2006 European blackout

On November 4, 2006, there came against 22:10 clock to a larger power failure in Europe. Parts of Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Spain were partly up to 120 minutes without electricity, and even in Morocco, the effects were felt.

Cause

The trigger was the scheduled temporary shutdown of two of E.ON (now Tennet TSO) operated high voltage lines Conneforde plank that cross the Ems with the 380 - kV -Ems overhead line crossing, on the evening of 4 November 2006 for the disembarkation of the Norwegian Pearl, one at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg built cruise ship. Through the E.ON grid nearly 10,000 MW, generated mainly by wind energy power from northern Germany and northern Europe to western and southern Europe were passed at the time of the failure.

According to the investigation report of the UCTE this shutdown was planned deficient and characterized by short-term change. The original schedule the shutdown line provided for a significant reduction in transport capacity. Due to legal agreements, this reduction could not be adapted to the updated schedule. In addition, the shutdown of the line was brought forward without the other transmission system operators involved Vattenfall (now 50 Hertz Transmission ) and RWE (now Amprion ) to inform you in advance, so that they had no chance to adapt their generation and network capacity at the new time to the changing conditions. The E.ON grid went red to the planned shutdown of the two 400 kV lines Conneforde plank and white of the normal mode in which the (N -1) criterion was met, on the endangered but still safe operating condition.

Other circumstances were between the network operators do not properly replaced and updated boundary data for the remaining transmission lines, which should take the power from the EMS overhead line crossing. This resulted in the ongoing performed load flow calculations for determining the network security to inaccurate or incorrect calculations. Such were the limits of the 400 - kV transmission pipeline between the substations country's mountains and fortified village, that line took over a significant portion of the power set differently on both sides - the operators of E.ON on the different parameters on the side of RWE not aware were:

Course

After the planned shutdown of the second EMS overhead line crossing at 21:39, it came on the 400 - kV line Landesbergen - fortified village on a planned increase of approximately 600 MVA to 1,300 MVA. By 22:05 it was still possible with the help of the Danish control area, convert the power from the vulnerable state in the safe (N -1) - state, but this option was not taken into consideration and it was this way for legal reasons not allowed because must first be carried out to ensure topology changes in its own network.

Between 22:05 and 22:07 it came on the line Landesbergen - Wehrendorf to a further increase to 100 MW, which led to the triggering of a warning on side of RWE and at 22:08 for an urgent clarification with the power line by E.ON led to establish the secure operation. The staff of E.ON resulted in real-time load flow calculation for changing the network topology through, but without examination of the (N -1) criterion, with the result that a merger of two busbars in the substation Landesbergen the current on the line Landesbergen - Wehrendorf to 80 A should reduce.

The at 22:10:11 vorgenomme switching action by interconnection of busbars without further consultation with the power cable from RWE however ended in disaster: instead of as planned to reduce the transmission power, the power went through the line Landesbergen - Wehrendorf to 67 A at what two seconds later led to the automatic tripping of power system protection at the substation Wehrendorf. At this time, the (N- 1) criterion was not met for this region, the disconnection of the line country Bergen- Wehrendorf led to a chain reaction: the load distributed in an uncontrolled manner to other lines in the environment, which in consequence to further automatic shutdowns resulted due to congestion and lack of synchronicity.

At the end of the chain reaction, the UCTE network was to 22:10:28,7 that by the sequence or automatic emergency programs in the area west and north- east, and 0.2 s later separated the South - Eastern power grid as separate subnets without there was damage to infrastructure such as transformers or lines. Northern and Eastern Europe now produced almost 10,000 MW too much power that was lacking in Western and Southern Europe. As a consequence, the power frequency increased rapidly in northern and eastern Europe, while they rapidly fell in western and southern Europe (lower frequency). While it still succeeded in Northern and Eastern Europe, to balance the current account due time, particularly by separating energy producers from the network could not be mobilized quickly enough the lack of generation capacity in Western and Southern Europe. It had to be removed from the network by automatic load shedding consumers, this meant for the regions concerned an immediate power failure. To 22:10:40 as could stabilize the grid frequency in the remaining portions of the supply western region secured at a low level. As a result, attempts interconnection and synchronization of the power network has been restored. This could be produced after several unsuccessful attempts after a few hours in Europe.

Follow

Were affected up to ten million homes in Europe. Also, the rail traffic was severely impaired. In Austria, in the course of the disorder to a separation of the interconnection network between Western and Eastern Austria: war While available in eastern Austria too much power, with a significant increase in grid frequency and with the result that power plants had to be taken in the short term from the network was in West Austria shortage in power supply. Therefore, large consumers were short term in Western Austria switched off and taken additional storage power plants to support the power is on. The failure times were through the switches in Austria but only fractions of a second and in some regions up to a few minutes. It was only after about an hour, the two halves of network could be synchronized and interconnected in Austria again.

Timing

Information in accordance with investigation report of the Federal Network Agency.