Power cuts strike western Europe

mobbsey · Post by **mobbsey** » 05 Nov 2006, 07:41

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6117880.stm

Power cuts strike western Europe

BBC News Online, Sunday 5th November 2006

Power cuts have struck several countries in western Europe, leaving millions of people without electricity.

Power companies said the outage started in Germany with a surge in demand prompted by cold weather, and then spread to other parts of Europe.

Some five million people in France lost power, mainly in the east of the country and including parts of Paris.

"We weren't very far from a European blackout," a senior director with French power company RTE said.

Pierre Bornard told the French news agency AFP that two German high-voltage transmission lines failed, causing problems across western Europe.

This triggered a "house of cards" style system breakdown, he said.

Automatic security systems cut supplies to some customers to avoid a complete blackout.

Italy, Belgium and Spain were also affected by the power cuts.

Most electricity supplies were restored within two hours of the outage, and so far no injuries or accidents have been reported.

Fire brigades in France said they had to answer several calls from people stuck in lifts.

High speed rail links were also disrupted.

Erik · Post by **Erik** » 05 Nov 2006, 11:44

The lights went out for about 25 minutes last night here in Madrid. The kids loved it, running around the house with torches etc. but I found it rather disturbing and eerie - it was only a short blackout but it gave me enough time to feel utterly helpless. I couldn't even switch on a radio or TV to find out what was happening. And when the lights came back on I presumed it had been just some local distribution problems, until I logged onto the internet this morning. I've really got to stop reading about peak oil and start doing some minimal preparations methinks.

I don't think demand was particularly high in Spain at the time - a weekend, and not too cold yet. Bloody great how the supposed benefits of a European-wide interconnected grid can also backfire: a demand surge in one country causes a rolling blackout in others where demand is pretty well covered. Don't Germans stop working on Saturday nights? They should be out drinking beer instead of manufacturing things!

I imagine the UK was unaffected?

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 05 Nov 2006, 12:40

No problems here in the UK - yet. Only a matter of time, though.

Erik · Post by **Erik** » 05 Nov 2006, 13:42

Andy Hunt wrote:No problems here in the UK - yet. Only a matter of time, though.

I've been following your solar power project closely, Andy - Looks like you'll be better prepared than most for such events! I'm moving to a new flat soon with over 100m2 of flat roof space, so I'm keen to get a few panels in to start doing something useful with all this Spanish sun.

I'm not certain how interconnected and interdependent the UK is with the rest of Europe, electrically speaking (please, no jokes here about "Fog in the English Channel - Europe isolated!"). Is the UK an electricity exporter to the rest of Europe, or vice-versa, or both (depending on the moment)?

Andy Hunt · Post by **Andy Hunt** » 05 Nov 2006, 13:49

Good luck with the solar project!! Yes, I could probably last about 2 days or 3 if I am lucky with the power from my batteries. Might get some more though, just for good measure!!

I know the UK buys electricity from France sometimes, not sure if we export any, although I doubt it as the times when supply exceeds demand are probably fairly rare, I would imagine!!

Grid-wise, I would imagine we are relatively isolated due to the logistics of being an island. So hopefully we are relatively immune from 'knock-on' effects in other countries. On the other hand, if our own supplies run short, it's that much more difficult to import any!

SarahSimcock · Post by **SarahSimcock** » 10 Nov 2006, 17:08

I have a supply of candles, batteries (for torch and lanterns), a wind up radio and wind up torch, as well as a week's supply of canned food and dried food that does not need to be cooked before being eaten for just such eventualities, as does my Mum and sister. I'm sure a lot of people who use these forums do as well. At least then you don't end up quite so freaked out when it happens.

Vortex · Post by **Vortex** » 10 Nov 2006, 20:47

SarahSimcock wrote:I have a supply of candles, batteries (for torch and lanterns), a wind up radio and wind up torch, as well as a week's supply of canned food and dried food that does not need to be cooked before being eaten for just such eventualities, as does my Mum and sister. I'm sure a lot of people who use these forums do as well. At least then you don't end up quite so freaked out when it happens.

It's certainly nice to know that you can survive even a few days in case of trouble.

It's horrid finding yourself in the dark with no candles or torches ...

Don't forget to store some water too.

skeptik · Post by **skeptik** » 11 Nov 2006, 13:40

Erik wrote: I'm moving to a new flat soon with over 100m2 of flat roof space, so I'm keen to get a few panels in to start doing something useful with all this Spanish sun.

If you have the opportunity, you should also use your flat roof to collect rainfall. I know that all mains water in Spain is metered - and expensive!

solar water heating panels would be a good cost effective first purchase in sunny Spain. Do you currently heat water using electricity - also expnsive in Spain - or the bottled butane from Algeria that many people use for heating and cooking?

Erik · Post by **Erik** » 12 Nov 2006, 23:44

skeptik wrote:
Erik wrote: I'm moving to a new flat soon with over 100m2 of flat roof space, so I'm keen to get a few panels in to start doing something useful with all this Spanish sun.
If you have the opportunity, you should also use your flat roof to collect rainfall. I know that all mains water in Spain is metered - and expensive!

Just checking one of my water bills, we seem to average about 18 m3 of water per month, which costs about 20 euros a month. I don't know if that's particularly expensive really. Perhaps it should be more expensive to encourage less waste. The water situation in Spain has been dire over the last couple of years. I've thought about water collection but we can go months and months here with no rain in Madrid, and then it might chuck it down solidly for two weeks, so a suitable storage arrangement might be virtually impossible. When I take my dog for a walk in the mornings I notice that she licks dew from the blades of grass in the local park. I sometimes wonder if it might come to that!

skeptik wrote:solar water heating panels would be a good cost effective first purchase in sunny Spain. Do you currently heat water using electricity - also expnsive in Spain - or the bottled butane from Algeria that many people use for heating and cooking?

We currently use piped natural gas for water heating but will be looking into solar water heating when we move house though. Actually most of Spain is connected to the gas distribution system now (bar a few small towns) so bottled butane is becoming a thing of the past in most places.
Unlike the UK, we import 100% of our gas. About 40% comes from Algeria (pipeline and LNG). Spain is 100% dependent on other countries for its oil imports too. Scary eh?! Honestly, I don't know what you guys in the UK are worried about!