To ask if anyone else is caught in the huge power outage?

[MissB83]

What a nightmare!

And my eldest DC says youngest (7) ran around screaming "we're all gonna die! No wifi!"

My area had few problems. But traffic lights have been odd all day (like one set out of 5 on a big rotary being out). But that could just be flooding.

So it is demand only, not output as such?

Supply has to adjust to meet demand - they have to exactly balance. The National Grid is an amazing piece of engineering that most people take for granted without having a clue how it works. What's astonishing is how few outages we have - when we lived in the US they were commonplace.

East Dunbartonshire - I've been fine although a neighbour had no power earlier.

Around 5 for like 3-5mins my phone wouldn't work either had no signal. Just came back with shopping and though fgs! Why now but by end of that thought it was back on. I'm in Bedfordshire my cousin in Liverpool also experienced it

This, about a major blackout on one of the US/Canadian grids is quite instructive as to how cascade failures can occur.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastblackouttof2003

No issues in my part of the NW. I didn't realise it had been so widespread u til I opened this thread.

This explains what happened:

theenergyst.com/national-grid-two-generators-cause-big-frequency-drop/

One day .. one day we'll have a Carrington event thats when the old Sun chucks a large cronal mass ejection out way, there was one a while ago but it missed the earth that will make this look like well, nothing nothing at all.

That's interesting, scouseh.

It underlines the big challenge of renewables - effective ways of storing energy.

From that article Scouseh I take it it is a sign of things to come as we move away from coal fired power.

I was stuck in Peterborough since half 3. Now finally home (London) hooray 😱🤦🏻‍♀️

I was out on the piss on the South Bank, London - torrential rain for 10 mins, no power cuts, trains home all fine

@Justaboy
A possibility of an event similar to Carrington is fully considered in the design of modern networks. There are likely to be some regional outages but it won't be the end of the world.

EEmother Wish i had your level of confidence! what about the other bits of the world that aren't too well protected, even if we are?.

Well with the new solar spacecraft lets hope we get some warning which won't be much. It was just be some luck it seems that the STEREO-A spacecraft saw one miss us back in 2012. Intresting read here on that!.

science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm

Anyway with regard to last night palaver least the head honcho for the National Grid said sorry. However it will happen again the authur of that Gridwatch site said that many times we don't have what's called "spinning reserve" around that much thats when a fossil power station is kept warm ready to connect to the grid it is in effect running but not connected ticking over if you like. Hence the term spinning reserve fossil stations take time to warm up about the only one that dosent is the storage station at Dinorwig but thats couldnt supply the load last night another few of them might help;!

Anyway when the baad solar storm takes out the trains the GPS and phones may well go with it, who ya gonna call then;?.

Dinorwig aka Electric Mountain is an awesome piece of engineering - highly recommend the tour, one of the best things to do with older kids if you're in north wales in the rain. (It may be one of the experiences which contributed to DDs interest in engineering).

We probably do need more such mass energy storage facilities, but obviously they're huge engineering projects. And/or more smaller storage capacity as part of renewables installations - presumably there's some of this but not enough.

'outage' was the answer to a clue in the Waitrose crossword this week.. rather prescient.

Nothing where we are SW. I hope the reaction is not to build more and more nuclear sites. I read something about Fukushima nuclear plant running out of storage for their radioactive water by 2022 yesterday. Its complete madness to be creating all this radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with :(

beestripey The load shedding happens where it does happen and that can be anywhere. The station at Little Barford does IIRC feed the main east coast railway line even if just a short section of that is un powered then the whole goes unoperational;(

What we do need are a few more Nuclear stations these are contray to beliefs and dis information very safe indeed. Very little life was l;ost at Fukishima and that was a issue thta was overlooked in that they left out the backup power generation if the reactors went ofline.

This all exposes the Green myth the wind well is OK wjhen tis there which sint all the time blockingh hiugs appear across the UK quite often the Solar output isnt there all the time so no wind and no sun power is still needed so where does it come from then?

Whats left to supply the demand load?

We seem to be sleepwalking into a really bad energy situation.

Finally on a train home to north east. Due to leave from kings cross yesterday at 6pm yesterday. Gave up after they closed kings cross, frantically rang round to book Travelodge. Decided to avoid chaos this morning but still very busy on afternoon trains. Hoping we can claim the money. We have just been on holiday in France and Belgium. Went all over by train and tram no problems.

KateUrrer That Kate is an understatement!.

birdsdestiny That could happen there but is less likely to, more counttries are conected together to an extent but the Nuclear stations that France has seem to power europe!.

And are very relaible!.

.

Bit of a follow up to Fridays palavers! It does appear that the Railways have a bit more responsibilty than what meets the eye, it now appears that some newer types of train won't always restart if the power to them has failled. They have have to get a maintenance tech out to get them going again and seeing that they can fail in remote places takes much longer to get the trainset working again even if the Grid is up and running!.

@Justaboy interesting update on the trains!! Let's hope they do a bit more crisis management/planning for next time!

So a built in lack of resilience.

Snowflake trains!