Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 13 replies
  • Subscribers 32 subscribers
  • Views 2586 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

European Blackout - January 8th 2021

AncientMariner
Forgive me if this posted elsewhere here, but just came across the following on a Time Dissemination forum I frequent from a German poster.

On Jan.8, 13:04:54 UTC, the european grid frequency dropped from 50.0269Hz to a minimum of 49.7343Hz 13.4sec later, see fig 1 below, plot starting at 13:00, x-axis in sec. .

As a result southeast Europe was split from the rest, the frontier crossing the Balkan countries, see
https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/01/15/system-separation-in-the-continental-europe-synchronous-area-on-8-january-2021-update/

At 13:42:35 the western frequency was back at the 50Hz level, some time later they managed to resync the east and reconnected. Reasons are still under examination. A high western demand faced a southeastern production, so after the split the western frequency went down, the eastern frequency went up.

At 79/50 sec. after the event the primary control kicked in at 49.9035Hz and brought it up again to 49.9308 but eventually failed, see fig   2. below.

In the 13. hour that day they failed to deliver 112 sinewaves. Now ENTSO-E has to decide: readjust the wall clocks in Berlin or Athens?   )

Reportedly at a frequency below 49.8Hz big loads, like pumps for reservoirs or industrial customers are switched off automatically.

In 2011 the German Government launched a scenario for a blackout, detailed as a script:
https://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/en/publications/books/petermann-etal-2011-141.html


Clive
f78d55e118b9b0d15fb9e7890397a312-huge-fig1.pngc
780060cda814b163f7e49f3827bd2f76-huge-fig2.png
Parents
  • 0
    broadgage:

    I wonder why they worry so much about such a small frequency deviation ? Our grid varies more than that without problems. . . 


    I suspect that the issue here is that the European Grid split into two pieces, for reasons that are currently unknown, and with the entertainment of trying to synchronise two large power systems, with the issues of coordination that requires. A lot of equipment still uses the mains frequency for timing, as it is a cheap and accurate method. With being split into two, “Power System Time” will be different by a few seconds between the bits. I wonder how the agreements in place between the various countries will allow this to be resolved. One possibility would be to declare the Power System Time to be equal to GPS time at a certain date and time in the future. 


    Regards,


    Alan. 


Reply
  • 0
    broadgage:

    I wonder why they worry so much about such a small frequency deviation ? Our grid varies more than that without problems. . . 


    I suspect that the issue here is that the European Grid split into two pieces, for reasons that are currently unknown, and with the entertainment of trying to synchronise two large power systems, with the issues of coordination that requires. A lot of equipment still uses the mains frequency for timing, as it is a cheap and accurate method. With being split into two, “Power System Time” will be different by a few seconds between the bits. I wonder how the agreements in place between the various countries will allow this to be resolved. One possibility would be to declare the Power System Time to be equal to GPS time at a certain date and time in the future. 


    Regards,


    Alan. 


Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines