Spain France Portugal power outage

[Beachwaves127]

Looks bad! I haven’t seen much on hospitals / emergency services but I’ve more seen comments on travel - roads trains planes. Hope they can fix it and wonder what caused it.

It's hell here in Portugal. I've had to use the gas hob to boil water for my tea 😭

No one believed the LHR statement though surely

I imagine there's very delicate diplomacy going on behind the scenes in those situations.

According to Sky news the Portuguese operator is saying it’s due to a “rare atmospheric phenomenon” and could last a week. Must be a big phenomenon to have such an impact

Jokes aside, you're feeling confident about power coming back or you'd not be posting here? You'd save your phone battery?

Most people would be able to charge 12v devices from their cars, I'd have thought.

When I worked in retail there was the same system but without power to use the tills it wasnt possible to ring in the goods in the first place so it was only used if the broadband went down but there was still electricity.

Geomagnetic induced currents? Tbf that's always a possibility

From what I heard Heathrow had some power but story seems to be it needed all three (?) Substations feeding to run everything. Once the Hayes feed went down due to the fire loads started to be shed and the operation had to halt until the system could be reconfigured, which took time.

In hindsight what happened there that looks trivial compared with the current 🤔.epic

oh that's good

I thought it was generally agreed that the Heathrow management acted out of an abrupt caution to an accidental fire at the sub station.

What did you not believe?

I'm going full Phillip Pullman trying to imagine exactly what kind of atmospheric phenomenon that could be.... Angelic wars in the upper stratosphere?!

So, Russia or China?

Or an outsider bet on North Korea or Iran?

100/1 odds for eddies in the space-time continuum.

Then your running the risk of not having enough fuel in the car.
Petrol / desil pumps don't work in power cuts either.

But that only works with the older cards that have raised numbers on the front…. How does it work now all new cards just have the number printed on the back?
the supermarket I work at hasn’t upgraded their emergency procedures to factor this in

Depends on your confidence in the battery- you can charge a device just with the ignition switched on, without running the engine. Or run the engine for a little while, just to replenish the battery, which shouldn't use too much fuel.

I don't know how electric cars work- if you were charging from the main battery you could probably charge hundreds of phones, providing your car had a good amount of charge (probable for the majority I'd guess, since most people charge their cars overnight). Or is there an auxiliary battery for lights/ electronics/ USB etc?

You can in some circumstances get problems at high latitudes ( Canada, Northern US etc) with the products of solar flares and other stuff being chucked out by the Sun inducing currents in the grid systems, tripping breakers and causing power outages.

AFAIK Portugal is way too far south to get clobbered by something along those lines...

No you basically negotiate with the customer and hand write them a receipt
tin of beans… 40p
bottle of water £1
bottle of wine £5
posh bottle of wine £8

this is the very base emergency procedures for this kind of situation where you don’t know when you’ll be able to buy food again.
It relies on both customer and colleague knowing the basic price of things, but supermarkets also would have “runners” to go and check the price should either party query what the other is saying
they then use the old fashioned clack clack machine to take a print of your card to process at a later date but new cards now don’t print as the aren’t raised

The worries on this are huge! Medical devices that keep people alive in their homes, nursing homes, then there’s tourists in hotels now in the ‘dark’ and no flights home. Water and food could
become an issue quick quickly if freezers and fridges fail.
I wandered what would my commute look like if it happened here and I’ve planned a route via bus and walking. My dh has been talking about buying a solar panelled battery pack, I’ve ignored him up to now but think it might be a good idea!

I find it strange that they don't know the source of the problem, which made me think of an electro-magnetic pulse or solar storms. But these days we know about solar activity before it hits, so it's probably not that. But I think an EMP would also knock out nearby things that aren't on the grid, like cars and phones, which doesn't seem to be the case either.

The way that things are I wouldn't be surprised if some nation Russia are testing something.

People are reporting being shut out of hotel rooms and even apartment blocks that have electronic locks. People stuck in lifts (noooo!) The metro in Madrid just came to an abrupt halt and everyone had to be evacuated via the tracks, same with some trains

(from the Grauniad)

I have a separate fridge for my medical injections which can just stay closed and cold for up to a full day or so; goodness knows what would happen if it were a week - including at the main warehouses. Lots of spoilage and a massive shortage presumably.

Electric doors are not really a problem, buildings that use maglocks have emergency door releases inside (they look like green versions of those small square smash alarms)

If everyone is outside you can use a fire brigade key to open it.

I'm puzzled as to how flights are arriving and departing from Spain, France and Portugal?

France has power

The phone infrastructure also needs electricity. The masts etc may have battery backups, but they won't last long. So even if you can charge your mobile, you may find there's no mobile service during prolonged power cuts.