we have regular planned two hour power cuts every night in the 70s. Was it the winter of discontent or the miner's strike?

John

[bungeejumper]

Anyway how long was the 'outage'? Not exactly the end of the world. I remember in my grandfather's house when they had Tilley lamps, and in fact before I moved to where I now live we were regularly cut off in periods of high demand. It was no big deal. I still have a small portable stove which we occasionally used.

I'm with you, Dod. Unfortunately, though, the cut-outs on our consumer unit tend to shut off when any sort of major disruption to the power supply occurs, and they will then usually stay off until somebody resets them. (Think freezer, boiler, burglar alarm, CCTV cameras....) Not good when we're away on holiday - usually it's the neighbours who hear the burglar alarm going off after 12 hours or so, and who kindly come in and reset things for us. Or phone us on the mobile so that we can organise things.

Admittedly, we're unusually vulnerable to spikes and drop-outs. We're out in the sticks with overhead power lines to the house and pylons within half a mile, and we tend to feel the effects when some neighbouring farmer turns on his grain drier. The problem used to happen ten times a year - nowadays it's three times a year, which I suppose is an improvement?

Either way, I doubt that our problem is that rare. Oh, the joys of modern life.

BJ

[Itsallaguess]

Anyway how long was the 'outage'?

Not exactly the end of the world. I remember in my grandfather's house when they had Tilley lamps, and in fact before I moved to where I now live we were regularly cut off in periods of high demand. It was no big deal.

I think one of the problems nowadays that didn't exist then is our almost complete reliance on 24-hours news-feeds with which to learn about what's going on in these situations.

Yesterday's outages were so widespread that most mobile networks were also out, and so people were sitting on the tubes in darkness wondering if there's been some sort of terror attack or something, which can't have been nice...

Not sure if there's a solution for that, when these large-scale blackouts occur, but I think it's different being able to cope with these types of things when we're at home with some alternative lighting sources, compared to perhaps being out and about in underground situations where it was bright light five seconds ago and now you're in complete darkness and a situation that you're not used to, with no way of knowing what's really going on...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[AF62]

Anyway how long was the 'outage'? Not exactly the end of the world.

Apparently long enough to 'fry the brains' of all the wizzy new computerised trains which Thameslink have introduced over the last couple of years, so at exactly the same time 20 or so trains ground to a halt across the network.

The LNER trains and the old Great Northern sheds from the 80s restarted fine after the glitch, but the new Thameslink stock was dead as a dodo and stuck all over the place so anything running couldn't get past.

Result was chaos at Kings Cross as virtually nothing left to take people home, so lots of people in expensive taxis or hotels or sleeping on floors, and I believe one train from Scotland eventually turned up about 16 hours late.

So for some it wasn't great.

[bungeejumper]

Yesterday's outages were so widespread that most mobile networks were also out, and so people were sitting on the tubes in darkness wondering if there's been some sort of terror attack or something, which can't have been nice...

Not sure if there's a solution for that, when these large-scale blackouts occur, but I think it's different being able to cope with these types of things when we're at home with some alternative lighting sources, compared to perhaps being out and about in underground situations where it was bright light five seconds ago and now you're in complete darkness and a situation that you're not used to, with no way of knowing what's really going on...

I don't know. How hard can it be to require rail companies to maintain backup power resources, as hospitals do? (Yeah, I know, Ipswich failed on that one as well...)

BJ

[Dod101]

I expect you are all correct and that we are so reliant on electricity these days. At my previous house I think that my problem was similar to BJ's. Now I have a transformer across the road from me and my feed comes under the road from it. (I do not know how the transformer is fed mind you)

Dod

[jackdaww]

Didn't we have regular planned two hour power cuts every night in the 70s. Was it the winter of discontent or the miner's strike?

John

======

edward heaths three day week perhaps ?