Huge power outage in London and the se..

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

makes you think…

Ah, the old ‘London/SE = Large swathes of the UK’ chestnut 🙄

Not much point putting the news online – how will those affected find out ?

Power operators for the South East, Midlands, South West and Wales said there was a “major incident” affecting electricity.

UK Power Networks said it believed it was due to a “failure on National Grid’s network”.

Power failures, terrible weather (and Boris of course) I’m not exactly looking forward to the holidays finishing and going home

In fairness it went off in Newcastle.

And not even all of the South East

In fairness it went off in Newcastle.

Aye, but that’s not how the initial reports were written. Becoming more accurate now though, to be fair.

Which part of Newcastle can’t say I noticed?

Which part of Newcastle can’t say I noticed?

The bit that has electricity Drac. Not the bit where you are. Just keep feeding the hamster.

I’ve been saying for ages that terrorists are getting it all wrong, running around a city with a knife, as terrifying and tragic as it can be, is futile. Infrastructure issues could cripple the country….

Given I live near where the first private house to get electricity in the world is that’s slightly ironic.

But regardless I’m not at home today I’m on the outskirts of Newcastle.

Power out in parts of Stockport too

Given I live near where the first private house to get electricity in the world is that’s slightly ironic.

Castle Frankenstein?

This one?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cragside

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/hydropower-returns-to-cragside

That’s the one. 😂

Yup IGM I’m mixed up it was the first to be hydropowered.

Newcastle and the surrounding area really is the cradle of UK electricity.

I mean London had a bit, but Armstrong, Mertz and the like – impressive.

They’re probably practicing shutting down the grid ready for Oct 31st and Brexit day. I think we all get issued with stone age tools so won’t be needing electricity anymore…

Yup including lightbulbs before America claimed it.

That’s why I always laugh when southerners make jokes about that we only just got electricity.

Huh! Had my powercut over a week ago. It was just my road, we were out from half 7 til after 3am.
Bike lights are a handy item to have in the house.

I’ve been saying for ages that terrorists are getting it all wrong, running around a city with a knife, as terrifying and tragic as it can be, is futile. Infrastructure issues could cripple the country….

Die Hard 4 style. Wouldn’t take long – most infrastructure in the UK is running about 95+% capacity most of the time, there’s not a right lot of leeway before it all falls over.

cyber-attack ?

SEIA bill, inspired by the 2015 cyber-attack on Ukraine’s power grid, passes Senate.
US wants to isolate power grids with ‘retro’ technology to limit cyber-attacks

most infrastructure in the UK is running about 95+% capacity most of the time

That’s the smart grid dream.

Presently it’s probably nearer 30% to 60% on the electricity network depending on how you count it. Of course there are reasons why that’s a good utilisation. And why some smart grid stuff will take us beyond that.

Of course the 99.99% availability that you get from an average electricity supply is something we have grown used to.
When the lights do go out it’s not fun – but spare a thought for my colleagues who are out in all weathers, floods, gales, snow storms, getting them back on.

Around 1989-90, the IRA damaged the North Circular bridge over the end of the M1. It was traffic chaos for weeks around the area.
If they had also targeted the M4/M25, M23/M25 and A2/M20/M25 then large parts of the South East would be grid locked.
Traffic has got worse since. However , that would really P-off millions of people for weeks, so it’d do nothing for their cause.

However , that would really P-off millions of people for weeks, so it’d do nothing for their cause.

I think you might be misunderstanding the point of terrorism

Infrastructure seems to a very obvious target, I’m assuming the powers that be know this and have plans in place 🤞

`Electric car owners all putting them on charge at the same time…

However , that would really P-off millions of people for weeks, so it’d do nothing for their cause.

I think you might be misunderstanding the point of terrorism

Indeed, I reckon blowing people up pissed a lot of people off too.

National Grid: Two generators cause big frequency drop

Interesting background reading.

I know the guy in that pic 🙂 Listening with interest to R4 Today programme – National Grid boss on there in a min with John Humphrys.

Quite alarming that there was apparently no backup power for the lighting in parts of the tube network (or if there was, it took a significant amount of time to come on).

Even our shitty old office has a bunch of LED escape lights with batteries inside that automatically come on the instant there’s a power outage.

I wonder if offshore wind tripped due to the high winds? UK Wind graphed here

Higher amounts of offshore power at other times of the day but I guess gust speed is important.

^ that article is interesting and clear as to why.

I know Scotland runs on renewable energy regularly. Does this mean we have more of this ‘synthetic frequency generation’ in-built already via Cruachan or other devices?

All I can say is think yourselves lucky the power was back on in hours, if the grid had collapsed up here we could have been looking at up to a week starting up on imports.

Now, something something baseload, something something grid stability. This is why replacing everything with renewables, at this stage, is not a viable proposition. Cruachan wil probably be used to smooth out but if it really went to pot we have nothing to restart ourselves.

squirrelking – just a shame westminster blocked the Scottish governments plans to have blackstart capacity. Unfortunatly without strategic planning then this sort of incident will continue to get more frequent. Power should be a state monopoly

TJ – got a link? I’ve never heard anything about the SG having anything blocked.

I had a tour around ratclife power station not long ago, they can “cold start” from no power (aparrently not all can), room after room of lead acid batteries as a last resort.
I didnt realise the national grid buy the electricity from the power station, Fasinating place could have walked around for hours.

Yes security was high.

Today will be squeaky bum time for managers at Ipswich General Hospital – let’s hope ventilators had well charged back-up batteries.

Shows how tightly things are run when a wind farm and a single gas powered generator can lead to network instability.

My father-in-law was the commissioning engineer on the first extension lead to all that French nuclear power.