The Day Europe’s Power Grid Came Close to a Massive Blackout
27 January 2021
Less coal and more wind makes it harder to balance network...
As biting cold caused power demand to surge across western Europe on January 8, the continent’s electricity network came close to a massive blackout. Europe’s grid, which is usually connected from Lisbon to Istanbul, split into two as the northwest and southeast regions struggled to keep the same frequency. The problem originated in Croatia and led to the equivalent of 200,000 households losing power across Europe. Supply to industrial sites was cut in France and Italy...
While this event hasn’t been linked to a surge in renewable power, as Europe replaces big coal and nuclear stations with thousands of smaller wind and solar units -- just as sectors electrify to reduce emissions -- incidents like this will become more frequent.“ It is not a question about if a blackout in some European regions will happen, it is only a question of when it will happen,” said Stefan Zach, head of communication at Austrian utility EVN AG. “A blackout might happen even in countries with high standards in electricity grid security.” Transmission grids need to stay at a frequency of 50 hertz to operate smoothly and any deviations can damage equipment that’s connected. Had the frequency swings not been reduced within minutes, it could have caused damage across the entire European high voltage network, potentially causing blackouts for millions.Large amounts of intermittent electricity create huge swings in supply which the grid has to be able to cope with. The issue isn’t confined to Europe. Australia has had teething problems in the transition to a cleaner network...
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Spinning turbines of thermal plants connected to the grid create kinetic energy called inertia which helps keep the network at the right frequency. This spinning can’t be created by wind turbines or solar panels and policy makers need to find ways to incentivize other forms of energy storage or flexible output. Germany is the biggest producer of green electricity in Europe. The nation is culling a quarter of coal and nuclear capacity next year, a gap it will need to plug. Instead of building a huge fleet of batteries, Germany plans to rely more and more on its neighbours, importing power along huge cables.
