Major power failures in Spain, France and Portugal

Just read about this. Internet is down a lot of places as well. A Spanish official, Juanma Moreno, president of the Andalusian regional government, told reporters a cyber attack is the most likely cause according to information provided him by the Andalusian Cybersecurity Center.
 
It's bad enough when things happen & your at home when it does. I can't imagine the people who are from other countries on vacation or business & what they may be thinking. It may be hard for them to find out the details of what is going on where they're at.

It's not going to be easy for residents or visitors until it everything is back up. I hope they find out what and/or who did this.
 

Other officials than the Andalusian guy above are saying that it's too early to tell if a cyber attack is the cause but that it hasn't been ruled out.

A Spanish power company estimates 6-10 hours to restoration.
 
I wonder if hospitals & other essential services have back up generators to work off of like we do here?

Growing up we always had the basics for any problems that could happen & I never gave it another thought then. I still have the basic, but over the years I've expanded based on needs. I also thought about the 'what-ifs' after things have happened any where wondering if other things may be needed. Just me.
 
Falling down the rabbit hole trying to find out more info. This blurb is from the beginning of an article in the India Times:

Synopsis: Massive Power Blackout Spain Portugal France has left millions without electricity, disrupting cities like Madrid, Lisbon, and parts of southern France. The blackout shut down airports, trains, metros, and even mobile networks. Authorities are investigating, with a possible cyber attack or fire damage to a French high-voltage line suspected. Power restoration could take between six to ten hours, officials say. Emergency services are urging people to stay home and keep emergency lines clear. Here's a full breakdown of what caused the chaos, the recovery efforts underway, and how life across Spain and Portugal has come to a sudden stop.

Read more at: What could be the reason for total blackout in Spain, Portugal and France and how long will it take to restore power?
 
Holy moley!!! Terrible situation. I hope they get the power up and running soon. I also hope this was not the act of terrorists. Power grids are certainly vulnerable to cyber attacks these days. This is also what we can expect if there's ever a major coronal mass ejection (CME aka solar flare). Uch an event is projected to knock out power grids & cell service for weeks, if not months.
 
Last edited:
This came along just days after Spain went "all renewable."

The nature of the outage was such that it fell within a hair of taking out all of Europe.

While originally blamed on "a Russian hack" with no evidence, the current tale blames "rare atmospheric anomalies." Whatever the real cause, it seems that what occurred based on power logs was that units in the (now) highly-distributed inverter network fell out of sync with each other. An all too common problem with such systems and one that requires constant attention. It's like balancing thousands of pencils on their points all at once constantly. The 50Hz Euro-standard only amplifies the problem by narrowing tolerances.
 
dilettante said:
This came along just days after Spain went "all renewable."

The nature of the outage was such that it fell within a hair of taking out all of Europe.

While originally blamed on "a Russian hack" with no evidence, the current tale blames "rare atmospheric anomalies." Whatever the real cause, it seems that what occurred based on power logs was that units in the (now) highly-distributed inverter network fell out of sync with each other. An all too common problem with such systems and one that requires constant attention. It's like balancing thousands of pencils on their points all at once constantly. The 50Hz Euro-standard only amplifies the problem by narrowing tolerances.
Click to expand...
With all the different sources of power with different capabilities that seems like it should've been accounted for just for all the batteries involved in green energy. They'll drain at different rates. The simpler an electric circuit the better.

I saw the same 'cause'. One said temperature swings in the atmosphere cause oscillation in high voltage transmission lines.
 
@Pendle, I think the main problem with all of the infrastructure around the world is that is run by computers & those computers are linked to the net which allows the chance for them to be hacked by bad actors.

It may be convenient & cheaper to be able to run everything from a central location elsewhere, but is it really worth putting them at risk in the long run?
 
Yesterday I had wanted to watch some of the Mutua Madrid tennis tournament but play had been cancelled due to the power failure. I tried to get scores again today and play was suspended again for the same reason. So glad all of Europe was not impacted by this. :p
 
I heard that Spain has been pushing, green energy, solar
power and wind power, they pushed so hard and fast, that
they cut corners!

The weather phenomena, that they reported, but didn't say
any more, sounds like too much demand at night, with no
wind to drive the turbines, it has got fairly warm here and
there will be a demand for Air-Con with not enough power.

They are pushing the green energy here too, against advice,
the Spanish fiasco, should be a warning.

Mike.
 
Mike said:
I heard that Spain has been pushing, green energy, solar
power and wind power, they pushed so hard and fast, that
they cut corners!

The weather phenomena, that they reported, but didn't say
any more, sounds like too much demand at night, with no
wind to drive the turbines, it has got fairly warm here and
there will be a demand for Air-Con with not enough power.

They are pushing the green energy here too, against advice,
the Spanish fiasco, should be a warning.

Mike.
Click to expand...

What's being reported--for the moment, it changes!-- is that solar farms may have actually caused the outage.

Spain's energy company warned investors in February this could happen. Spain bragged about being 100% renewable on April 16 but forgot to mention they hadn't installed the expensive fail-safes that tying in green energy to the electrical grid requires.

What Caused Spain and Portugal’s Massive Power Outage?

Electricity transmission system operators must balance generation and load continuously to maintain frequency, requiring adjustments to generation and availability of reserve capacity. In a traditional grid of coal, gas, and nuclear power plants and hydroelectric generators, the grid can self-stabilize because those generators have enormous amounts of inertia and store huge amounts of kinetic energy. If the load exceeds generation, these generators can supply some of the stored energy back to the grid. Thus, they contribute to reliability and resilience by helping the grid recover quickly after a disturbance due to unexpected changes in generation or load. In contrast, solar and wind generators do not provide inertia and frequency control services, unless fitted with special equipment, which is rare and expensive.
 
Last edited:
One of the things I noticed in some of the reports is that Spain nuclear power plants basically went off line producing minimal power during the outage. Is that for safety during a catastrophic or total failure?
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top