[tt] the physics arXiv blog

[Eugen Leitl]

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From: the physics arXiv blog <howdy at arxivblog.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 18:05:10 -0500 (CDT)
To: eugen at leitl.org
Subject: the physics arXiv blog
Reply-To: the physics arXiv blog <howdy at arxivblog.com>


[1]the physics arXiv blog

   [2]The coming blackout

   Posted: 02 Apr 2008 12:08 AM CDT

   On Monday, 17th December 2007, Europe narrowly avoided disaster. A
   cold snap had lowered the temperature across much of continent to
   several degrees below average and that evening, as households across
   the continent switched on their heating systems, the power consumption
   hit critical levels.
   France, Italy and Spain all set new records for power consumption. By
   sheer luck, Switzerland and Germany, which were less cold, were able
   to provide some 1.6 GWe of spare capacity to cover the cracks in the
   system.
   As it turned out, the rest of the winter was abnormally mild. But had
   the cold snap been more widespread, the European electricity supply
   could have collapsed.
   The problem dates from about 30 years ago when Europe's grid system
   and generating capacity was built with a huge amount of spare
   capacity. Since then, as economies have boomed, politicians have had
   little incentive to upgrade the system. In the meantime, consumption
   has been increasing at the rate of 1-2 per cent per year and today the
   spare capacity has all but gone. With the simplest extrapolation being
   that demand will continue to grow at the same rate, a crisis looms.
   Now the Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity, an
   association of power providers in Europe has issued a report detailing
   the system's shortcomings. And analysis on the arXiv by Michael
   Dittmar at the Swiss Federal Institue of Technology in Zurich paints
   an even gloomier picture, not least because there is no clear short
   term path to reducing consumption or increasing generating capacity.
   Europe has suffered a number of large blackouts in recent years,
   notably in Italy between 28-29th September 2003 and in France and
   Germany on 4 November 2006. But worse looks to be on the cards.
   Dittmar's message is that the next winter of 2008/9 will test the
   European grid to its limits.
   Ref: [3]arxiv.org/abs/0803.4421: The European Electricity Grid System
   and Winter Peak Load Stress

   [4][arXivblog?i=pWEaOi] 
   [5][arXivblog?i=7GrRuUG] [6][arXivblog?i=WQABp9G]
   [7][arXivblog?i=6525Rzg] [8][arXivblog?i=o7ZrBBG]
   [9][arXivblog?i=EN0fHOg] [10][arXivblog?i=X1Io14G]
   [11][arXivblog?i=SUXCI1g] [12][arXivblog?i=wSNzvqG] 
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References

   1. http://arxivblog.com/
   2. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/arXivblog/~3/262426492/
   3. http://arxiv.org/abs/0803.4421
   4. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/arXivblog?a=pWEaOi
   5. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=7GrRuUG
   6. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=WQABp9G
   7. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=6525Rzg
   8. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=o7ZrBBG
   9. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=EN0fHOg
  10. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=X1Io14G
  11. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=SUXCI1g
  12. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=wSNzvqG
  13. http://arxivblog.com/
  14. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailunsub?id=8632699&key=kesJ612ZsV
  15. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog
  16. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog

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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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