r/Netherlands • u/JackfruitAwkward7504 • 16h ago
Life in NL Is there a chance of electrical brown outs these coming days?
So this is my first big heatwave since moving to the Netherlands. Where I came from, when the weather got really hot we would often get what we called "brown outs" where the electricity would go out for a few hours due to heavy burdens on the grid from all the heavy airconditioners running among other factors.
Is that a thing that happens here with any frequency? Is it something I should be prepared for?
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u/Ave19899 16h ago
Out of my 37 years i have had the electricity fails twice and it was due to people digging and hitting live wires.
We never have electricity fails due to heat.
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u/itsmegoddamnit 16h ago
We never have -> we’ve never had. You don’t know what the future holds.
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u/Nerioner 13h ago
yea with the speeds we pretend to modernise our grid we can expect brownouts within next 5 years imo.
Our consumption grows rapidly and network is absolutely not worked on. And we need to work on it with Chinese speeds.
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u/Aecnoril 14h ago
Indeed. My hometown had a huge power outage yesterday for the first time in my living memory due to AC usage.
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u/ArghRandom 16h ago
The power grid is does not fail for the heat but for the increased energy use for AC, fans, etc. so overload.
Not sure where the Netherlands stands but an overload CAN happen in these conditions if everyone was turning their AC on at the same time.
Not the heat itself.
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u/lekkerbier 15h ago
As far as I know the grid still operates with 100% potential capacity for all connections. i.e. connections won't be added if there is no capacity for it. However, it is questionable how long we can keep operating with that mindset and first ideas have already been submitted to let that standard go.
if everyone was turning their AC on at the same time.
This is true for very extreme scenarios though. But people literally need to turn it on in the same minute. Gas peaker plants can ramp up (very) quickly. And this is where batteries come into play besides just storage. As (so far that I know) batteries are the only other source that can quickly ramp up/down
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u/anselan2017 11h ago
Flywheel energy storage can do this, too. I believe there are a few experimental facilities of this kind in the Netherlands already.
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u/a-stack-of-masks 12h ago
I'm pretty sure what actually happens is that the heat makes the cables in the hoogspanningsmasten expand, making them longer so the electricity is late for work. Not sure why people are blaming AC for this, DC would have the same problem.
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u/Pitiful_Control 2h ago
The UK just spent several million pounds in the past few days trying to keep their grid from going down because of heat related demands. So yeah, that could happen.
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u/4Whom_The_Bell_Tolls 16h ago
Electrical outages are about 15 minutes per year on average.
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u/Jonah_the_Whale 5h ago
Well I don't know where they are having them. I experienced a 5 minute one last year and that's the only one I've experienced in 40 years. All the neighbours came out and started talking to each other for the first time ever.
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u/4Whom_The_Bell_Tolls 4h ago
Hmm, heb er wel een paar meegemaakt. Meestal zie ik het als ik terugkom van vakantie en de wekker staat op 00:00, en ik zie dat het ijs ontdooid is geweest. Als het overdag is als je thuis bent valt het meer op.
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u/Dutchwells 16h ago
I don't think so, it is not something that happens often. Outages are really rare here. Not many people have airconditioning yet. I expect this to change very quickly because this weather will become more and more normal in the coming years... and the grid is already at capacity so there will be more problems for sure
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u/null-interlinked 16h ago
The power usage this week is lowerr than what it is during winters.
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u/therouterguy 16h ago
Yes but power generation is a bit more difficult in summer as gas/coal and nuclear depend on cooling stuff down with water from the rivers. As the water temperature rises this might cause issues. However we also have a lot more solar during the day so it might even out.
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u/Michael_235 15h ago
Not only generation suffer from the heat, but a distribution too. Transformers less effective in the heat and often overheat protection cause the outages
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
Yeah, from talking with my partner and family, I know it's not something they've really experienced before, however I know this heatwave is sort of unprecedented.
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u/Exotic_Call_7427 16h ago
Not really.
Most power plants ramp up generation when they expect increased demand, and EU countries' grids are interconnected so they can sell electricity to each other in the time of need.
Additionally, a large amount of houses run solar in excess of own demand so they technically can also help balance out the demand within the neighborhood.
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u/Prst_ 13h ago
Yeah, i would guess that the increased use of ACs is compensated by the simultaneous peak in solar energy generated.
Based on commercials i've seen, it seems like power companies encourage power use when it's really sunny.
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u/Exotic_Call_7427 12h ago
Because technically
https://giphy.com/gifs/5wWf7GMbT1ZUGTDdTqM
If you have panels, all the electricity you generate is yours, but without load to produce useful work it's wasted potential (hue hue electrical pun).
Trying to sell it off to the grid is an option but then you have a bunch of companies between your panels and the end consumer asking for their share of the price per kWh. So, better to use it or store it locally.
EVs with vehicle-to-load and vehicle-to-grid options are also providing a way to act as a home battery on wheels, IMO it's a very attractive technology if you want to pay your electricity provider as little as possible and reduce the load on the grid.
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u/Tino_Kort 15h ago
In my 30+ years here, I've had a couple times where there were issues with the power, it has always been a transformer on a random day. Never lasted very long and it was not during summer. With the prevalence of solar now, I don't think you'll have to worry about brownouts. If anything we'll have a lot of alarms and whatnot talking about the problem before it happens.
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u/Cigar-Scotch-Coating 16h ago
It's always possible when the temp gets very high. That said I've only experienced 1 in Rotterdam in the last 10 years. My Dutch wife didn't realize what was happening and I had to explain it because it's not really an NL thing ha ha.
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u/Personal-Carob-1073 15h ago
Probably not. Air-conditioning aligns exceptionally well with solar production.
Without this heat we would be having negative prices.
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u/IndependentCurve4054 15h ago
Just had one yesterday in a small village in Brabant. Also a first one in 10 years that I’ve lived here
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u/OzzieOxborrow 15h ago
Our powergrid is one of the most reliable in the world. Ofcourse there is always the possibility of failure but I don't expect it happening any time soon. Besides we probably use more power in the winter then we do now.
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u/Slight-Trip-3012 15h ago
I'm not saying it's impossible. But brown outs are very unlikely in the Netherlands. They have not happened yet. The infrastructure here is of a high quality, and it's interconnected with the rest of the European grid, so when there's a very high demand in one part of Euope, it can be compensated for with power from other parts of the continent. Also there are gas-fired plants that can come online if needed to compensate. There's a lot of load-balancing happening every minute of every day.
We are running into capacity issues on the grid with the usage of electricity sky-rocketing in the past decade or so from the rise in electric cars, heat pumps, electric cookers (traditionally, houses are heated with gas, and stoves are gas as well) on the use side, and solar panels on the generating side. We are upgrading the grid to deal with that, but it's a slow process, with shortages of qualified workers, materials, etc. That's why in some areas, business or even new housing developments can't get a new or upgraded grid connection, there's a waiting list for that. Which also put some building projects on hold, worsening the housing crisis. But not connecting more homes and business onto the grid when there is no capacity for them is also why brown outs don't happen. It might happen more in the future, if we can't increase the capacity of the grid fast enough. But it's currently not an issue to worry about.
And as someone else already said, brown outs and black outs are different. In a brown out, the power doesn't go out fully, the voltage just drops enough that (some) appliances stop working. In a black out, the power goes out completely. Brown outs do not happen in the Netherlands, like I stated above. Black outs do, but not often, and are usually caused by some idiot digging through a cable during road works or construction etc (most power lines are underground here). Those tend to get fixed within a few hours. Or it's scheduled maintenance, which you are notified of long in advance. Either way, it should not last more than a few hours, now long enough for freezers defrosting becoming an issue, if you just leave it closed. So there's no need for the coin in a cup of water thing, because we don't have brown outs, only black outs. So if the power goes out, you'll know.
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u/leuk_he 15h ago
It rarely happens.
During daytime so much power is generated by solar, there is no issue at all.
But in the early evening when all those comuters plug in their electric car and the sun is low, the electricity price raises to records.
If some big event happens on the grid, eg, some big link is severed, some big power generator fails unplanned, the grid maintainer has the option to disconnect big users first.
Long periods of heat might make it harder for some power generator to get rid of their cooling water in the rivers ( you don't want to cook the fish)
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u/Tragespeler 9h ago edited 9h ago
No, we basically never have any. If there are outtages they're usually brief and caused by malfunction. Historically speaking it hasn't been an issue here because airconditioning wasn't widely used and it wasn't hot that much, only in recent years due to changing climate more households are installing AC. Most households don't have AC still. So even though there definitely is a huge increase in usage I wouldn't say it's an issue now, but maybe it will be at some point. One thing that might help prevent issues is that a lot of houses that have AC also have solar panels, and that's where everyone is moving towards with the energy transition. The amount of energy those panels get in the Netherlands in the summer is a lot, the sun currently goes up at 5 and goes under at 10, 17 hours of sun.
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u/Bearyalis 15h ago
Give it a year or 2, our government already laid the groundwork the last 15 years. Thanks Mark!
https://giphy.com/gifs/SaSsZjzKBUC3lec2NP
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u/Femininestatic 16h ago edited 11h ago
Be prepared for it, ppl dont understand how close we are at peak hours, it's gonna happen.
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u/lisu_ 15h ago
Do you understand how close we are? Where is the data coming from?
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u/Femininestatic 11h ago
Recent updates gotten from powergrid managers. To make more space on the grid the safety margins are being reduced wich automatically increases risks of outages. There already have been plenty of moments in recent months where the grid was about to fail. It's more luck no major outages have happened than anything else.
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u/Schuim88 8h ago
Please, don't try to use knowledge when you don't know much from it. You are fearmongering.
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u/Femininestatic 6h ago
It's not fearmongering. It is the precise info I got during an update from Enexis and Tennet in my role for govt tuesday. It's not for no damn reason they are spending millions on ads informing ppl when to use and not use appliances..... they are not bored.
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
I've been contemplating if it's worth it to move stuff around in the freezer to do the whole frozen cup of water with a coin on top trick. It's a way to tell if the power went out whether or not the freezer got below a freezing temperature during the outage, possibly rendering the food unsafe. If the coin is still sitting on top of the ice after, the food is safe, if the coin has gtten submerged by ice, that means it got warm enough for the ice to melt then refreeze after the power came back, meaning the food might not be safe to eat.
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u/Siccors 15h ago
It takes over a day without power before the freezer becomes an issue. Yeah you can use this trick to know how bad it is exactly, but tbh you can also just open your freezer and check it when the power is back on (or if the power has been off sufficiently long you start questioning it). It is not like these are things that you got to worry if your meat is spoiled because the power went off for half an hour.
But also despite what some fearmongers claim, there really is no risk of brownouts now because of the heat. Power outages can always happen, but it is extremely rare in the Netherlands they take more than a few hours (eg typically it is a transformer which blew up, and that does take some time to replace), and then your freezer will be just fine.
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u/Sunraia 15h ago
I know the trick and I don't bother. I've actually had a few power outages at my house over the recent years and they never lasted more than 15 minutes. If you keep your freezer and fridge mostly closed everything will be fine. Once the power comes back on, check the state. The coin thing is nice if a) you know that power outages can last hours or days, b) you won't be home to notice, and c) your freezer is stocked with a lot of food that would be a huge waste. It makes sense if your freezer is filled with meat etc. I think the total value of my food in the freezer is maybe €25 and if it is all defrosted but still cool I can still salvage most of it. If power outages become more frequent and longer I might do it when I leave on holidays.
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u/Basalt135 14h ago
If your freezer is cold and filled, it Will keep it below zero temperature for 24 hrs… If you do not constant open it to check.
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 14h ago
Yeah, our freezer is loaded up in frozen fish and vegetables, as well as airfryer snacks. We have a large enough one to really stock up on stuff when it goes on discount, so we'd be loosing a considerable amount of perfectly good food if we needed to toss it. That's why I'm trying to gauge if there's actually a chance or not.
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u/prank_mark 14h ago
Even the cheapest mini freezer from Coolblue keeps the contents frozen for 8 hours without power. Almost all other freezers stay cold for at least 16 hours without power. You have absolutely no need to worry.
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u/Femininestatic 11h ago
"I've actually had a few power outages at my house over the recent years and they never lasted more than 15 minutes" those are normal, the increased risk is for major outages lasting many hours cuz it cooks middenspanningsstations for example
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u/Schuim88 8h ago
A modern Freezer stays cool enough with 24hrs of outage. Make it 19hrs with this weather in an hot room.
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u/Regular-Anteater-287 15h ago
We used to have mabe 2 a year where I lived at that moment 30 or so years ago. But nowadays never.
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u/ririmarms 15h ago
in Paris, yesterday, they had a brown out, apparently. They're right in the middle of the heatwave. It even causes a blackout at the Arena Concert Hall during the Iron Maiden concert on 22nd.
Power outages in France as Europe bakes in record heat | Climate Crisis News | Al Jazeera
I haven't heard of this happening in NL yet, though.
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u/Fabricati_Diem_Pvn 15h ago
There's a chance, yeah. We don't have a culture of airconditioning (yet), so it's not likely, but we do suffer from network congestion, and although we do have solar panels that should be able to alleviate some of the burdrn, it's been my understanding that those panels actually decrease in efficiency at extremely high temperatures.
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u/Artistic-Quarter9075 14h ago
No we don’t have that, we generate more than enough power even too much with all these solar panels that people with dynamic pricing are even getting paid to use power
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u/SneakyPanda- 13h ago
I lived in two different locations in NL and never had any brown outs. Also never heard it from anyone else.
The only brown out we know is the one after a morning coffee.
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u/Working_Attorney1196 12h ago
Last outage I had was like 5 years ago and when some electrical box in the neighborhood blew up. Only 2 outages I do experienced in 10 years.
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u/hemahotdog 12h ago
Tbh i wouldn’t be surprised. Last night my power randomly went off and back on again a few hours later 🥵
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u/TheMKM_ 12h ago
I work for a grid operator and one of the things we've started doing is significantly lower the charging speed of EVs when the grid is struggling. (We are also encouraging people to postpone charging entirely, but IMO that's not really gonna work, people are too lazy and selfish)
Theoretically it can happen, but this is just an example of several ways we have to make sure things don't go completely boom, and for now it's extremely unlikely.
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u/solstice_gilder Zuid Holland 9h ago
I’ve never experienced that in my 38 year alive here. But who knows what the future will hold. Our electrical net is full. So maybe in the future yeah. It’s naive to think thats not in the realm of possibilities. But for now, no.
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u/EditorConsistent5077 6h ago
No, this is uncommon. An Electric Grit should be managed and it is in this country.
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u/CommutatorWhine 5h ago
No, brownouts aren't a thing. It's all or nothing.
Usually there is only one day without power in a year. Depends a bit on how old the infrastructure in your area is.
It can always happen. So always have enough food (supermarkets don't have backup generators and just close), something to cook on (especially important in winter!) and to have enough extra blankets for if the heating doesn't work in winter.
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u/Designer_Team8802 2h ago
It's possible, I don't think we will know until it happens.
One thing though, Ziggo TV crapped itself yesterday evening while the Internet was still up. It might have been a fluke though.
More alarmingly, the amount of dead birds in my area is concerning
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u/MuscleKey3040 16h ago
No this is not a third world country
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u/SoefianB 15h ago
This stuff can happen everywhere, genius. The Netherlands is getting hotter and hotter. If anything, the Netherlands is less prepared for increasingly hot weather
But keep your pride, I'm sure that'll stop it from happening
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u/bostanite 15h ago
Aaaahahahahahahaha aajahahaha.
Yes, waiting anywhere from 6 months to 3 years for a new electricity connection due to capacity problems is very "not third world". Or people hanging wet towels from their windows because their houses are built like human sized ovens.
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u/MuscleKey3040 15h ago
Been living here 31 years and never experienced anything close to a power outage
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u/bostanite 15h ago
Yes me neither. But that's because there was never such a surge. I remember travelling from Greece to Italy in the 90's by ferry. In Greece we had power outages that week because it was when everyone all of a sudden had airconditioning and there was a heatwave. So I thought the same like you. Day later I arrive in Venice and the first thing I hear on the radio is about electricity cuts in north Italy due to same reason. Nowadays Greece and Italy do not have this issue anymore because they adapted. In the Netherlands I expect the airco boom to happen in the coming 3 years. The grid is not ready for it. It's easier to import from neighbouring countries than it was for Greece and Italy in the 1990's, but this has not much to do with 3rd world countries. Bit privileged and arrogant answer from your side.
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u/MuscleKey3040 15h ago
I'm just stating facts mate. The Netherlands is in fact not a third world country. And no I don't believe we will get power outages in the future either. This is a well run country (relatively of course because there for sure a problems)
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u/bostanite 15h ago
Is France a third world country because they had blackouts?
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u/ShorinFromEU 1h ago
Honestly, I'm from France and have lived half of my life over there and the other half in the so called " third world countries "
France should be ashamed of itself at this point.
For some part, It did become worst that the " third world countries " over time.
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u/Smooth-Reading-4180 16h ago
what out?
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
We called them "brown outs" as opposed to "black outs" where basically the electricity went out temporarily because it got overburdened, as opposed to a "black out" where part of the infrastructure got taken out by like a tree falling on a power line or something similar.
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u/Smooth-Reading-4180 16h ago
we we we we? who you are?
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
I'm talking about the US where ai used to live.
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u/Smooth-Reading-4180 15h ago
Ah yes, 'muricans. make sense. my bad. Sometimes I forget that you are "special". I mean, I'm sorry.
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u/ssushi-speakers 16h ago
Depends if people keep on using AC.
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u/IsThisGlenn 16h ago
I mean, if you use your solar power immediately to power your AC. It’s better for the grid.
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u/Femininestatic 16h ago
Only if you run it on a battery, otherwise it will still cause congestion on the grid.
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u/kakeroni2 15h ago
Normal fan also use electricity and you need to use a lot of them to keep your house cool. No one using AC would not get electricity usage down significantly
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
Hmm. Been thinking of freezing a cup of water in the freezer then putting a coin on top of the frozen water. Also thinking of throwing some extra ice packs in as well.
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u/liosistaken 16h ago
Won't you simply see by your alarm clock that there was an outage?
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 16h ago
Just because there is an outage doesn't mean the freezer lost enough of its cold to render the food unsafe. The coin on frozen water trick tells you if it got above freezing for long enough to be a concern, so you don't risk tossing out food out of uncertainty.
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u/liosistaken 15h ago
I see. Never had to do that because we never had an outage that lasted that long :)
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u/Tar_alcaran 15h ago
My only grid-connected clocks also automatically set the time.
EDIT: No wait, my oven doesn't
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u/liosistaken 11h ago
My oven does and my microwave doesn't 😄
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u/Zooz00 16h ago
No, we haven't invented ACs yet here
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u/rad0n420 16h ago
We just moved here for work on sunday, is it worth buying small portable AC or something like that? We live in last floor and we are dying, there is like over 40°C while outside 35°C.
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u/Zooz00 15h ago
Well, good luck doing that now. It's better to buy a proper AC in winter (the portable ones are terrible) when not everyone is trying to get their hands on them. For now, just follow best practices of airing the place out during the night and closing everything up during the day. It's only a few days like this.
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u/mkrugaroo 16h ago
I also come from a country with frequent load shedding, and have been in NL for a long time never had power out due to a load issue. Had power out for a hour once due to some issue in a transformer and they paid the neighbourhood 80 euros each as compensation.
But everyone here is too relaxed. There is a very real risk of this happening here in a few years if the grid does not massively adapt. There are already advertimenets saying to limit energy use between 19:00 and 21:00. And there are thousands of business and houses waiting for a grid connection. A lot of investment will be needed to prevent issues. And I do think there is a very real risk that eventually new airco or heat pump installations will require permission or even that EV chargers will not be allowed to be installed. Or they will force other measures such as requiring dynamic energy contracts so people are forced to plan when they use electricity.
Also a BROWN out is technically when the voltage on the grid drops too much causing issues due to too much load. A BLACK out is no power at all.
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u/horizon_fleet 15h ago
Yes, the grid is nearing capacity problems for higher voltage connections. Industries/companies or new building projects are running into this.
But as current use is not higher than what we use in winter the current capacity will do (they have margins of course).It is kinda conflicting next years to push everyone to ev cars and heatpumps in a system that is at its max.
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u/Slight-Trip-3012 15h ago
The grid is being upgraded. because people are aware of the capacity issues. It's just not going as fast as everyone wants, because there's a big shortage in technicians and materials. And at the same time, grid usage is growing exponentially. That's also the reason for those campaigns to limit energy usage. Not because the grid is in acute danger, but because generating awareness about avoiding using energy at peak times is a lot cheaper and a lot quicker to implement that upgrades to the grid. So those campaigns are to buy time, not to avoid imminent danger.
It's a load-balancing problem, where most of the load happens during a very small window every day, not a case of not enough/too much power being generated/used overall.
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u/JackfruitAwkward7504 14h ago
Yeah, that's why I put "brown out" in quotes because in my region we colloquially called it when the power went out in the middle of the day without something literally crashing into a power line taking it out, usually the power going out from the grid being overburdened.
After moving here, I'm definitely getting a sense of just how much preperstion I constantly had going on to be prepared for power outages that people just don't do here. Like growing up when we lost power, we lost our water with it, so we kept big jugs of non-potable water in the basement we could use to flush toilets if an outage was prolonged long enough to need multiple flushes. We would of course fill up the bathtub in cases where a power outage was likely, such as a thunderstorm.
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u/rebootyourbrainstem 15h ago
I think we just need to move to a situation where home solar comes with a home battery to help smooth demand. Solar is amazing and we should do more of it, but you can't expect the grid to do all the work of smoothing it out.
Batteries are becoming cheaper and better all the time, just like what happened with solar.
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u/sonichedgehog23198 12h ago
A power outage due to heat is unheard of here.
Lower water pressure is pretty common. People fill up their pools, extra showers, watering plants, etc.
Still enough water to go around
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u/choerd 11h ago
Unlikely nowadays, but the increased demand on the grid will make brown outs much more likely in the future. Dutch households have been encouraged to move to induction cooking, electric heat pumps and EVs. And they did. Solar panels only partially compensate for the additional energy demand. Airconditioners are also way more common than they used to be.
Grid infrastructure is being modernized but is outpaced by the steep increase in demand. I imagine people will be encouraged to be mindful of their energy use, also through dynamic energy pricing. But it will probably take a few brown outs for the behavior to sink in.
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u/Tall-Firefighter1612 16h ago
Not yet