The cities of Florence And Bergamo they were affected by two important blackoutswhich have caused inconvenience to the population and tourists visiting, with homes, hotels and shops in the dark e chaos also for the road traffic due to out of use traffic lights.
The cause behind these blackouts is theheat wave which is hitting Italy, with inconvenience from north to south (and strong bad weather in some areas), but also in most of Europe, where different alerts have taken place for the great heat: the high temperatures, in fact, can overheat Some components of electrical infrastructures, such as cables and transformers. If we then combine all this too the peak of consumption Linked to air conditioners, fans and dehumidifiers, the internal system can come into crisis, stopping to provide electricity.
It might seem like a paradox: since there are more hours of light during the summer, i consumption of electricity should be minors Compared to winter, especially in the face of a probable increase in energy produced through photovoltaic systems. In fact, precisely because in summer it is much warmer, consumption can reach important peaks due to air conditioners, causing an overload for energy infrastructure.
The reasons for these blackouts, therefore, could be the too many on air conditioners, which overloaded the electrical networks, but also the overheating of the cables of the electric grids, which caused several faults.
Because there are so many summer blackouts: the possible causes
When a heat wave occurs, the temperatures They rise considerably and therefore also increases the demand for electricity to make air conditioners, fans and other essential devices for refreshes us with torrid heat. At this point, what is created is an imbalance between the demand for energy and the ability of the infrastructure to produce it.
If the request of electricity is too much tallinfrastructures may not be able to guarantee a sufficient offerthus entering the bulk. In other words, if the total energy requests exceed the ability of the system to generate and distribute electricity, here is a blackout.
To avoid excessive damage, however, the portions of the network in which an imbalance takes place are isolated from the rest of the network through special security protocols, so that the imbalance does not propagate: that’s why the blackouts often do not affect the whole city simultaneously, but alternate in different areas, precisely because the infrastructures are unable to satisfy all energy needs. Only in cases where the imbalances are too violent a blackout can be propagated on larger stairs, as has recently happened in Spain.
In the case of Florence and Bergamo, then, theheat wave It may have also caused excessive overheating of the current cables. In fact, when it is very hot, the temperature of the cables can be raised a lot: these cables, however, are already designed For support A certain degree of heat, precisely because the passage of the current produces important quantities of heat in itself.
However, if the level of overheating of the cables becomes excessivecan increase the risk of failures, which can create blackouts and energy breaks even for several hours.
What is generated, therefore, is a vicious circle: the more hot it is, the more you need electricity to refresh ourselves, but the more we use air conditioners and fans, the more we risk overloading energy infrastructures, with the risk of prolonged blackouts.
Not only hot, but also extreme weather: the role of global warming
In general, therefore, the real cause behind the most frequent blackouts is precisely the global warming: the intense heat waves of recent years are putting hard test The energy infrastructure, not only Italian, also increasing the damage to transformers or transmission lines.
It must be said, then, that global warming is also causing increasingly extreme weather eventsincluding strong storms or floods that can physically and directly damage infrastructure.
According to a recent study published on Earth and Envomental Science, The extreme weather conditions have become the first cause of blackoutalso overcoming the technical faults and the wrong interventions by the staff. In the case of the United States, in particular, if in 1992 only the 27% of the Blackouts was linked to weather conditions, in 2020 this percentage underwent a surge until it exceeds 73%.
The impact of the blackouts on our daily life is therefore not by underestimate: in addition to the inconvenience created by the heat and the impossibility of refreshing themselves within homes and offices, there are great risks also for the essential infrastructures like the hospitals or the telecommunications sector, making it more difficult to contact the emergency services In case of need.
