Power grid vulnerability
was exposed by a
storm with high winds.
On February 27, 2020,
large areas of central
and southern Germany
had the power fail
due to
“snow and storms.”,
t-online.de reported.
Not directly from
the snow and ice.
But from an
increasingly
unstable
power grid.
Caused mainly
by wildly fluctuating
feed-in of volatile
wind and solar
energy.
Late evening
storms and winds
led to wild fluctuation
in the European
power grid at 8 p.m.
The grid
frequency
critically
dropped
below the
50 Hz value,
which meant
more power
was being
consumed
than being
generated.
Austrian power
grid expert
Herbert Saurugg
tweeted: “And again
a record low peak
frequency at 8 p.m.:
49.856 Hz.
That’s two-thirds
of the reserve
power used.
At 49.80 Hz
the first load
drops occur.”
If the frequency
dropped a bit more,
emergency grid
switch offs would
have been needed,
resulting in a
widespread
blackout.
The blackouts
that did occur
led to
“many disruptions”
of rail and auto
transportation,
t-online writes.
Hours-long
power outages
affected
large portions
of southern
Germany.