Europe possible blackout March 20th

[sobek]

The one thing I immediately noticed about that NASA animation is that the actual footprint of the eclipse misses the entire land mass of Europe, and instead passes across the Baltic, and impinges only on a couple of islands therein. Or had that little detail entirely slipped your notice?

 

That's just the total eclipse. There is still the partial eclipse that will effect large parts of europe.

 

Second, if it lasts for 2 minutes or thereabouts, at no point in the traverse would the entire 30 GW you quote be affected, only a very small section of it at any moment. Thirdly, whenever a cloud crosses the face of the sun this same phenomenon would result, and therefore there will already be provision within the system for such a "catastrophic" event.

 

I am in general of the opinion that this is a manageable problem, but this really made my hair stand up to no end.

 

The moon is a bit further from earth's surface than a simple cloud and the moon is a bit bigger. Therefore, the amount of land mass that is simultaneously affected by shadows cast by the moon and by a simple cloud is nowhere near comparable.

 

So for goodness sake, stop this wild scaremongering, and try getting together a few facts BEFORE you attempt to instil panic across the face of Europe.

 

I think we should all check our facts rigorously before accusing anybody of anything. In fact, how about we leave the accusing completely out of it.

[jcbak]

Stupid question.....what happens at night?

[GeorgeLKMT]

Nobody is fear mongering. ENTSO-E issued an analysis of what might happen and informed the public about the steps that european power operators are going to make. That's how it works in this world, they know the risk and preparing for it as opposed to waiting for disaster to happen. That's all.

 

Only one who is fear mongering are the guys who only read news titles and thinking this is some kind of doomsday preaching

 

Impact Analysis PDF

FAQ PDF

[sobek]

Stupid question.....what happens at night?

 

Production goes down, but also demand goes down. All happens very gradually and very predictably.

[sobek]

Surely the onus would be on the wild speculator to find a single plausible warning produced by ANYONE in the industry or academia. Show me something like that, and I will gladly eat humble pie.

 

Let aside that i am a postgrad student of audio/electrical engineering, how about what the French grid operator RTE had to say to Reuters news agency?

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/07/us-europe-solar-eclipse-idUSKBN0IR16S20141107

[sobek]

Show me the academic paper that concludes that Europe will be blacked out on the 20th.

 

When did i ever state anything along these lines? I simply contested your argument that by accounting for clouds, the problems that arise from the ecclipse are well accounted for, among some other hair raising (and factually wrong) assumptions you brought up in support of your claims.

 

And regarding your attitude, you should actually read my posts here and look at my general position regarding the issue before you try to start a straw man argument with me.

 

Fearmongering is dangerous, but so is the crass underplaying of the issue you exhibit.

 

Edit:

 

I said a plausible warning, and I am still waiting for something - anything, that supports the original claim.

 

How about the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity then:

 

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/20-March-Solar-Eclipse.aspx

 

This is exactly what i've been saying from the get go, it will take effort from the grid operators but it will most likely be a manageable situation.

 

Edit2:

Page 38:

https://www.entsoe.eu/Documents/Publications/SDC/141201_Winter_Outlook_2014-15_Summer_Review_2014.pdf

 

Again the report clearly states that the power engineers see this as enough of a concern to initiate adequacy studies to ensure that the measures at their disposal are indeed sufficient to mitigate a potential power surge during the eclipse.

Edited March 12, 2015 by sobek

[sobek]

I still say that it is utterly wrong to dispense doom and gloom predictions. After all, how many of them have proved true in the past?

 

That's your scientific take on the matter? To continue to misstate my stance regarding the issue, then argue against points i didn't bring up? Fine, i guess you don't need me or anybody else for that.

 

If you wish to have a sensible discussion with me, please read and try to comprehend what i'm saying. I will not entertain your strawman tactics any longer.

Edited March 12, 2015 by sobek

[xxJohnxx]

I am not entirely sure why I am accused to "instil panic across the face of Europe" as I wrote several times that it is not a likely event that it will happen, but it is theoretically possible.

 

See the first post:

 

IF and only IF the weather is sunny in Germany at that time there is a risk that this happens. And believe me, the power providers will have all their experts sitting in their control rooms that day, just to be prepared and do everything they can to prevent it. However, with some bad luck, the power grid will go dark that day.

 

[...]

 

Though the chances are quit low, it could theoretically happen.

 

I am not trying to create panic across Europe (don't really think I could if I wanted too), but just wanted to inform. As I tried to point out in the very first post, it is not very likely that it will happen, however there is a possibility that it could.

 

Will it happen? Probably not.

Would it affect entire Europe if it happened? Most likely, yes.

 

 

As I wrote in my second post, the stuff about the related problems is coming from a technical briefing our local power company did last Tuesday (10th of March), held by one of theirs control room shift bosses.

 

As said, they are currently preparing for it, making plans in both, prevention of the blackout and also restoring of the power grid in case it would actually come to said blackout.

What will happen on that day depends on a lot of factors, first off, the weather. If huge parts of Germany are covered by overcast, it won't be a problem. If a huge part of Germany has clear skies it can become a problem.

As said, everything is done to prevent it, however it is a difficult task.

 

If it will be successful, which it probably will be, we won't even notice it. However, the chance still remains, and while I can't give you an exact percentage, it definitely could come to a blackout given the odds are there.

[cichlidfan]

Well, I hope you have crystal clear skies so they can figure out if they know what they are doing.

[xxJohnxx]

Yep, like when the sun goes down every evening? :thumbup::lol:

 

Stupid question.....what happens at night?

 

Well, this is a bit a different thing.

 

The sunrise and sunset are fairly slow compared to the eclipse. As sobek provided, it will not be instant, but compared to a normal sunrise/sunset it will defiantly be.

 

Have a look at this chart:

 

 

 

 

This is the solar power production throughout the day. Starting at around 5 o'clock in the morning, the solar power production increases from 0GW up to 25GW during noon and decreases again.

Incidently, in the same time frame the energy consumption through the country goes up (industry starts working, people start cooking, etc.).

 

This is quit visible in this chart:

 

 

Again, a chart representing the German power production. As you can see, the daily peak is pretty much satisfied by the solar power. The "conventional power" (nuclear, coal, (oil), gas and water), as it is called in the chart only have to change their output by a relatively small margin to satisfy the demand through the day.

 

It is worth mentioning, that nuclear and coal power plants normally operate on a fixed power level, where the power output is seldom changed as such changes are slow and most of these plants are only really paying off at full capacity.

Very fast changes in the network (such as partial obstruction of solar panels due to weather) are usually compensated by water pump storage power-plants, often located in the south of Germany, Switzerland and Austria (basically in alpine terrain).

Pump storage power-plants often can go from 100% production to 100% consumption within a minute. In former years normally water was pumped into the uphill reservoir during the night (with cheap nuclear energy) and let down during the day to provide peak energy (morning and noon) briefly until gas plants could take over.

However, with the renewable energies becoming more and more common, the behaviour of water pump storage power-plants has changed. On an average day they now often quickly switch from pumping to production and back again, to sometimes consume and sometimes produce power, just to keep the net stable* and the power demand satisfied.

Water pump storage power-plants are not very efficient. Only about 50% of the energy that they use to pump water up the hill can be recovered when letting the water down again. But with these plants it is not about efficiency, it is about regulating the network.

That's why more and more of them are becoming necessary because of increased solar and wind power production.

(Worth mentioning that a few new designs even have operation modes in which they basically just "waste" energy. Pumps and turbines are operated at the same time, basically routing the water around a small loop. While it allows for better regulation (power consumption can be finer adjusted) it is connected with huge losses in efficiency, which is actually not that unwanted.)

 

Slower changes in the network are accommodated by gas power plants that have good reaction times and often are cheaper to operate than their pump storage power plants.

 

Day and night cycles are no problem, because the infrastructure had to be built around it.

The same infrastructure will come into play once the eclipse covers Europe, however it is just more challenging to manage the problem because of it's relative quick speed.

 

*There are a couple of factors that are critical for a stable net. Generally the power production has to met the power consumption.

One of the most critical parameters is the network's frequency, which is usually 50Hz in Europe.

If you produce more power than necessary, the frequency will go up, if you produce to little power the frequency will go down.

 

You can compare it to a drive shaft. The engines (generators) rotate the shaft which rotates the wheels (consumers). The rpm of that shaft has to be constant. If you disconnect a whole lot of engines (in this case solar panels) the rpm will go down.

 

Now this sounds boring, but take a look at this chart:

 

 

This shows the frequency-diagram of the 4th November 2006. The initial step drop from 50Hz down to around 49,2Hz was due to a couple of power plants disconnecting after a power line switched off.

However, only a few power plants where directly connected to that line that failed. However, the few plants that failed caused the frequency to fall that much that other power plants performed emergency shutdowns because they where outside of operating parameters.

The operators however reacted quickly enough and disconnected parts of France, Germany and Poland from the power grid, reducing the load on the network and allowing for the network to recover. After around 2 hours power was restored in most places. However, if the operators hadn't managed to reduce the loads on the network more of Europe would have been affected.

Another similar incident started off in Italy, which again nearly caused the whole European grid to collapse.

[sobek]

I recently read an article that a few startups were trying to install (small) chemical accumulator type plants to further ease stabilizing the net. Will be interesting to see if that really becomes profitable. The advantage would be that you can build those anywhere, not just in mountaineous regions.

Edited March 12, 2015 by sobek

[Aginor]

Wait, what? You cannot be serious.

Even if you cover 90% of the sun (which will not be case for everything but a very small part of Europe) you won't even notice it is any darker. The sun is f***ing bright.

Also the thing happens gradually, Actually it happens more gradually than sunset or a storm front moving over Europe. It takes hours to reach its maximum (which, again, is not even enough that people in Germany for example will notice anything is happening by looking outside).

 

Nothing will happen.

 

And btw: Please, guys: Don't look at the sun. Not even if you are in Iceland where you could notice something is happening. Not even through smoked glass plates or something similar. ONLY use proper filters that were made for that particular purpose. You WILL damage your eyes otherwise.

 

Otherwise: Have fun! I will certainly have some, since I am going to turn my telescope (including a sun filter) toward to the sun to watch it. :)

Edited March 12, 2015 by Aginor

[sobek]

Even if you cover 90% of the sun (which will not be case for everything but a very small part of Europe) you won't even notice it is any darker. The sun is f***ing bright.

 

Just because your eyes adapt doesn't mean that it's not getting darker. The power output of a solar cell is directly proportional to light intensity.

[Aginor]

Your eyes can pick up changes in brightness pretty well. You don't notice it becomes darker because it doesn't become much darker, unless you cover much more of the sun.

The moon's shadow is pretty small on earth. It cannot block the sun well enough to shield us from those mind-boggling 1367 Watts per square meter the sun is shooting at us, every second and that is reflected by the ground and scattered by the atmosphere.

It simply isn't getting that much darker. It is not a linear effect, since we are not out in space but on a planet.

The sun is huge, and even a small part of it is very bright.

 

EDIT:

All of you should watch the eclipse and post here when it happens, and share your experiences! It is really fascinating.

 

EDIT2: Here's an article that doesn't get it quite right either, but almost. Take a look:

http://insideenergy.org/2014/10/25/ie-questions-how-does-a-solar-eclipse-effect-solar-power/

Edited March 12, 2015 by Aginor

[sobek]

It was estimated that, worst case (that means no clouds), power output might drop on the order of 30GW during the event. That's a hell of a lot less power.

[Aginor]

Just like it does in other conditions. The sun-blocking effect of everything less than 80% of totality is lower than that happening during a normal day in spring or fall.

 

And if they are really scared they can just take a few of those solar panels of the grid before the eclipse happens.

 

I am pretty sure nothing will happen.

EDIT: Except an exciting astronomical event of course! :)

Edited March 12, 2015 by Aginor

[sobek]

Just like it does in other conditions.

 

Correct, but not in such short time.

 

I am pretty sure nothing will happen.

 

Most likely, but it is noteworthy to say that grid operators are preparing contingency plans, so it's definately not a non-issue.

[xxJohnxx]

I recently read an article that a few startups were trying to install (small) chemical accumulator type plants to further ease stabilizing the net. Will be interesting to see if that really becomes profitable. The advantage would be that you can build those anywhere, not just in mountaineous regions.

 

Yes, battery type designs are one possible solution to the whole stabilization problem.

Some also hope that electric/hybrid cars could also be used for similar purposes, however that would still be far away.

 

However, another approach that undergoes heavy development recently is the so called "Smart Grid". The general plan is to adjust the power consumption and not the production. This would be basically done with digital controllers in private homes that can regulate the output for certain devices such as washing machines, heating systems and boilers (which is already done) and other stuff like that, that is not really time critical and could possibly wait a few hours for a better moment to be turned on.

First digital power counters have been installed that allow remote monitoring of the electrical consumption of a household. While they are not around in huge numbers yet (at least with our local providers), as it is only a public test to see how well the technology works, devices like these will server as predecessors to that "Smart Grid".

 

And if they are really scared they can just take a few of those solar panels of the grid before the eclipse happens.

 

Not quit, that's the problem. While they will switch off large solar panel arrays (airports, bigger private installations, ...) they will not be able to switch of private solar panel installations as they are operating autonomous. Whenever there can be electrical energy produced they will output it into the network, independent if the electrical grid can take more power or not.

Again, some new private installations have remote control possibilities, however there is only a few of them around at this point.

The majority of electrical solar power that is produced however, is exactly from the private households that don't have any remote control possibility, which why this whole problem even is around.

 

Of course the easiest solution is to keep all solar power production shut off for that day, however that is technically just not possible.

 

I am pretty sure nothing will happen.

EDIT: Except an exciting astronomical event of course! :)

 

Yes, most likely we won't notice it, but the potential would be there. :smilewink:

[Aginor]

Correct, but not in such short time.

 

No. Sunset is faster. And so are storm fronts. We are talking of two hours here.

[xxJohnxx]

No. Sunset is faster. And so are storm fronts. We are talking of two hours here.

 

You have to consider that even if sunset is faster, as you can see in the graphs I posted on the previous page, it takes quit long for the solar panels to reach peak energy output (because of the angle sunlight hits them), which is around noon.

[Aginor]

I think the article I posted earlier explains why this might actually be a non-issue. Although I admit that this eclipse is a bit different to the one the data is based on.

[WolfK33]

There´s an official press release out about this from the german "Bundesamt für Bevölkerungsschutz und Katastrophenhilfe" (Federal Agency for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid), recommending preparing with some supplies, battery-powered radios, flashlights etc...

 

In german, obviously...

http://www.bbk.bund.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/BBK/DE/2015/Sonnenfinsternis.html

[=Pedro=]

Hi guys,

 

Just wanted to share some knowledge about a possible blackout next week.

 

As you might know, around noon (Europe Time) there is a solar eclipse going on in Europe:

 

 

Apparently taking around 2 minutes and 2 seconds, where most of Europe will be dark.

 

While you might not directly the moon blocking sunlight to the electrical power grid, this is actually a problem next week. However, it all depends on the weather, more specific the weather in Germany. As well as some luck or lack off.

 

But let me explain:

In the recent years the German government invested a lot of money in solar power funding. Many households therefore have solar panels installed. The total installed power capacity in Germany is 40GW (equalling 40 average nuclear power plants, or 50% of Germany's total power consumption of 80GW). During a sunny day this time of year all the solar panels can produce up to 30GW of energy.

 

30GW? What does that even mean?

 

Well, as an example: Gaming PCs often have power supplies in the 1000Watt range, so lets take that as an example:

 

1000W = 1kW (kilo Watt) = 0,001MW (Mega Watt) = 0,000001GW (Giga Watt).

 

As you can see, you could power a lot of PCs from that 30GW that will just suddenly turn off, because the panels can't produce power without sunlight.

 

This will be a problem for the power grid in Germany, because a lot of power plants have to basically ramp up from off to full output in a matter of seconds. Only a few power plants can do that and they are way to few to counteract the loss.

As a possible reaction to that, some cities/industries could be deliberately disconnected from the network to shed load.

 

However, the panels turning off is not the problem, the problem is the panels coming back online again. Because 2 minutes later, suddenly there are the 30GW of solar power again, that you don't need because you turned on your power plants a second ago. Now it is difficult to turn the power plants off quick enough, and it is even more difficult to add a load (especially if you didn't shed one 2 minutes ago).

Now this could become a critical point, which won't only affect Germany but due to the way the grid works, whole Europe.

 

IF and only IF the weather is sunny in Germany at that time there is a risk that this happens. And believe me, the power providers will have all their experts sitting in their control rooms that day, just to be prepared and do everything they can to prevent it. However, with some bad luck, the power grid will go dark that day.

 

The possible blackout could last from anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days, depending on how well the grid recovers, the location and some luck.

 

 

Too sum this up, maybe get some candles and a good book ready, because you might need it. Though the chances are quit low, it could theoretically happen.

If it doesn't you at least read about how fragile the whole European power grid is and how well it actually works. If it does, well at least you know why. :thumbup:

 

John

Have you ever heard about batterys and capacitors? XD

 

We're all doomed ;)

[Bob-68]

Not to worry, if you can get your hands on a Delorean, all you'll need is just 1.21 GW of power and you can jump ahead in time by 2 minutes and 2 seconds and skip it all.

[sobek]

Impact Analysis PDF

 

This deserves some more attention, i think. This is an in-depth analysis from ENTSOE about the worst case power output gradient across the European countries.

 

It also states that (based on experience from the total ecplipse in 1999) human demand variations during the eclipse are expected to surpass the photovoltaic effects (people stopping work to look at the eclipse).

Edited March 13, 2015 by sobek