Atmospheric anomaly or cyberatta: which could have caused historical blackout in Europe

The Portuguese electricity supplier of Redees Energéticas Nacionais (Ren) was the first to say Blackut occurred through an "induced atmospheric vibration". It is a jumping vibration of power lines caused by ionization of the molecules of the surrounding air. In focus. Technology has appeared its Telegram channel.

Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! "Extreme temperature fluctuations in Spain have led to abnormal fluctuations in very high voltage lines (400 kV). These fluctuations have caused synchronization failures between electrical systems, which led to consistent violations in the entire united European network," the Ren statement said. Later, the Portuguese company denied its statement.

"Disconnecting the electricity that has swept the entire territory of the mainland Portugal today, is the result of significant voltage fluctuations in the Spanish network while Portugal imported energy from Spain. Because Portuguese company. According to experts, extreme temperature fluctuations can indeed cause fluctuations in power lines of very high voltage.

Such temperature changes lead to the expansion of lines in some places, changes in their tension, aerodynamic properties, which can destabilize the power system. "Unusual atmospheric conditions, including rapid fluctuations in temperature and caused by these winds in the inner areas of Spain, could provoke abnormal fluctuations in very high voltage power lines," says Victor Besser, Professor of the Department of Energy System Engineering at the University of Portsmouth.

This situation can lead to a break of conductors, short circuit or physical damage to infrastructure, such as power lines. "Automatic protection systems shut off the broken power lines in response to similar malfunctions," Beserra adds. The domino effect appears, during which the shutdown causes instability and switching off some generators.

"Losing large energy sources can create a sudden and significant imbalance between supply and electricity demand in the power supply, which is likely to develop into large -scale shutdowns," the expert adds. Currently, the exact cause of such a large -scale blackout in Europe is not named, and some suggest that this could happen as a result of cyberattacks.

According to the senior Vice president of the European Commission Teresa Ribeer, there is no confirmation that the cyberattack was guilty of failure. This version was also denied by the head of the Spanish network operator Red Eléctrica Eduardo Prieto. Experts say the shutdown has covered such a large region of Europe because European power grids are closely interrelated. This usually provides greater reliability because the networks provide backup power in the event of a local problem.

But this is what makes the whole system vulnerable to large -scale failures that cover vast areas. "The stability of power grids is closely linked to the balance between electricity production and demand. If one area is switched off, it can cause a chain reaction in neighboring areas that may depend on deliveries (or demand) from the affected area," says the engineer from the Royal College.

Of course, there are some measures to localize the effects of shutdowns in small regions, but the whole system can be easily overloaded if the power imbalance is too high. In this case, the shutdowns spread very quickly to very large areas. Disconnection of this scale has already happened earlier. In most of Italy, there was a 12-hour switching off of electricity in 2003, which was caused by a problem with a hydroelectric power plant between Italy and Switzerland.

The temperature jump in Germany has led to shutdown in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and even Morocco in 2006. The most power outage in history has occurred in India in 2012, which has affected more than 600 million people. Recall that through blackberries all over Spain and Portugal, traffic lights have gone away and the subway stopped, and hospitals were transferred to reserve power supply and electricity savings. Spain also introduced a state of emergency.