Or anywhere

the advantage of overhead cables is that they are easier to maintain and quicker to repair. It's always about trade offs

Better underground
as in Pipes they are safer

…panic buying is not a lesson that will ever be learned, sadly…but they will ration purchasing I would say …

Spain-Portugal power outage live: State of emergency declared amid fears blackout could last up to a week
The blackout could have been caused by ‘extreme temperature variations' which caused havoc with the high voltage electricity lines in Spain's interior, suggested Portugal's grid operator REN



Spain has declared a state of emergency as the nation and its neighbour Portugal remain in the grips of a power outage.

A power blackout hit most of the Iberian Peninsula on Monday around 12:30pm local time which has brought traffic and transport to a standstill, leaving many without water, Wi-Fi or mobile network.
The ministry of interior said the emergency status will be applied in the regions that request it, with Madrid, Andalusia and Extremadura asking the central government to take over public order and other functions.

More than 20 per cent of Spain’s power has been restored, according to Spanish grid operator Red Electrica, with Portuguese operator REN warning it could take up to a week to restore the power grid fully.

While Spain’s prime minister has said the cause of the blackout remains unknown, REN has said there was a "very large oscillation in the electrical voltages, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to the Portuguese system".

It’s estimated that millions have been left without power and water in the midst of the blackout, and many travellers were affected by flights grounded to and from the popular holiday destinations.

We've got power now, it was off for 9 hours but it's likely to be unstable. Also had no network on my phone for five hours.

We know a little bit about extended power outages in our area, unfortunately. We were out for 5 days the last time due to the hurricane and several months before that we were out from the Derecho storm. Lots of spoiled food, but we have a generator now because you can't depend on estimates by utilities. They are under pressure to give false hope to people suffering without it in a hot climate and people die waiting for power they think is about to be switched on because neighbors around them have power, etc... it's not fun.

Poor infrastructure.

Last June after Beryl came through, we all lost power that morning. It got into the 90s in the house (32C+) and humidity was high the last time... even if you can get power somehow to run fans, there's only so much you can do. I pushed my car's alternator over the edge running on idle because we needed air conditioning. It would just shut off. Anyway, miraculously it made it to the shop with lights going on and off and radio acting crazy, but we had to wait until shop had power to get it in. One of the shocks in my car was looking like it was starting to go around the same time so I avoiding driving around with it after noticing. All normal things to happen, but just very bad timing with a hurricane.

So I understand what some of what people are going through. We were lucky in many respects. We have gas in our home so we can still cook and get hot water. We could at least get ice and such from the shops as we knew where to look. A lot of people couldn't even get that. We had very unstable mobile connection as the towers didn't have full power either, so they were running on maintenance. I could get a few pages to load every 15 minutes or so and the door to load would shut. Texts were very hit and miss. When you're sitting around sweating, trust me, those 15 minutes where we could refresh our pages and find something else to focus on helped to keep sanity.

We shouldn't have lost power to so many people in a Category 1, so ever since the utility company has been running around scrambling to do repairs.. the State is threatening to force them to sell off if they don't get the grid fixed up and vegetation management put back in order. Anyway, most of us on our block have learned not to trust the utility management companies and so myself and our surrounding neighbors have generators... it's very loud when power is out with everyone running them, but at least we will have fans and cold food, ice... sleep is extremely difficult when it is hot.

Our local neighborhood has them underground from the neighborhood box to our homes, but the transmission lines and everything up to that point is above ground. It's very expensive to put something like that underground. We have a high water table and then also being the entire city is on a flood plain, there's more obstacles there as well... they've been doing concrete poles here strategically and most they replace are a mixture (I think it's composite material).

Yes, it will cost more
to go underground.

Sealed pipes away from any
Sun damage on them.
Not good in a Flood Plain.

To avoid this Portugal Horror


Maru, imagine being Dumped in
In the Middle of nowhere,
in that heat.
As the Train needed the Electric Power

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standar...0638b.jpg.webp

BBC News Text:
["Net zero blamed for blackout chaos"
reads the Daily Telegraph's main headline,
saying 53% of Spain's energy was being
supplied by solar before the power cuts.
"Starmer and EU to sign anti-Trump pact
in releationship reset" the paper also reports.]


https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standar...2cfef.jpg.webp

Yes, we're a car nation, so the problem is always going to be gas stations are empty from people filling up their vehicles and also their generators. Our generator also takes propane so would have to worry about finding this also. It also covers natural gas, but then it's $100-$150/day for whole house from what I've heard from neighbors and definitely the most expensive option... so last resort...

They blamed eco power here during the Texas grid failure, but then it's reported that it was eco power that was overperforming and helping it to not fall apart while other methods went offline or were reconnecting generation. But it's diversified green energy: windmills, battery storage, solar, etc... 53% dependency is very high for just solar.

BBC News Text:
["Bad hols vibes," writes the Daily Star as it
says "Portugal blames Spain" for the blackouts.]


https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/standar...0638b.jpg.webp

…it’s still not totally clear what the cause of the blackouts …I know that atmospheric phenomenons have been mentioned but so far as I’m aware that’s unconfirmed…I hope all is not too grim and stressful for Jess atm..

The Tech Fella
on Ch4HDnews said they Bounced
which is dangerous
so it auto shut down.

Having Electricity High in the Sky
is Stupid

…well, whatever the cause it’s obviously extremely stressful for those living there and going forward now, maybe underground cables will be looked at also…but as always, cost is always a factor with these things, isn’t it…

Yes the Costings

stopped underground
safer cables in pipes

GMBHD itv Live

Spain is saying it was a France Connection
That started this.

…even if/when beginning in France, it doesn’t have to impact Spain in the way it did so that’s all just pointless …rather than looking at real possible ways of trying to prevent anything similar in the future if it was weather/atmospheric related…

…the cheers when the lights came back on in Madrid…

i completely understand Portugal for blaming Spain, since they are all on the same power grid

could also just be improper maintenance, due to budget cuts or something


these cables need good maintenance work every now and then




also a cyber attack is possible yes, but somehow i always think they pull off more precision attacks at governmental buildings, airports, rather than the power grid of an entire nation


like last year here, a cyberattack at our Schiphol airport, you couldn't acquire your tickets through the computers at the terminals, which was due to a faulty update in a untrustworthy and cheap antivirus system



i get why people think of cyberattacks but idk, i myself more think of other possible causes too

and you can say but everything went out the same time


yes, that is a sort of ''Domino effect'' if you got faulty cables and those are all connected with each other, then yes, exactly this will happen



which also explains the moment the power restored again, maybe they found the culprit, and they replaced a cable, and then yes everything returns back to normal-ish

but my advice for the Red Electrica company would be try to prevent this from happening again, maybe some failsafes if possible idk, i'm no electrician but that should be possible i think, to place certain alternate power lines as a backup

Our power has been stable overnight and the ice packs I put in the fridge did the job because everything is still fresh x

That's good.:)

Back in March Brussels instructed the public to stockpile 72 hours of food. Coincidence?

Oh good to hear

I heard.

Marks and Sparks have had a major Cyber attack that has put their online orderings system out of action, its been out for a week, it has been pretty far down the News cycle

No I dont think so, we should take this as a bit of a wake up call to have some cash indoors and food and water

Yes a Week
means many customers will move on
and not return

I also heard that they will now have to shift stock at a reduced rate as they will have a backlog ...

I think the cyber attack angle is a red herring.

its not a cyber attack, that has been confirmed now


apparently it has to do with a sudden loss of power in the southwest of Spain, and more specifically with Solar panels, where the power went down, and some systems began to shutdown


Portugal and southern france were just unlucky to be on the same power grid

We continue to have these incidents where power goes out whether via weather related incidents or glitches or as happened recently with that upgrade that went wrong, yet some people will still convince you that you don't need cash...madness