Power cut - To whole country!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-48652686

Somebody not paid their leccy bill?

Doc H.

either that or someone finally pressed the red 'do not press' button

Scary that this could happen these days ........

It said in that report it was an interconnector that failed. I presume that was importing power from another country?

I wonder how our system would cope if say the cross channel interconnector failed and we were not generating enough?  I guess someone has a "plan" of which areas to shut down and who is going to get a blackout if that happened.

If our entire system shut down, I guess re starting it would be quite an exercise, something that has not been done for a long time, if ever.  You would have to bring a major power station on line first with a matched load and start bringing the smaller ones on line and re connecting more load to match.  All those wind turbines would be the last to sense a grid and re connect.

Imagine if we didn't have any major power stations and it was all microgeneration and wind turbines?  How would you re start such a system?

Looking at the situation as in a UK perspective, there are limits at which our system will automatically shut down based on the grid frequency. 49.5 and 50.5 Hz are the limits. If we were to loose the French interconnect our system would slow down and fail to make up the deficit in time. It would result in a total system shut down.

Rant mode:

We boast of not burning coal in power stations for a month, the French and Germans are quite happily burning it to sell to the village idiot, AKA as the UK. We are on our arse regarding energy resources.

But surely there is a plan to shed loads (shut down a few major substations)  to keep demand matched to supply to prevent total collapse?

Or is THAT the reason for the smart meter roll out with the remote turn off function?

Well,I have seen films where if there is a baddy doing something nasty in USA they just get on to City Hall. The blueprints ( and they ARE blue) appear within seconds. They contact the City power company and they turn off EXACTLY what is required....even in other Countries. So it MUST be true

kerching said:

Well,I have seen films where if there is a baddy doing something nasty in USA they just get on to City Hall. The blueprints ( and they ARE blue) appear within seconds. They contact the City power company and they turn off EXACTLY what is required....even in other Countries. So it MUST be true

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Medication  !   Kerch ....have you run out ??? 

Power cuts are somewhat startling !!   Was it the '80s  when they were pulling the plugs  ?  Hard to place now ,   I remember working in Yam-Yam Land  when , usually afternoons ,  it just shut off , drills stopped , lights off ,  everyone out (Health & Safety)  .

Petrol was going short because filling stations had no power ....the ones working had long queues . 

Sometimes nothing happened , but when you got home the district was in darkness so no dinner , no shower .     We had two 3KW  generators for site work ....both were at the boss's house. 

Evans Electric said:

Power cuts are somewhat startling !!   Was it the '80s  when they were pulling the plugs  ?  Hard to place now ,   I remember working in Yam-Yam Land  when , usually afternoons ,  it just shut off , drills stopped , lights off ,  everyone out (Health & Safety)  .

Petrol was going short because filling stations had no power ....the ones working had long queues . 

Sometimes nothing happened , but when you got home the district was in darkness so no dinner , no shower .     We had two 3KW  generators for site work ....both were at the boss's house. 

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Mid 1970’s

1970's was the rolling power cuts wasn't that the miners on strike or something so not enough coal.  the power cuts were scheduled and published in the local paper.

My dad set up a portable tv and a spare charged car battery so we sould still watch the box.

I don’t think there were any major power cuts in the 1980’s

Early 70s

doing homework by candlelight.....well until you poured candle wax all over your books so it was illegible

I think there were two separate periods of power cuts though I can't recall dates. The first I was still living at home where my dad was resident hospital engineer and we had a massive army generator on loan. I recall learning how to use a compressed air starter diesel and do the switch over.  I left home in '72.

By the second time I was working in the aerospace industry and got involved in lashing up a ground power set to keep a test laboratory running.

Power cuts and restriction, the three day week. They bring back bad memories. Our site was restricted to about half of what we would normally draw from the grid. The electricians shift consisted of sitting in the intake sub watching the maximum demand meter. You would phone plant A to tell them to shut sections down and then phone plant B so they could start sections up.

Our village was due a power cut (at least they gave fair warning) until I reported a fault on the LV system, the NWEB had to keep the power on to find it.

Murdoch said:

I don’t think there were any major power cuts in the 1980’s

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Yes  , must have been the '70s .    We also had petrol coupons issued  at one time  , I still have some somewhere . 

AND in the 70's  all the papers declared that petrol fuel would be dried up within 10 years .   

Yep  there we go  ...£ 1000  for some Black market petrol coupons  ..any offers ? 

Tony S said:

Rant mode:

We boast of not burning coal in power stations for a month, the French and Germans are quite happily burning it to sell to the village idiot, AKA as the UK. We are on our arse regarding energy resources.

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 France is mostly nuclear, and Germany is shutting down coal pits, and has installed huge amounts of solar panels.

The worry is that these decisions are all driven by political image considerations, with little thought of the engineering implications.

During the cuts I distinctly remember ,    getting onsite , twanging a load of chalk lines , then drilling fixings with the SDS  ,  drilling conduit boxes  then erecting conduit in the afternoons  with or without power.