The right wing press is running very hard with "it's net zero's fault innit". Something to do with renewables not being able to respond to shocks because of low physical inertia in the system.
The experts they have found are not actually saying this the cause but what made it so serious - but you don't exactly get that from the headlines.in the Telegraph or Mail
Unfortunately, no matter wether heavy use of solar/wind was a genuine factor or not, the whole situation will become a stick the right uses to beat the green agenda with for years.
Hopefully there will be some considered analysis reported once the causes are identified and understood
Isn't more inertia in the system only useful if you have some action you can take in the extra time it gives you to avoid the trip?
In this scenario, might not of made much difference.
The right wing press is running very hard with "it's net zero's fault innit". Something to do with renewables not being able to respond to shocks because of low physical inertia in the system.
.........
Hopefully there will be some considered analysis reported once the causes are identified and understood
I suspect that the considered analysis will not feature in the right wing headlines in quite the same way though.
'Isn't more inertia in the system only useful if you have some action you can take in the extra time it gives you to avoid the trip?
Intertia in this case is the ability of the grid to maintain its 50% frequency. Maintaining that is critical as a seemingly very small mismatch can cause some very significant damage, (one of the reasons why generators usually take themselves off line if a mismatch is detected). Traditional generators involving spinning alternators are good for this. A lot of the newer renewables though have no inertia as such, so as more renewables are added the grid tends to be a bit less stable.
This is quite different to having some excess flexible capacity to absorb peaks and troughs. That can be provided by smaller, more responsive generators, battery backup, hydro etc.
The irony of the right-wing press blaming this on renewables is spectacular, when the cause is likely down to decades of under-investment in the infrastructure across Europe as a whole. Pretty much every inverter/battery storage system has the capability to respond to instructions from grid management software and almost instantly sink or supply reactive power into the network.
It's implemented and proven in Australia. Why isn't it in the UK or Europe? Because we handed the smart meter contracts to the company which offered the largest bribes instead of doing it properly. No smart meter on the market today has the necessary RS485 connection to instruct the inverter how to behave as the grid is approaching its lower or upper frequency limit, so all of this extra capacity to manage the issue is wasted.
Definitely makes me want rooftop solar and a battery more than I already did
Also enjoying the internet knowing what it is. It's a cyber attack! It's Russia! It's Trump! It's the fault of EU regulations! No, it's solar! No, it's nuclear! No, it's net zero! No, it's underinvestment! No, it's electricity imports! No, it's communism, no, it's capitalism.
(I bet 10p it's capitalism)
You'll need a system that can run off-grid (islanded) that's not a normal setup, certainly for the UK. Most UK setups shut down generation when the grid is off.
the thing about the amospheric conditions is that usually if engineers are making a thing that can be done in by such natural causes, they build in a big olde safety factor. If it does end up failing, its usually really obvious why - there's a hurriance or a drought or a heatwave or whatever.
The generators trip if there's a massive power outage like that. Because there's no grid to synchronise to and nowhere to send the power. The power station operators really need to hope their DC backup batteries and protective systems were working properly or there could be some seriously knackered turbines and generators to repair.
This sounds exactly like a black start scenario to me.
This why I said the term "black start" is confusing.
To me (working on the process side) "Blackstart" implies you have nothing. The plant has gone cold, you've got no compressed / instrument air, the control systems are switched off.
There's electrical side issues in bringing them back online, but on the steam side (whether it's coal, gas, oil or nuclear boiling the water) you've got a whole other set of blackstart issues for example. Your control valves need air pressure to operate (the stem is pushed up and down pneumatically by a diaphragm), you can't get instrument air without the instrument air compressor (might be electric or steam driven), your compressor isn't running because you have neither steam nor electricity, you can't get steam or electricity because the valves are closed, so you end up in a circular problem of nothing in the plant can be started because it's all interdependent.
AIUI the generators should have 'tripped' by isolating themselves from the grid, furnaces etc will have turned themselves down, but the system keeps warm and self sustaining until it's time to re-connect it.
'Isn't more inertia in the system only useful if you have some action you can take in the extra time it gives you to avoid the trip?
In this case it at least in part literally means the flywheel effect of big generators spinning at 50hz.
If I flick my kettle* on the generator feels that load as a braking force, and the flywheel slows, the steam turbine on the other side then reacts to maintain that speed.
If one generator is somehow out of phase with another (i.e. it's been disconnected) then you get a difference in voltage between them (just visualize the sine waves shifted left/right slightly) and that balances out as one acts as a drag on the other. That generates both huge spikes in current and a great big bang as the alternators synchronize. So the aim is to connect them after they've been synchronized. There's a spinning dial on the control panel** that shows how out of phase you are, if it's spinning then you're fast /or slow, if it's stopped it shows you're at the right speed, and the pointer is how far out of phase you are. The aim is to stop it spinning at 12 o'clock. Then with the grid already balanced and your alternator spinning at no load you can connect the two. If you then open the steam valve to the turbine it will try and speed up the alternator, but because it and every other alternator on the grid are now connected it's trying to accelerate every one together which it will find hard to do as applying more torque, pushes your alternator slightly out of phase, the current*** goes up, someone else's goes down and is now acting as a break on your system. That's the inertia.
If for example the sun suddenly came out then the load on all those alternators drops and they speed up, and the steam valve has to be closed a bit and the boiler turned down, that's the issue with a lack of inertia.
Solar and wind have none of that, their inverter just generates a sine wave to match the grid.
*it would need to be a massive kettle obviously to have a measurable impact.
**more likely a digital gauge these days I guess.
*** I'm saying current for simplicity, AC electrics are complicated as you have voltage, current and frequency,
Its interesting being sat in the middle of Die Hard 4.0 thou.
It could have been a nuclear attack or aliens invading as once you have no phone signal you're unaware.
That did stay on for a while then all dropped out
The only way you can find out is using the car radio to see whats up.
We've been having new substations installed so was expecting it to be that :-).
I'll probably invest in a battery or possibly a wind up radio and some more gas for the jetboil and make sure the pot noodle stack is properly maintained, I only found out last week that the big pot noodles have bigger noodles!!!.
You'll need a system that can run off-grid (islanded) that's not a normal setup, certainly for the UK. Most UK setups shut down generation when the grid is off.
it's my understanding that all solar panels would shut off completely during a power cut (except in the case that you are totally off-grid in which case the power cut is irrelevant!) but batteries could be configured to isolate themselves from the grid & continue to supply power, but that is not standard (which sounds like it would be an extra cost to consider!)
Ah, got you about that level of blackstart TINAS. Would take a while for our place to get that flat and cold, (Connah's Quay Gas CCGT in North Wales) and frankly if Unit 5, (the kettle in the control room mess) is not working, well we may as well just close doors as we leave. 😁 You're referring to coal plants by the sound of it, I guess you're not at a site now?
Good explanation of Synchronous Compensation to maintain grid frequency. There are a few units around the UK now that have no electrical generation capacity, their only function is to provide that Hz stabilisation effect through an enormous spinning mass.
We can rule out a cyber attack.
I know James and would consider him an authority in such matters.
I know James and would consider him an authority in such matters.
his logic seems sound, but he’s only 90% sure… and by their very nature rogue states are unpredictable and not necessarily going to claim success for any particular test attack (to see what’s possible, understand how people/states react)…
that said I think there are more likely explanations including a simple major component fault or an “IT” upgrade where someone hit the wrong button!
of course it always struck me that the people who profit most from cyber threats (or even the media discussing if this might be a cyber attack) are consultants offering their expertise in protecting from those threats!
There's a line in... I think Star Trek First Contact, where Picard tells Data he'll take his best guess over someone else's certainty.
He (James) Went on to say:
Annoyingly the Tesla Powerwall has the domestic grid forming capability desired.
I think you need the second generation gateway IIRC.
Mine works very nicely.
As with Heathrow lots of nonsense being talked out there.
Sounds similar to the event in the UK (2009?) that was contained by LFD.
With that, and possibly this, the problem was not fossil generation or renewable generation but protection settings based on an assumption of a higher proportion of fossil while there was actually more renewable in reality. And a couple of decent common or garden faults and you get cascade tripping.
The UK have addressed the issue going forwards not by going back to fossil generation but by tweaking a couple of protection settings (albeit on lots of generators).
But that was the UK. Texas was completely different and this might have been something completely different again.
I know a few of the folk the press / TV / radio are contacting as experts, and the ones who really are experts are saying “don’t know yet”.
For the above.
Google “grid forming inverter”
You can make DC sources (fully converted wind, solar, batteries) assist with or even control voltage and frequency, but until recently they tended not to (cost and control in a spinning synchronous rotor based system).
Going forwards they may have to.
This looks a reasonable explanation (at least I haven’t spotted the errors yet).
https://energycentral.com/c/iu/grid-forming-vs-grid-following
The weirdies are blaming net zero.
Or there's the Occam's razor approach which is that it was a cascading failure
That's how the Iranians were got IIRC, a single USB stick put into a non-airgapped PC, so if it was hackers they could have got something apparently insignificant that cascaded massively. But a 10% chance of that feels fair.
The weirdies are blaming net zero.
They are probably slightly right and completely wrong at the same time.
It’s not about renewables or fossil, it’s about how you manage your power system / energy system, and understanding that you do it slightly differently for different mixes of generation.
But as for what actually caused this - wait and see. It’s not like we’ve never had a widespread cascade failure on a system with traditional generation.
Profit isn't necessarily financial, and none of the potential motives map here:
- no financial benefit - not even a bank robbery under cover of power outage
- no military benefit, no invasion alongside or any other form of attack alongside
- no political benefit on a nation-state level, if it was nation-state they've just pushed the big red button for zero reward
- if it were hacktivism of some kind, I would expect a statement to have been blasted out by now
Now, there is an argument it could be skiddies, opportunists, or idiots, but then we've got to ask about capabilities. If the European grid was that vulnerable, then we'd be seeing attacks daily.
Ultimately, this is probably correct, as you say, seems most likely.
All the same, 'who benefits' is a datapoint not an analysis. Im reminded of MH-17, much the same logic came out - "Nobody benefits from this, especially not the russians, can't be them". The problem with 'cui bono' is that it doesnt allow for incompetence, in the case of MH17, some idiots got lent a weapon they shouldn't have had. It's not inconceivable something similar could happen with a cyber weapon.
Just finished listening to a trashy audio book called The Disruption Trilogy by RE McDermott. A solar flare kills most of the transformers in the northern hemisphere and the lights go out. The US government prioritises hording of resources and power and leaves the people to fend for themselves. Within days it is full-on rape and pillage, gangs, prison breakouts and a survivalist's wet dream. I guess the ready availability of guns might make that sort of scenario more likely but I was glad to hear that Spain and Portugal managed to hold civilisation together for a few hours.
On the home solar/battery side, ours is grid-linked and when the mains power goes off so does ours, much to the confusion and anger of my family.
Does anyone know how easy it would be to MacGuyver a working system in the event of a semi-apocalypse....just in case...
On the home solar/battery side, ours is grid-linked and when the mains power goes off so does ours, much to the confusion and anger of my family.
Does anyone know how easy it would be to MacGuyver a working system in the event of a semi-apocalypse....just in case...
Hard to enough I wouldn’t bother.
Could you turn off the main circuit breaker in your house so that your house is disconnected from the grid, then get a cheap petrol generator, start it up and plug it into a wall socket, and as long as the generator can supply enough watts, your house should be back in action again.
Obviously if you don't isolate your house from the grid, when the grid comes back on then there could be a big bang.
Can anyone poke holes in my plan?
Can anyone poke holes in my plan?
Reckon your plan might poke holes in the generator, partition walls, people stood nearby etc. 🤣
Dave managed it in the USA...at huge expense.
Dave made a lot of money (I assume) working for Microsoft.
A transfer switch is the key.
Can anyone poke holes in my plan?
My dad used to do exactly that. One of the first things I did after he died was decommission his extension cord with a male plug at each end. Handing in his hoard of cyanide poison was first on the list. His shed should have been preserved as a museum of extremely unsafe workplace practices.
Can anyone poke holes in my plan?
Apart from trying to push 80A through a circuit designed for lower amperage, the wrong side of safety devices and that probably won't power any other circuit (??), no
Obviously if you don't isolate your house from the grid, when the grid comes back on then there could be a big bang.
Strangely, domestic feed-in could have been one hole in the Swiss cheese that caused the Iberian outage, along with too much reliance on solar and wind, too few international interconnects and too few local power stations
You're referring to coal plants by the sound of it, I guess you're not at a site now?
No, I work on the design of oil/gas/petrochemical plants, I've done one waste to energy plant as well, they all generally have on-site generation using either steam turbines or CCGT's with some level of import or export from the grid (or not, it might be incredibly remote). So there's usually some thought put into how to start up the plant with no external power.
There are a few units around the UK now that have no electrical generation capacity, their only function is to provide that Hz stabilisation effect through an enormous spinning mass.
That I didn't know!
Were they built like that or are we just keeping old alternators spinning?
Can anyone poke holes in my plan?
A colleague did that with a solar system. The lead to it was referred to as the death plug because it looked like a standard UK 13A plug, except if you pull it out the pins are live 😬
Swapping the plug / socket around doesn't help either because then the live pins are just live the other 99% of the time.
Various people poking holes in my plan
But in the event of the zombie apocalypse it would work right? OK, it'll have its limitations and risks, and isn't going to pass any safety inspections and is definitely not compliant with any regs, but it'll keep the lights on. Just don't try and run any heavy loads like the oven, or car charger.
NB: For the avoidance of doubt and for those who take things literally I'm not really going to do this, it's just a thought experiment,bit of fun.
Were they built like that or are we just keeping old alternators spinning?
I'm not really up on the details of the design, but the one we own was a repurposed CCGT using the gas turbine as motive power. Think it was a new flywheel rather than just de-bladed ST and disconnected generator.
If anyone wants to have a go at pretending to be a grid eningeer, this is a frustratingly geeky game 🤓
https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/balancing-grid-interactive-game
If anyone’s interested check out the actual electrical content channel on YouTube for a basic theory dumbed down on what happened, there is swearing and an East Midlands accent to contend with though.
Could you turn off the main circuit breaker in your house so that your house is disconnected from the grid, then get a cheap petrol generator, start it up and plug it into a wall socket, and as long as the generator can supply enough watts, your house should be back in action again.
I have a petrol generator and 90A changeover switch, which is the safe way to do it. My question is whether if I switch to the generator, will my solar panels sync to it, so that when the sun shines I can get more amps than the generator itself provides? My research so far suggests that generator output may be too noisy and rough for the inverter to cope with.
If anyone’s interested check out the actual electrical content channel on YouTube for a basic theory dumbed down on what happened, there is swearing and an East Midlands accent to contend with though.
upgrading this reply with a link
I gave up on that video when he talked about that Spanish blackout happening in the UK in the future and taking out supplies to a wide area.
It has already happened in 2019 though LFD saved the country as a whole - https://www.drax.com/opinion/britains-blackout/#chapter-1
And also 2008 - though again it was contained.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/28/power.cuts
These are technical problems or situations not deemed likely enough to design out, not storms or the like, and quite different in terms of what happened.
It happens all over he time at some level.
This was just a big one.
He references large scale outages like this one - https://www.neso.energy/document/152346/download - and that the blackouts themselves aren’t faults but deliberate load shedding to preserve the balance supply and demand and the all important 50Hz
EDIT - same event as the Drax Global link
The graph/timeline on the NESO(/ESO) doc shows how quickly things can go wrong - it's a 2 minute period. I'm waiting to see a similar report for the Spain event, there must be reasonable awareness of the root causes by now.
Yeah, load shedding seems to confuse casual observation a lot, you see wholesale drops in generation at about the same time as the actual issue and it's perfectly natural to assume which way round it happened, but it's definitely both confusing people and also helping support false narratives.
I don't believe it to be connected (sorry!), but I've put this here rather than start a new thread. Watch out you motor-homers 🙂
However, rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some Chinese solar power inverters by U.S experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, the two people said.Over the past nine months, undocumented communication devices, including cellular radios, have also been found in some batteries from multiple Chinese suppliers, one of them said.
Looking like the initial event caused transient instability resulting in a variety of protections doing their job to avoid damage to the equipment they were looking after - but the protection settings were for a mainly rotating plant system, which they didn’t have. Based only on listening to rumours from folk I know not to be daft and adding a little of my own knowledge (I’ve been either working in or running a team that design the network connections for generators and other demand since the late 90s, but there’s still plenty I don’t know)
Worth noting that after one of the two GB events I mentioned (I want to say 2008 but my memory isn’t perfect) we were round changing the RoCoF / LoM protection settings on generation to account for this sort of thing.
PS - there’s going to be a lot of chatter about 1) lack of inertia and 2) why you can’t run a system without heavy rotating plant.
To which the answer is, 1) it’s not the 1950s anymore, low inertia is just a fact and we need to work with it, and 2) yes you can, you do have to operate it and protect it slightly differently though.
We already run low inertia systems with no rotating plant, albeit on a small scale. We already started to make the protection changes to allow it on a wide scale 10 years ago in GB, albeit there will be more changes needed.
For anyone wondering about igm's post up there...
RoCoF protection is Rate of Change of Frequency
LoM protection is Loss of Mains.
I'm not going to pretend I didn't have to look them up!
I saw one writeup which basically said "grids grow organically over long, long timescales out of many many parts and are the sum of the lessons learned from previous failures and always trail a little bit behind the current parameters, and are full of best guesses and outdated requirements or previous not-quite-right best guesses from previous decades, this just looks like the needs have changed and the grid hasn't quite adapted correctly and hasn't had the small shocks to learn from before it had a big shock. Also every national grid is at least a little bit different and weird compared to every other grid".
I have no idea if that's truly accurate but it seems pretty convincing as an overarching explanation, I assume they're a heap of legacy and things that replaced things that replaced things that replaced things that were built on day one of the grid, a mix of forward planning and backwards drag and best guesses and previous changing needs? And that pretty much no national grid actually looks like what you'd design if you sat down and designed one instead of growing it over decades.
