Non-motoring > Major power outages Miscellaneous
Thread Author: smokie Replies: 28

 Major power outages - smokie
BBC Breaking News tells me that there is a "Major power failure affecting trains and airports"

It'll be interesting to see how that has come about. I've always thought that would be the way that terrorists or a hostile government would cripple a country, by going for the infrastructure.

Wonder how long before COBRA meets?

I do like a good drama.. :-)

It's here www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49300025

PS I see it seems now to be in the SE only. It looked more widespread on the initial report I saw. No need for our Northern friends to worry on our behalf though. (Where are StuartLi and Old Navy when you need a bit of sympathy? :-) )
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 9 Aug 19 at 17:45
 Major power outages - R.P.
"been reported across large areas of the UK" South of Watford that is.
 Major power outages - R.P.
OOOh and north east and west of Watford...looks bad
 Major power outages - Manatee
There was a fairly big failure affecting Euston departures between 16.00 & 19.00 yesterday.
 Major power outages - Kevin
Just been reported that problem was due to two generators going offline.
 Major power outages - Bromptonaut
>> Just been reported that problem was due to two generators going offline.

Piecing together press and radio reports it seems first outage was a gas powered generating plant at Little Barford in Bedfordshire. Very shortly afterwards an offshore wind site in the North Sea dropped out too. In order to maintain safety and security of supply and stop a domino effect where voltage/frequency variations caused more and more kit to fail power was cut to various areas so as to shed some load. Effect was felt across England and Wales. Mrs B was at the gym in Northampton at time and they lost power along with adjacent retail premises and at least part of suburb of Duston.

Reports suggest however that all power was restored within an hour.

Quite why disruption to rail services carried on for so much longer will, I expect, be subject of inquiry by Network Rail and the Train Operators. One report suggested some trains needed engineering attention to get them going again.

Can Zero add anything as to effect on railway?
 Major power outages - Zero
electric supply is in sections, sections are designed so that no one train can act as a link conductor between sections, (if it did it would explode!). Get a train stuck between sections (because of line failure) and you have issues. Also UK railways use 25kv OHL, its robust enough to cope with small surges, but a major surge happened apparently over a large area, and with most modern trains computer controlled, i bet a lot had to be rebooted*


*spent a fascinating 25 minutes watching a driver then a tech at Waterloo once, trying to get a class 444 Desiro to separate in half, then get ready to move. Much lengthy rebooting of system required!

And of course you have the eternal headache that crops up every time, stock in all the wrongs places at all the wrong times.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Aug 19 at 10:54
 Major power outages - Bromptonaut
>> *spent a fascinating 25 minutes watching a driver then a tech at Waterloo once, trying
>> to get a class 444 Desiro to separate in half, then get ready to move.
>> Much lengthy rebooting of system required!

Seen similar with Class 350 Desiros which routinely split/combine a Birmingham portion at Northampton.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 10 Aug 19 at 11:08
 Major power outages - Falkirk Bairn
In the late 40s/early 50s the electricity went off quite regularly - we were not cold however as the coal fires kept the house warm.

For the last 60+ years the supply has been almost 100% thanks to excess power availability - if some station went down there was another that turned up their output.

We are more reliant now on gas and to a lesser extent wind, the reliability depends on the wind blowing. I notice that there is at least 1 coal station being called upon today even although demand is around 30G, in winter we need roughly 50G - this does not sound good as the 50G was reached in winter using 8Gb of coal station output.

Looks like a 3 Kw petrol generator in the garage might be a good investment - Under £300 for Chinese brands - a Honda might be nigh on £1000.
 Major power outages - Zero
I remember the miners strike and the three day week.
 Major power outages - smokie
"I remember the miners strike and the three day week."

... and having your electric power by rota.

I was working at the Coal Board in the later strikes (at the end of the Gormley/Ezra days, and the rise of Scargill and MacGahey, and the appointment of American chairman MacGregor.
 Major power outages - sooty123
in winter we need roughly
>> 50G - this does not sound good as the 50G was reached in winter using
>> 8Gb of coal station output.
>>
>>

more like 40gw in the winter, even then going above that is rare. A couple of times of year it might go to the low 40s.
 Major power outages - Falkirk Bairn
12/12/2012 7am to 9pm fluctuated between 50 & 58G

It might not look important for one day BUT if the "House of Cards" falls
getting back up & running can take days - this happened in Argentina, Uruguay a few months back.
 Major power outages - sooty123
I'm sure it's happened in the past but is fairly rare. There are a fair few interconnects from other countries. Gridwatch is a good place to keep on eye on this sort of thing.
 Major power outages - Falkirk Bairn
A few days in the dead of winter - no leccy, no central heating & it's not just
power cuts it's complete destruction of our way of life & death for some vulnerable members of the community.
 Major power outages - Zero
>> BBC Breaking News tells me that there is a "Major power failure affecting trains and
>> airports"
>>
>> It'll be interesting to see how that has come about. I've always thought that would
>> be the way that terrorists or a hostile government would cripple a country, by going
>> for the infrastructure.

www.independent.co.uk/news/how-ira-plotted-to-switch-off-london-1266533.html

I sometimes walk the dog near the West Weybridge switching station, its a big one, and my old lab actually sniffed out an SAS bloke lurking in the undergrowth.
 Major power outages - legacylad
Did he try to hump his leg
The dog that is
 Major power outages - smokie
So the problems are now apparently fixed.

I wonder what/whp caused them - the real story!! :-)
 Major power outages - Zero
It will be, as these things usually are, a combination of unusual things happening together
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 9 Aug 19 at 22:43
 Major power outages - smokie
" a combination of unusual things happening together

Just watched a Brian Cox programme on Jupiter. Absolutely fascinating, and makes you realise that that sums up just how we came into existence.
Last edited by: smokie on Fri 9 Aug 19 at 23:51
 Major power outages - Kevin
>I wonder what/whp caused them - the real story!! :-)

They left Homer in charge of the powerplant. Doh!
 Major power outages - zippy
>> So the problems are now apparently fixed.
>>
>> I wonder what/whp caused them - the real story!! :-)
>>

I was getting my work laptop fixed at one of our computer centres and a lot of people were running about from about 14:00. One of the techs said that there was a huge denial of service attack against our data centres.

Then at about 17:00 the lights flickered in the office and the generators kicked in, keeping the servers and mainframe up.

One of the exit barriers had to be raised manually.

The extra physical security around the site over the last few years is noticeable and includes huge concrete barriers and barbed wire on what is effectively a bank ops centre.
 Major power outages - Zero
OfGem has

demanded an "urgent detailed report" into what went wrong.


Listen guys, you can have an urgent report, or you can have a detailed report, but you aint gonna get an urgent detailed report.
 Major power outages - Duncan
"Lessons will be learnt".

I always feel so reassured when i read that.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996
 Major power outages - devonite
They were warning about major brown-outs years ago because they were shutting too many coal/gas plants too quickly to rely on green energy sources that weren't ready enough at the time, and the couple of new nuclear sites that were planned o take up the changeover slack were never built - we were warned!!
 Major power outages - Bromptonaut
>> They were warning about major brown-outs years ago because they were shutting too many coal/gas
>> plants too quickly to rely on green energy sources that weren't ready enough at the
>> time, and the couple of new nuclear sites that were planned o take up the
>> changeover slack were never built - we were warned!!

There were warnings/worries about meeting peak demand for the reasons you mentioned. I think though that would be something the grid's masters can see coming based on weather forecasts TV schedules and other known items affecting load across the country. There are industrial users who's supply contracts give a preferential price for having an interruptible supply and they are first to go if brownouts look probable.

It's unlikely we were anywhere near peak demand at 16:58 on an ordinary Friday in August. Output was matched to demand until two incidents, some reports suggest the second may have been a consequence of the first, caused a loss of about 5%. As the mains frequency began to 'wobble' power was selectively cut across several distribution companies to stabilise the system. The longest time people were off for was around an hour. Given it was daylight on a reasonably warm day that should have been easily endurable, not sure it's even long enough for help for folks on the Priority Services Register to kick in.

As I said earlier the real question is why it disrupted the railways to the extent that it did. Several reports though suggest passengers opening doors and walking on the track might have been a factor.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 10 Aug 19 at 13:16
 Major power outages - zippy
>> As I said earlier the real question is why it disrupted the railways to the
>> extent that it did. Several reports though suggest passengers opening doors and walking on the
>> track might have been a factor.
>>

Looking at the outage map, there wasn't a power cut at home - confirmed by the Mrs and all clocks showing the correct time, but the railway signalling in the area did go down - hence my late post last night - didn't get home until the early hours then couldn't sleep - due to train lag!

I guess trains out of position - missing their arrival slots etc. it all has a knock on effect and the authorities are going to be cautious about sending a train down the line to an area with no signals - and as you pointed out, potential people on the tracks.

The authorities are denying a cyber attack.

"Ofgem has demanded an "urgent detailed report" into what went wrong.

It said it could take enforcement action, including a fine,."

If it were an unforeseen event or even foreseen but not planned for because the chances of it re-occurring are so rare then a fine is of little use and legislating for National Grid to correct the situation will just push costs up unnecessarily. Things go wrong. You can't legislate for everything.

Reminds me of two very different steel mills, one in Kent which was dangerous to the extent that I walked off site and another in Wales where the management admitted that there would be fatalities at the plant but did everything reasonably possible to prevent accidents and the culture in the business demonstrated that. Fining the firm after an accident would serve limited purpose and yet they were fined regularly. The only way not to have fatalities would be not to employ any staff and the jobs go abroad to countries that couldn't care less about employee safety.


Last edited by: zippy on Sat 10 Aug 19 at 13:58
 Major power outages - tyrednemotional
>>
>> and another in Wales where the management admitted
>> that there would be fatalities at the plant but did everything reasonably possible to prevent
>> accidents and the culture in the business demonstrated that.
>>

...in Sheffield, on the odd occasion when someone unfortunately fell into the crucible during the process, the resulting product was described and sold as "High Carbon Steel"....

;-)
 Major power outages - Zero
>> They were warning about major brown-outs years ago because they were shutting too many coal/gas
>> plants too quickly to rely on green energy sources that weren't ready enough at the
>> time, and the couple of new nuclear sites that were planned o take up the
>> changeover slack were never built - we were warned!!

And since then demand has dropped due to lower modern power requirements and fast start gas powered plants. had the lack of generation been planned, even three hours in advance it could have been covered. Not like the old days where it took nearly a day to bring a coal plant on line. This was not a capacity issue, it was a technical failure.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 10 Aug 19 at 14:27
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