What is the phenomenon that ‘extinguished’ Spain and Portugal?

Today, millions of people in Spain and Portugal have lost electricity. The sudden change in temperature caused problems at high voltage lines and disrupted the supply of electricity, reported from the Portuguese network Ren. An induced atmospheric vibration occurs when the wind or sudden changes in temperature begins to swing high voltage lines. If the frequency is covered, there are strong vibrations that can damage the lines and disrupt the transmission of currents. Large temperature changes are otherwise known risk for electricity systems, but such big problems happen very rarely.

– Due to the change in temperature, the conductor parameters change slightly. This creates an imbalance in the frequency – said Taco Englaar, director of Near, who provides software services with energy companies.

Accuweather Meteorologist Dan Depodwin said for USA Today That it is a rare phenomenon, but that this may happen due to rapid changes in temperature or wind speed.

– The atmosphere does something to cause vibrations in transmission lines, which can lead to interruption – he said, adding that either sudden changes in temperature or an extended period of extreme temperatures can stimulate that phenomenon.

RTL Meteorologist Dorian Ribaric explains that this is not a meteorological phenomenon that it could be stunned, but that it is something else.

– An atmospheric disorder is simply wrongly used by syntagm. Namely, the notion of these atmospheric vibrations is not a meteorological, but an engineering name for the mechanism that occurs on these transmission lines – Ribarić said, saying that in the previous days it was really somewhat unusual daily temperature walk in Spain.

– From early one -digit values, in some places, the frost, by the afternoon 26-27 ° C, which fits almost in the middle of June, not the end of April. Such a difference in temperature can then be a trigger for such problems on transmission lines. Namely, for such an increase in temperature of over 20 ° C in the day, it can cause significant thermal stretching of the material, for example, steel extends by 10 cm at every 100 meters), thus leading to vibration of the conductor. The air around the conductor itself is unstable, so there is an ionizing of this thin layer of air and all the gathering leads to the interruption of current – explained this phenomenon of RTL prognosticist today.

The Portuguese network operator Ren announced on Monday that there is no information « that mass interruptions are in electricity supply, which hit the Pyrenese Peninsula, caused by a cyber attack.

Ren board member Joao Conceicao said that there was a possibility that the current of electricity had occurred because of « very high oscillation in electrical voltages, first in the Spanish system, which then spread to Portuguese ».

« It could be a thousand and one cause, it’s too early to evaluate, » he said, adding that Ren was in constant contact with Spain.

Conceicao said Ren hoped to re -establish a current in the second largest city in the country, Porto, in the next two hours, and in the period of five or six hours in the Lisbon capital.

« If it were to Ren, the country would have woke up with electricity tomorrow, but unfortunately not only Ren important, » he said.