Is there a mega-blackout in Europe, too? | World | '
According to Argentina Energy Secretary Gustavo Lopetegui, it could take a good two weeks to identify the cause of the widespread energy supply failure in Argentina and Uruguay. A collapse of the power grid had led to the blackout on Sunday morning. Nearly 50 million people were affected – in the middle of winter. The rail traffic came to a standstill, traffic lights turned off, the water supply was also affected. Many hospitals and airports in Argentina have been able to maintain their operations thanks to generators in many cases. In parts of Paraguay, Brazil and Chile, it came to media reports according to power outages.
While in Argentina and Uruguay the lights in most households began again on Sunday evening, the Enlightenment seems to be more protracted. Although in Argentina, whose infrastructure is regarded as ailing, again and again to temporary power failures, there was never a nationwide blackout there.
For Argentina's President Mauricio Macri, the power outage came at a terrible time
The Argentine energy utility Edesur attributed the incident to a problem on a transmission line between two power plants on the coast. "This enabled a protection mechanism for the power plants, which then went out of service and caused the power outage."
A shutdown of power plants with voltage fluctuations is usually localized, said Energy Secretary Lopetegui. "The question is, why did not the system designed to isolate the affected section do that?" Lopetegui did not rule out a hacker attack, but this is unlikely. Argentine media reported that a storm in the north of the country had affected the power plants.
Composite system with Archilles heel?
The simultaneous collapse of energy supply in several countries may be related to the operation of interconnected grids: Argentina and Uruguay share an electricity grid emanating from the jointly operated Salto Grande dam. Paraguay also shares with Argentina a power plant. As a rule, such interconnected systems ensure that power plant outages are intercepted by other power plants, thus ensuring supply across national borders.
Street scene in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires during power outage
That this works was "already a question of investment in infrastructure," says Veit Hagenmeyer, Professor of Energy Informatics at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. With sufficient pipelines, power plants and spare capacity, a case like that in Argentina and Uruguay could be prevented. However, he also can only guess why the country's mega-blackout came about: in cases where important pipelines are damaged, there might be too little in the interconnected network of Argentina, one of the largest countries in the world, and Uruguay Meshing, and because that's a very big geographic extension, that costs you all the money. " This would bring an "archilles heel" for the interconnected network. In addition, such systems would have to be well maintained to handle in an emergency. That this does not happen, let the frequent power outages in the country suspect.
"As with everything in life there is a residual risk"
Hagenmeyer considers it unlikely – at least in the near future – that there will be a huge blackout across Europe, where a cross-state network system is also in effect. "If we get a European big-storm weather situation that destroys all transmission grids, then it's dark in Europe, too, but that's not happened in the last 75 years." Of course, the European interconnected network is also "not 100 percent stable", as is the case with everything in life.
In November 2006, power was lost in parts of several European countries and even in Morocco. Also on 10 January this year, Europe may have narrowly escaped a major blackout as network frequency across Europe suddenly dropped to critical levels. "Then France threw off a load very quickly (switching off the grid load in the power grid, editor's note.) Of course there are load dumping reserves in Germany, for example in the chemical industry, and then the frequency quickly came back," says Hagenmeyer – for him a proof of the stability of the interconnected network.
A nationwide blackout in Germany is not expected for the time being, according to experts. The power supply was "in a European comparison at a very high level," the German Press Agency quoted a spokesman for the Federal Network Agency. "Germany has one of the safest power grids in the world," said a spokeswoman for the German transmission system operator Tennet.
Energy transition demands new solutions
A challenge for interconnected grids, however, is the conversion to renewable energy. "Since they are not fossil power plants, so not so easy to control, and in particular no rotating masses in the sense of generators that bring inertia, the system already as a whole restless, "says energy security expert Hagenmeyer.
Alarm mood is not required. But: "What the world looks like, when the thermal power plants are completely out, that includes the nuclear power plants, that's another story, you really have to worry about that." The energy informer is optimistic that solutions would be found by then – not only through advances in research. "I can not imagine that in Europe we will operate a network that always runs along the border of stability and that politics must ensure that there are no major nationwide power outages over several days or weeks," explains Hagenmeyer.
Even in Argentina, the policy could be taken after the blackout in the obligation. "With (President Mauricio) Macri, we're just Venezuela," wrote a Twitter user, referring to the power outages in the South American crisis country over the past few months. On October 18, Macri will stand for re-election.
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