A man walks on the rubble of damaged buildings in the rebel-controlled area of Jobar, a suburb of Damascus, Syria March 2, 2016. REUTERS/BASSAM KHABIEH
Reuters: Electricity supply gradually returns in Syria: state media
Syria's electricity supply was gradually returning after it was cut across the country on Thursday and Internet connections were briefly disrupted, state media said.
SANA news agency quoted the electricity minister saying that the network was returning and would be restored to its earlier capacity by midnight. It did not say what caused the cut.
It said earlier that the "electricity work has been cut in all governorates. Attempts to find the cause of the outage have begun."
Read more ....
More News On Syria's Electricity Grid Collapsing
Syria hit by nationwide blackout -- Washington Post
Nationwide power blackout hits Syria -- AFP
Lights out in Syria: Nationwide blackout brings country to a halt -- UPI
Syria conflict: Massive power blackout across country -- BBC
Syria hit by nationwide power blackout -- USA Today
Syria state TV: Power failure blankets nation -- DW
Syria faces blackout as electricity supply disrupted across provinces -- IBTimes
I thought that fixing an outage required finding the cause in order to fix it. Seems like a funny article.
ReplyDeleteWhen whole grids go down, it's ususally a cascade event.
DeleteA fault in one grid, causes an overload in the next, and so on and so on.
To bring the power back on, you go grid, by grid, and in that process, you find the "problem" grid, ( possibly) and sometime the problem.
It is really difficult to diagnose or isolate a problem when the grid is in a state of disrepair or has suffered heavy damage. They may have tried to "close" something and found that things up/ downstream (or both) didn't hold. I can only imagine the state of Syria's gear after five years of war. They may also be dealing with ad hoc repairs done over the course of the war, a shortage of available spare parts, undocumented and shabbily done changes to the distribution and strains on gear due to heavy demand. Not to mention straight up sabotage.
DeleteThe state things were in before the fighting started (e.g. was routine maintenance performed? age of the gear? Workmanship etc.) comea into play too.
One thing is for certain, a Syrian lineman, electrician or electrical engineer better be on his/her game. You don't generally get more than one chance to get it right.
DeleteSyria wasin the midst of upgrading her electrical distribution infrastructure before all hell broke loose
http://m.tdworld.com/substations/syria-syria-awards-abb-us35-million-contract-build-six-high-voltage-substations
Another problem I failed to mention was fuel for her power generation facilities and how sanctions levelled against Syria impede her ability to provide electrical power to her citizens. This is evidence of the claim sometimes echoed on this forum that "western" sanctions target civilians (they absolutely do and targeting the electrical infrastructure is a crime).
Scroll down to "Electricity" to get a good summary of the state of "the grid" in Syria.
https://books.google.com/books?id=UD6_CQAAQBAJ&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=no+fuel+for+syrian+power+plants&source=bl&ots=yvxQkmVXyy&sig=Nrd5kyUwizbAmY0cepiVd1SSvHE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiciai-naXLAhVCxxQKHZbpDqMQ6AEILTAF#v=onepage&q=no%20fuel%20for%20syrian%20power%20plants&f=false
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ReplyDeleteThe late Col. Jeff Cooper said that "Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons."
ReplyDeleteIf so, electricity is what keeps us from falling back into it.
It may be no little irony for those of us who are followers of Col. Cooper's firearms teachings (I include myself in this group) that men libeally armed with personal weapons have done so much to destroy our progress.
Whenever I see photographs or video footage from Syria I take note of the state of any electrical generation or distribution infrastructure. Sadly, much too often I see overhead lines and towers down, switchyards and substations demolished and generation facilities severely damaged (case in point Allepo). I see millions in manhours and billions in dollars just "pissed up against a wall."
It reminds me of just how delicate and dependent modern society is on electrical power. It is also representative of the fact that, not only in Syria, in a growing part of the world mankind has entered a new dark age.
Those who have planned, pushed and fed the situation in Syria, Libya, Iraq and other blasted states deserve nothing less than to spend the rest of their days digging and scratching in a deep, dark, cold mine. The prison of darkness, desperation and insecurity they planned for the rest us should be the one they rot in.