When a System Fails
On 21 June 2024, four Balkan countries were struck by a seemingly random power outage triggered by undefined causes. This left the people of Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Montenegro without power for a then-unknown amount of time.
Unfortunately, this remains a common situation today, even despite the largely modern world we’re currently living in. Luckily, power was returned to many areas after only a few hours, although recovery usually takes considerably longer.
The target of any energy providers involved should be to create a stable, secure, and balanced power grid to mitigate all potential issues blackouts can cause for people. Or, even better, to build a system where power outages are essentially impossible.
But this is much easier said than done. So, let’s discuss the issue further and explore the potential solutions with a broader lens.
A Changing World Presents New Challenges
Disturbances to the electrical grid can arise for many different reasons. Take this power outage in the Balkans for example. After an investigation, it was discovered that two unexpected overhead lines had been tripped. And since the region was importing about 2 GW from its neighbours at the time, while also exporting 417 MW to Italy via the Montenegro-Italy sub-sea cable, the negative consequences were far-reaching.
It was also speculated that the increasingly high temperatures in the area contributed to the multinational blackouts. Unfortunately, we can only expect more similar situations to arise in the future.
Global warming and natural disasters like storms, heatwaves, and floods are but a few examples of catalysts forcing sudden and unexpected changes in energy demand and reliability. It’s easy to imagine the nightmare scenarios that something like high temperatures can present. Just picture sagging wires that end up touching, tripping the system, and potentially even becoming a fire risk alongside causing a power outage.
Not to mention the many common consequences of power outages. Some may appear less serious at first, like home appliances and lights going out or refrigerated and frozen food expiring in grocery stores, while other cases can actually be life-threatening. Even with help from backup generators, critical infrastructure suffers greatly during blackouts. There are seemingly countless tragic situations that an abrupt and extended loss of electricity can cause in hospitals, prisons, intersections with traffic lights, childcare facilities, and so on.
For Every Problem, There’s a Modern Solution
As this region strives to make forward progress, it’s going to need to take a modern approach to its energy system. Countries like Albania and North Macedonia are already working on an improved interconnector (expected to be finished in 2026), but other operators like Montenegro’s TSO (Transmission System Operator) simply don’t have the means to manage the current state of their interconnectors.
But other options could help them avoid similar blackouts in the future, options that don’t necessarily require millions spent in infrastructural development. One such solution is to deploy a Network Management System, or NMS for short.
The right NMS should act as an advanced business platform designed for power grid modelling and analysis, operational planning, and process support coordination. An NMS like this would be crucial in helping with energy allocation, grid modernisation, and smart grid technologies.
Another feature of a quality NMS is its ability to prevent power-related scenes from ever even happening. The best NMSs do this by simulating various scenarios from real-world examples and studying them in a secure, virtual environment. This “grid twin” capability allows TSOs to simulate and study blackouts safely, discovering previously unforeseen ways to avoid them altogether.
It’s safe to say the electrical grid system in this region isn’t quite up to par with modern standards. And it’s often these outdated systems that cause extra headaches as TSOs strive to keep the power flowing uninterrupted at all times. But as the saying goes, sometimes the best solution is simply “out with the old, and in with the new”.
The Right Tools for the Job
But simply any NMS off the shelf isn’t likely to solve the Balkans’ energy grid issues. What this area really needs is a highly sophisticated NMS that has been customised to meet the specific issues each country is facing. The energy industry is filled with real-time data and high levels of network reliability issues, meaning whatever NMS they opt for, they had better choose wisely the first time.
And as already mentioned, the world is only ever going to keep changing. That means the right NMS needs to be both scalable and adaptive, especially in its ability to communicate with other systems (e.g., CIM, CGMES, UCTE, NC, etc.). As global warming continues to run its course, it’s safe to say this region can expect to face more problems related to overheating, sagging wires, melted transforms, etc.
One such solution that meets all the criteria mentioned above is the Griffin NMS by Unicorn Systems. Not only have they already created and deployed similar NMSs for TSOs around the world, but Griffin also features a revolutionary tool it calls “Grid Twin”, which creates a digital double of the given power grid, opening new doors to simulated crisis avoidance, optimisation, and grid testing.
Learning from the Balkan Outages
By now, it should be pretty obvious that blackouts are something we’re always looking to avoid or at least mitigate as much as possible. There may be a long way to go for these Balkan countries before they can achieve 100% energy stability, but they still stand to make leaps and bounds forward today by implementing the right modern solutions.
And this is something we can all learn from. Not only from the negative side of power outages and blackouts but how we can arm ourselves today to avoid such negative outcomes in the future.
Because, at the end of the day, it’s all about keeping the lights on.
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