The fright is good for many Dutch people. The demand for emergency current had already increased, partly due to the geopolitical unrest, and will probably not decrease after the major power outage that disrupted Spain and Portugal on Monday. The disastrous consequences of the Iberian peninsula here and there are the reason for Dutch network operators and energy suppliers to point out their customers how dependent the country has become of electricity over the years. Citizens and businesses are urged to take measures to get through the first hours or days in the event of a malfunction.
“In the Netherlands, a large-scale power failure is extremely exceptional, but Dutch citizens and companies have to prepare. So think ahead,” writes Hans-Peter Oskam, general manager of Netbeheer Nederland, the branch association for network operators, Tuesday on LinkedIn. That is why it is useful to prepare as a citizen for a period of 72 hours without electricity. By thinking in advance what depends on electricity in your environment, what the problems can be if the malfunction persists for a long time, and by purchasing an emergency package. In case that.
“Is it cold? Keep windows and doors closed, so that the heat remains. And heat and inhabit the smallest spaces in your house,” reports “”Think forward‘, the government website to which network operators and electricity suppliers refer, with an overview of the risks that the Netherlands runs. “Walk along with neighbors who might need help. See if you can help with practical matters such as a power bank to charge a phone.”
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Emergency current
Vital institutions and companies have emergency current, which must take over the electricity supply in the event of a malfunction. So that operations can continue and ventilation equipment continues to work. A company such as E-TEC Power Management, specialized in the supply of emergency power and maintenance of generators, is benefiting. “The question is increasing,” says service engineer Jurian Wijnalda, of dieselaggregates, but also of batteries that immediately take over the power supply in the event of a malfunction, and bridge the ‘ten to sixty seconds’ that generators need to deliver electricity. “Those are seconds in which computers from companies fail, in which they can lose important data.”
The national government is also permeated by the seriousness of a possible crisis, according to it that it was established three years ago National Crisis Plan Electricity. Among other things, ‘dilemmas’ are discussed such as whether the government should claim goods as citizens and companies who are going to hoard. And there are recommendations for communication to citizens: “confirm what is visible, tell what you know and what you don’t know, invalidate rumors or let them know that you know the rumors and investigate them. Give an action perspective: what can citizens do?”
Fill buckets or bath with water
The fact that a rural long -term power outage can never be completely excluded, says David Smeulders, professor of energy technology at the TU in Eindhoven. “In such a case, I would first of all take a good amount of water, perhaps by filling buckets or a bath, because there is a chance that no more water will come out of the tap at some point.”
An aggregate is not cheap. You have to test it regularly. Fuel must be in it. The punch co2 out
In some cases it can well understand that institutions and companies install emergency flow. “Like a company in frozen ice creams.” But he also warns of the disadvantages. “An aggregate is not cheap. You have to test it regularly. It has to be fuel in it. It punches CO2 out. And whoever has such a device will be tempted to use it more often than necessary. “
The chance of a huge power outage should not be exaggerated, no matter how disastrous the consequences are. The reliability of the electricity supply is high; A Dutchman had no electricity on average 22 minutes last year, the security of supply of the Dutch high -voltage network was 99,99988 percent. If a power outage occurs in the Netherlands, it takes an average of two hours. The Netherlands must try to maintain the Netherlands, says Smeulders.
“Lately you have heard people, even network operators, say that we can take a few lessons, that we have to take a power outage for granted, for example, if a transformer house is suddenly striking because a lot of power from solar panels flows into the net. That is what we have to prevent.”
Intensively connected
The Netherlands has less chance of large -scale power outages, explaining experts, because it is much more intensive than Portugal and Spain connected to the power networks of other countries, such as England, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Belgium. As a result, a faltering network in the Netherlands is full of electricity from abroad faster. Moreover, electricity networks are often carried out ‘redundant’. “The nets for high voltage and medium voltage are double: ‘flight lanes’ are built in which the electricity can be diverted in the event of a malfunction,” says a Tennet spokesperson, a high -voltage cables in the Netherlands. As a result, the consequences of a longer malfunction are often limited to the low -voltage network for households, to a single street or a district.
Agreements have also been made in the Netherlands on reserve capacity and emergency facilities, says Machiel Mulder, professor of energy economy at the University of Groningen. He once made an analysis or excluding malfunctions by building up a gigantic reserve capacity and performing all kinds of systems double or triple. “The benefits do not outweigh the disadvantages, it is very expensive.”
That does not mean that the Netherlands must then focus on the consequences of a possible power failure. It is better, according to Mulder, to thoroughly study the cause of the power outages in Spain and Portugal. “If that cause lies in damage to pipes due to large temperature fluctuations, then in the Netherlands, for example, we could better protect those pipes against those fluctuations.”
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