Belgian power company changes AC frequency to disable solar systems

Well, sort of
Not as in sabotage because they don't like solar power,but to protect their improvised grid. No idea why it made it into the german news, but it did:https://www.tagesschau.de/schlusslicht/uhrenchaos-belgien-101.html

Basically the power company is working on their main systems for a small belgian village 50 km east ofBrussels. To provide the 2000 inhabitants with electricity during their workthey set up a generator which seemingly doesn't react well to changing loads with engaging and disengaging solar systems. At least that's what I think how it is, the explanation is a bit wonky and not very detailed as you would expect for mainstream media. The text actually says that the problem isengaging solar systems but I guess this is not completely true and it is more a matter of load changes.

But they weren't stupid, they knew that this would be an issue. And to do something about it they set this backup generator to work at 51 Hz instead of the usual 50 Hz. The text says that this disables the locally used solar systems. I guess this causes grid tied systems to not sync with the grid so there are no load changes during on/off cycles.

However, they didn't tell anyone. The side effect is that all clocks that use the 50 Hz frequency as a reference are now running too fast, 30 minutes per day
People realized when their alarm clocks, heating systems, automated smart home stuff and similiar time controlled systems are now turning on/off at times they aren't supposed to. The power company said sorry and promised normal operation to resume next week

I apologize for the clickbait title The actual news title focused on the timing issues while I felt that for this forum I should focus it on the solar aspect of the story, although it isn't the main thing

ROFL!!!!!!! They weren't as sneaky as they thought they'd be!!!!

It is true, we had a poweroutage last year, and they put up a generator, I've talked to the powercompanypeople, and they confirmed, the generator does not like receiving power back from the grid. so the change the frequency a bit, so the solar-inverters are shut down.

problem could be that the generator power is a bit dirty, and some thing do not withstand this.

they protect their workers and equipment by feeding a different frequency

best regards

Stefaan

And all the electronic timers and clocks thatuse normal50Hz as timebaseare running out of pase....

Its a good way of practice actually. Solar systems feeding back into a generator is not very good In fact it can destroy their equipment so its common to change the output slightly so the solar shuts off.

Typical Belgisch..........