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0 pointszymhan1y ago0 comments

Presumably not

> A black start is the process of restoring an electric power station, a part of an electric grid or an industrial plant, to operation without relying on the external electric power transmission network to recover from a total or partial shutdown.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_start

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throwup2381y ago

The key part of the phrase is actually "electric power station, a part of an electric grid or an industrial plant." Note how the definition doesn't include an entire grid.

Only the first power plant in a black-start (like a hydroelectric dam or gas plant started by a backup generator) is truly "black started." The rest don't fit that definition because they depend on an external power source to spin up and synchronize frequency before burning fuel and supplying any energy to the grid. If they didn't, the second they'd turn on they'd experience catastrophic unscheduled disassembly of the (very big) turbines.

Only the first power plant can come online without the external transmission network.

bombcar1y ago

That’s not necessarily 100 true, as you could have multiple plants black start and then synchronize later.

In fact, if you’re not sure which will start first, you might go that way. They’re all disconnected from the grid at that time anyway.

throwup2381y ago

You’re absolutely right, there are a lot of variations. In this case I think Portugal started from their own hydroelectric dam and restarted everything North to South while Spain started several in parallel from the interconnects to the rest of Europe (can’t tell which interconnect it was though).

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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throwup2381y ago

The key part of the phrase is actually "electric power station, a part of an electric grid or an industrial plant." Note how the definition doesn't include an entire grid.

Only the first power plant can come online without the external transmission network.

bombcar1y ago

That’s not necessarily 100 true, as you could have multiple plants black start and then synchronize later.

In fact, if you’re not sure which will start first, you might go that way. They’re all disconnected from the grid at that time anyway.

throwup2381y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse