On Monday, April 28, the Iberian Peninsula plunged into a crisis, whose sources have remained unexplained so far – Millions of people in Spain, Portugal, parts of France and Andora, and in Belgium experienced intervals in electricity supply. The governments were convened by crises, and the effects also include stopping railway traffic, evacuating people from public buildings or flight delays (including Poland).
The flowing reports also talk about hospitals that must switch to electricity production from their own generators. The failure began around 12:30, and the authorities do not rule out the cyber attack behind it. Do we also have reasons for concern thousands of kilometers away, and with the combined systems of EU countries The effects of Blackout in the west of the continent may also be felt in our country? As the editors of Business Insider Polska, we asked these questions to Maciej Wapiński, a spokesman for Polish electricity networks.
Read also: Communication chaos on the Iberian Peninsula. Effects of power failure [ZDJĘCIA]
PSE exercises dry
– The Polish system works stable; The events from the Iberian Peninsula did not affect us – the spokesman replies. He also points out that the causes of the failure are not yet known, but its causes will be considered not only national operators, but the entire European environment associated in the European network of electricity transmission system operators (ENTSO-E-European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity). It informs about the operator's responsibilities.
– Our basic tasks include planning system operation in various perspectives, including the production and operation of the network, but also continuous improvement of procedures. A large part of PSE work is a “dry” exercise of various variants of the system's operationso as to prepare for possible interference – he says.
– Events such as Blackout, however, have it that some risk of their occurrence is inevitable. In this circumstance, like any operator, we have a plan to restore the system to work through the so -called Blackstart – the ability of some units to start and provide power for other system components – explains Wapiński.
In 2015, the power levels saved us
The spokesman reminds of the situation from the summer of 2015, when As a result of the inaccessibility of some of the blocks in power plants, Poland stood in the face of Blackout, but also draws attention to the PSEs at the time in comparison with today's location of operators in Spain or Portugal.
– As part of the planning process, we knew then that the balance would be tight and balance of supply and energy demand would be difficult. So we could take such steps as the introduction of power levelsi.e. reducing energy consumption, thanks to which the entire system did not fail. In today's case, however, events are very sudden, and time to react may simply be too little. The only thing that is able to help then is the proper operation of procedures and automation – he explains.
Drought with a smaller problem
What are the main risk factors to keep in mind? Traditionally mentioned among them, water stress as a result of drought is happily today less important than in previous yearswhich results from both the development of unnecessary water for cooling renewable energy sources and modernization of thermal power plants.
– Part of the power plant carried out investments enabling water puffing, and new blocks with a closed cooling system were created. Of course, it also does its own participation in the system sunny sources and wind. We also do not have so many flow water farms in Poland to create a water shortage to create a greater threat to the generation of energy – says Maciej Wapiński.
He emphasizes that “there are still a lot of threats.” – TAbout weather conditionssuch as extremely strong winds that can physically destroy lines. There are also balance threats – there is too much electricity and then periodically you need to, for example, reduce the generation of renewable sources. In turn, in the winter months, the demand is increasing and there may be a risk of deficiencies of available power (independent of the weather and possible start -up – editor's note). – he mentions.
– As conventional blocks are withdrawn from operation, the problem may get worse – He adds Wapiński and also mentions the threats associated with e.g. cybercrime. “Licens for challenges are long and the operators must be prepared for them,” he says.
No ideal solutions
We asked the spokesperson to reduce the risk of Blackout thanks to the distributed energy – focused around local sources consumed at the place of energy and local balancing areas, with less dependence on the central system.
– Distributed energy is actually one of the main trends in the energy sector that can provide greater independence from fluctuations at the level of the entire system. However, this is not an ideal solution that ensures 100 % security; Local balancing areas are also exposed even to interference caused by extreme weather conditions. The challenges are different than in classic centralized energy. However, 100 % protection against all risks and threats does not exist. Let's also remember about the broadly understood cybersecurity – modern electricity is equipped with complex electronic systems that can be offended or become an object of hostile actions. The key is not only resistance to interference, but also the ability to quickly rebuild and restore normal system operation – warns Maciej Wapiński.
