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.

The Portuguese energy company REN (Rede Eletrica Nacional) is reported as saying that "due to extreme temperature variations in the interior or Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), a phenomenon known as 'induced atmospheric vibration'".

"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

Any physicists on here able to comment?

Could it be something like a Carrington event, do you think?

Most shops can't safely open without lighting, heating, ventilation and security systems.

You may think they can just "guess" prices, but if the staff/customers risk falling and injuring themselves due to lack of lighting, then it's just not worth the risk. Likewise, if there are no CCTV cameras it could be too dangerous for the staff to work if there's a risk of theft/burglary/robbery etc due to their being far higher than normal amounts of cash in the tills.

The vast vast majority of France isn't effected by all this at all.

As far as Spain/Portugal goes it looks like some airports/control centres are managing despite the main supplies being out.

Overflights are continuing, the main problem according to Eurocontrol seems to be at Lisbon (supposedly not taking arrivals until early evening) .
At Madrid and Barca delays are reducing.

Not in the right place though, and it took a long time for the computer systems to be back up and running.

It’s all so odd. If nothing else it highlights just how vulnerable we are.

Thank you.

I suppose I was thinking of the practicalities.

How do air traffic controllers work without electricity?
How do airports stay open, make announcements, operate lifts, check baggage, passports ?..etc etc.

Problem with that theory is how do you explain why the outage is confined to Iberia?

If this was a solar related event you would expect France and certainly the UK to be much worse effected because they are at higher latitudes - the further north you go the less protection you get from the Earth's magnetic field.

I guess you can't rule it out compleletly but can't see it myself.

According to the Portuguese energy company:

due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), a phenomenon known as 'induced atmospheric vibration'".
"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

So now we know. Though I have no idea whether anyone else thinks that is the explanation.

im guessing they will have emergency power systems like huge backup generators etc

I doubt whether anyone on here is even remotely qualified to comment.

I assume they couldn't do any card transactions / electronic payments in stores and supermarkets?

Why kind of weather situation causes such an outage? Can someone explain this?

Id guess they have emergency generators like hospitals and other key buildings

Governments have to test national emergency procedures. To test them to destruction you need a " real" scenario. What happens? Where are the weaknesses, where are the strengths? It's like a huge fire alarm practice.

Learn from it. Keep cash at home,a supply of bottled water if your tap water isn't drinkable,a can of petrol, small generator if you can. Keep portable chargers charged or invest in solar ones.
Keep torches and spare batteries,matches,candles,solar powered lanterns. You don't need to go mad but these few things could help you to sit it out without panicking.

@taxguru

i don’t know about Spanish supermarkets but larger U.K. ones have emergency power back up, they kept my local mid sized Tesco open for 6 hours through a localised power outage here, half the town was affected. They had only reduced lighting and put covers in front of the open fridges and freezers to preserve coldness. Rolls operated as normal but we hadn’t lost phone thus internet card services!!

Fair question, ATC will have power back up (though possibly only for a limited amount of time)..

How much back up there is for the rest of the airport services will vary..but given flights are operating (e.g. an Emirates A380 has just left Madrid) some airports are somehow getting enough power into the terminals to run a reduced operation.

I was the emergency procedure trainer until about 2 years ago so I’m aware of the rules. This is literally the procedure to make sure people have food, to stop looting in the first day when the panic starts and it also gets rid of food so it doesn’t sit wasting whilst people starve. Most supermarkets have such a policy
In a “normal” power outage, As soon as the power goes customers aren’t allowed to wander around the shop filling a trolley, they get to the tills before the back up generator goes, in our case we have 20 minutes. The store then closes, but there are policies in place to allow people to buy it in severe emergency events.
it’s not a long term solution, maybe the first 6 hours after a catastrophic event , colleagues would then not be expected to work anyway if it was such a dire situation so it would be a free for all

So in comparison Heathrow really was a disaster in emergency planning/backup.

Looting when there have been power cuts (New York I think in the 70s?) is something very possible, and so staying closed at least reduces that possibility.

Yes, I work for a local authority and we have warren of ‘rooms’ under the main building, set up for emergency planning.

Very senior LA staff are on a rosta of ‘command’ for unplanned incidents.

Think I might just pop out and stockpile wine !

Exactly, health and safety doesn’t really come into it in a ‘true’ emergency, it’s all hands on deck to get through the next couple of hours and help anyone we can.
covid tested us and we learnt from it but logistics still worked so we knew we could restock and carry on. The procedures I’m talking about are absolute last resort

So some of the shops are open now?

due to extreme temperature variations in the interior of Spain, there were anomalous oscillations in the very high voltage lines (400 KV), a phenomenon known as 'induced atmospheric vibration'".
"These oscillations caused synchronisation failures between the electrical systems, leading to successive disturbances across the interconnected European network."

If this is the reason, it sounds like cables getting longer and shorter in different places somehow meaning the information sent along thme (something to do wih the 50hz? Or not?) took too long/short a time to arrive and the signalling got garbled somehow. Theybneed the info to respond to demand to send the right current down the right routes and I guess there are automatic cutouts if the controlls can't tell what is happening...

No that is not a specialist insight ! Just saying how it might be a plausible explanation I guess...

This is fascinating.

Can you tell us any more? What were the policies for severe emergency events? And what is considered a severe emergency event?