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What Is "Induced Atmospheric Vibration"?
The blackout seen today on the Iberian Peninsula has been attributed to a "rare" phenomenon known as "induced atmospheric vibration" It says that "due to extreme temperature
Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels thinktank, saidthe system had suffered “cascading disconnections of power plants” – including one in France – when the frequency of the grid dropped below the European standard of 50Hz. That’s essentially what corona discharge is: it’s when the electric field around a high-voltage conductor becomes strong enough to ionise the air around it, leading to current “leaking” into the atmosphere—not in a useful or controlled way, but as waste or interference. And while corona discharge on its own might not be enough to knock out a system that size, if it was happening at multiple points under extreme conditions (like ultra-dry air, possibly with high ambient temperature), it makes sense that the grid wasn’t reacting fast enough to stabilise itself.
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