Europe suffers cascade electricity breakdown

[Stonehead]

Power cuts strike western Europe

Cold weather in Germany sparked a surge in demand, then with a European wide electricity network, the surge spread and then two transmission lines failed.

Result - a cascading sysem failure that blacked out large parts of Germany and France plus parts of Italy, Belgium and Spain.

And it's not even the coldest month yet. Oh, and Britain draws electricity from Europe as well...

[hedgewizard]

Oh crap. I suppose this is a good moment to reflect on how we would cope with a short-term power cut - say 48 hours - and see if anything needs to be changed.

Light; we have candles galore so no problems there.

Cooking; from bottled gas, so not affected. We always have a spare cylinder too.

Heat; Although we have oil-fired heating the pump runs on electric. I wonder if the hot water would still work? I doubt it somehow... some heat from the oven, plus the woodburner would still be fine. No heat on the bedroom side of the house though (it's made of two old garages), but we have hot water bottles

[Merry]

Would ordinary gas supply continue in an extended power shut down?
It keeps going in the short term ones we sometimes get but I wonder what would happen if it carried on for longer?

[Wombat]

Something I have been threateneing to do for years is wait for the dead of winter then pull the fuses - see what part of our preparations work and what don't. I know people who diod this and found it very educative

Nev

[shiney]

Better get the supplies in me thinks!

My mum lives in France and they are always having power cuts. Amazing really as they have so many nuclear power stations.

She's been without her phone line for about two weeks now. The phone company will 'arrivee' when it's convenient. They don't rush things there, but she has got used to how they work and expect them when she sees them.

[Martin]

oh dear, what a shame - never mind!

[hedgewizard]

Would ordinary gas supply continue in an extended power shut down?
It keeps going in the short term ones we sometimes get but I wonder what would happen if it carried on for longer?

When that cold snap happened two years ago, the russians decided to turn off the gas pipeline supplying a republic that was arguing about the price per unit. That had a knock-on effect on large areas of europe and even with diplomatic pressure it took more than a week to sort out. So no, don't rely on mains gas!

If you can get hold of a copy or download it, the BBC comissioned a program called "If... the lights go out" that deals with this. It's the same research that the programme was based on which has prompted our government to take a serious look at nuclear power again.

[Merry]

Oh flippin` `eck!
So, in a house with no open chimney and reliant on electricity and piped gas what could one do? Is bottled gas the only option?

[Stonehead]

Oh flippin` `eck!
So, in a house with no open chimney and reliant on electricity and piped gas what could one do? Is bottled gas the only option?

Tilley lamp for heat and light, bottled gas camp cooker for cooking.

[jondy]

Your electricity goes down and your gas central heating goes down too. I am not a sparks (electrician) but connecting a standby generator 800w (about £50) in my case to the pump etc should in theory keep the central heating going. I know the generator supply should not be hooked up to these things so I wonder if a large battery with an inverter would power the electrics of the heating system.
Any ideas? What happens when the power cuts in again with the power hook up in place. etc. ? ( I am planning on a move where I can rely more on woodburners and 12v. Until then..)

John

[Stonehead]

Your electricity goes down and your gas central heating goes down too. I am not a sparks (electrician) but connecting a standby generator 800w (about £50) in my case to the pump etc should in theory keep the central heating going. I know the generator supply should not be hooked up to these things so I wonder if a large battery with an inverter would power the electrics of the heating system.
Any ideas? What happens when the power cuts in again with the power hook up in place. etc. ? ( I am planning on a move where I can rely more on woodburners and 12v. Until then..)

John

One of my neighbours used to have the electrics for his central heating connected in via a three-pin plug. In a blackout, he'd just plug the central heating into the generator via an extension lead.

However, when he had his central heating upgraded recently, the electrician insisted on putting in a permanent, fused switch and said there was no way he'd put in a three-pin plug as it could be unsafe.

How?

[jondy]

Thanks Stonehead, I think that the supply from a generator is considered to be in some way not smooth or regular enough. My brother runs a generator, he say's there is a warning on his not to connect directly into 240v systems. With your Enfield you have your own standby electricity supply, but I guess you are self sufficient in power up there?

John

[Martin]

simplest and cheapest way is to get yourself a "ups" to run your pump and timers - if you regularly have power cuts of some duration, you can just add a thumping great battery to it, and run for days!
Under a hundred for the ups, about the same for a big gel battery (and I hate to advertise, but we do have access to some excellent reasonably priced upss!)

[Merry]

Sorry to be dim again but - What`s an ups?
It`s probably something really obvious.
I`ve scanned the solar wind site and it doesn`t jump out at me

[Martin]

sorry, it's an "uninterruptable power supply" - much used to make sure that computers keep running in the event of a power cut - its a box that you plug into the mains, and you plug whatever you need to run into it, then if the mains power drops, it switches very fast to it's internal battery, which will probably power it for an hour or so. If you anticipate power outages longer than that, you just add a suitable battery to it, and it can work for much longer! Sorry you couldn't find it on the site -I'm overdue to add loads of stuff to it, and the upss are on the list to go on there!

- low quiescent power UPS systems - from 65 quid for a 300 watter!