March 10, 2018
One of the most interesting news stories in the last few days is the one about how the European clocks slowed down due to the Kosovo-Serbian dispute.
It started with people noticing an unusual slowdown of some of the clocks in their apartments, mostly those installed in their ovens and household thermostats. If you haven’t fixed them manually yet (and if you did, you will have to do it again once the problem is solved), they must be running 6 minutes behind your other clocks now.
This was mystery for a while, and then it turned out that only cheap clocks that rely on alternate electric current (AC) frequency to count time were affected, indicating that the frequency of the electric grid must have decreased.
Furthermore, it was found that the frequency decreased because there is a large chunk of energy missing in the Continental European Electric Power System.
Finally, the location of the energy black hole was located in Kosovo, and the event was shown to be closely related to the Serbian-Kosovo row over the recognition of the latter’s independence.
Earlier this week the European Network of Transmission Systems Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) issued an appeal to European and national governments and policymakers to address the political side of the issue, which will allow ENTSO-E and Transmission System Operators (TSO) to deliver a technical solution to the problem. To make sure everybody understands the urgency of the matter, the appeal cited the AC frequency deviations beyond which the system’s generators automatically disconnect, sending the entire continent into a blackout.
On Wednesday, ENTSO-E reported that the deviations have ceased and that “step 2” should follow, which is finding a way to return the missing energy back into the system. ENTSO-E emphasized that “the situation experienced is unprecedented in the Continental European Power System. The European transmission system operators interact constantly, across the borders and through ENTSO-E, to ensure that security of supply is maintained in one of the world’s largest synchronous areas.”
But if you’re as confused as most people were when first hearing this story, what’s this all about, how does it work and what’s at stake?
Clocks, alternating current, and the function of a metronome
The function of every clock is to measure time, and this can be done in various ways. Mechanical clocks and watches are based on the mechanism of a mainspring and gears which make sure that the energy stored in the spring is released at constant rates. Electronic clocks and watches most commonly measure time using a quartz crystal, which works as an electronic filter, eliminating all but the single frequency of interest. Frequency is the repetition of events in a certain period of time, if measured in Hertz (Hz) this time period is one second, e.g. 50 Hz means a cycle is repeated 50 times in one second.
The frequency of 50 Hz is in fact the frequency of the alternating current oscillation in the Synchronous Grid of Continental Europe, which is the system of electric energy production and transmission that spans the entire continent. So some clocks took a shortcut by simply measuring time by counting swings in electric current: 50 swings = one second. If this frequency changes, then clocks don’t show the right time anymore, which is exactly what has been happening in the last two months, when, without precedent, the average frequency of the grid fell from the desired 50 Hz to 49.996 Hz.
But how did this happen and what’s the relation with Balkan politics?
The Synchronized Grid of Continental Europe
We might begin with explaining what alternating current is. Every battery works on the basis of the direct current (DC), meaning the charged particles move in one single direction and the movement is constantly present. It turns out, however, that direct current presents problems if electricity is to be transmitted over long distances. Because energy is lost en route due to the heating of wires, a high voltage is preferable for energy transmission. As transformation of voltage in DC systems poses various technical problems, an alternating current was introduced (something you may have heard referred to as the War of the Currents, involving Edison and Tesla).
Alternating current (AC) is an electric current in which charged particles change direction constantly, swinging back and forth the conductor instead of moving in one direction constantly. This back and forth movement of particles is what gives the AC current its frequency, a property that doesn’t exist in the case of DC. Since AC proved to be much more convertible in terms of voltage transformation, and therefore operates at the lower levels of energy loss, AC systems eventually prevailed. Current AC systems of electric energy distribution usually operate at the frequencies of either 50 or 60Hz. Which brings us to question of how this frequency is maintained.
Power grids are not batteries, and lack any electric energy storage units. The system operates on the basis of input-output balance. That is, the amount of energy produced must equal the amount of energy consumed, so that the system can operate properly. In an AC network of multiple consumer and energy sources, electricity generators, which deliver electric energy into the system, have to be synchronized (at the same frequency) and phased (all cycles begin at the same time) with the network (other generators), which is automatically controlled by specialised devices which regulate the kinetic energy input on the rotating magnets. To get some idea of how the system works, see the video below.
If these devices sense a decline in the frequency of the network they will adjust the energy input (in the video above this energy is symbolically presented as the potential energy of flowing water, spinning the wheel, i.e. a hydro-electric plant), and hence their generator’s frequency. This is how a drop in the rotating speed of magnets, which translates into AC frequency in one part of the system, will translate into other parts of the system, and eventually, as a slow-down means energy loss in an already out of balance production/consumption situation, this can lead to the total shut down of the entire system.
And this is how the problem started in the story we are telling. But how is this technical issue related to politics?
Kosovo-Serbian dispute.
In 2008 Kosovo became independent by recognition of the majority of the European countries but not Serbia, which claims that it is part of its own territory. This is also the position taken by the Serbian minority in Kosovo, a population mostly concentrated in the four northern districts of the territory, where it forms a majority with regard to the ethnically Albanian population. As, according to Serbs, these people do not live in Kosovo but in Serbia instead, the four northern districts refuse to pay their electricity bills to Priština (the capital of Kosovo) but demand their electricity be provided by (and paid for to) Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) instead. As a result of ongoing negotiations on infrastructure ownership and maintenance between Kosovo and Serbia, the four Serbian districts of Kosovo have been consuming their energy, provided by Priština, free of charge, while the rest of the country was forced to cover their expenses.
In 2015, an agreement was signed that would end this situation by enabling the Serbian providers to deliver Serbian electricity to the north of Kosovo, which would release Priština from this financial burden. From there on, at least this is how Priština (and most of the involved) understood the problem, Serbia became responsible for generating power for Kosovo’s northern provinces.
However, as the Serbian provider continued to fill in the application forms which would grant it the rights to operate in the territory of Kosovo with data suggesting it was in fact operating in the territory of Serbia, Priština continued to reject the applications, and the north of Kosovo continued to use (and not pay for) the Kosovar instead of Serbian electricity. Then, at the end of 2017, Priština decided that enough was enough and thus it stopped paying for the electricity consumed by the Serbian population in the north of Kosovo.
Now, since nobody was paying for the power consumed in the north of Kosovo, nobody was paying for the power to be delivered to the grid, which resulted in the imbalance between energy production and consumption, and therefore decreased AC frequency throughout the system, and the slower clocks all over Europe.
Meanwhile, ENTSO-E has announced that the “deviations affecting the frequency in Continental Europe have ceased” and that ENTSO-E is now “working on step 2”, which is figuring out how, or rather, who, will deliver the missing energy back into the system.
An article published by Balkan Insight suggests that “step 1” was solved by Kosovo government allocating 1 million EUR for the electricity being consumed in the north of the country, while “seeking a long-term solution to the non-payment issue.” However, we guess that “step 2” of returning the missing energy back into the system – that’s the part that would make our kitchen clocks speed up a little to then show the right time again – might take a little bit longer, and so maybe you should make the change instead.
