by giorgioz | 2025-04-29 13:00:39+00:00
I'm in Spain and went through the blackout yesterday. It was very interesting experience and I went around to learn the most from it. I used a Starlink, lithium battery and solar panels among other stuff. I hope you might find it useful:

12:00 I was working when around noon my computer display switched off. I tried turning on a light in the room: no light either. I went to the main circuit breaker, switched it off/on again : still no light. I went out to the street. The house is in a small suburban area so each house has it's own meter. The smart meter was not displaying any light or text. I knew that in my village a blinking red LED on the smart meter means electricity flowing. A fixed-constant red LED light means the grid is on but the house is not consuming electricity. No light and no text means there is no electricity reaching the smart meter. I checked all the neighbors' meters and I saw all lights were off. I started walking to the next street and was checking when another man came out. He told me he was also missing electricity. I checked Google, on the News tab there is no article about "{my_city} outage". So I started to walk towards the center. I called my parents which are in another EU country, they answered and told me all was good and they had electricity. So no electricity but the 3G mobile network was on (it remained on for about 4 hours before both 3G mobile network and normal phone signal went off). I started to walk toward the city center checking meters to understand how big is the problem, all streets are off. I realized my car had only 1/3 of the tank full. I decided to try the petrol station. On the way there, there was a train level crossing, the lights were blinking and the warning sound was on. A young man was keeping the train bar up and gesturing for cars to pass by without risk. I quickly heard him shouting "No electricity". I passed under with the car since many cars were doing it and I knew electricity was off so probably the bars were not working properly.

PETROL STATION

After 30-45 minutes of outage there were 4-5 cars parked around the petrol station pumps. No-one was actively using the pumps to fill the tank. I saw 4-5 people arguing, not sure about what. I went in the petrol station shop and there was an usual long queue of 30 people, the employee at the desk was writing on a paper. I asked another employee if it was possible to put petrol and she said no. I decided it was too late and it was not worth it to wait there. Given also some people already seemed agitated.

SUPERMARKET

Supermarket on the way was closed because it was a bank holiday on Monday. Maybe that's also why the outage had been more likely to happen on that day with less people checking things.

TRAIN LEVEL CROSSING

I was driving back home. At the train level crossing the same guy from before and another man were holding up the bars. I asked them if they needed some tools to rig the bar up and they said yes. Rushed back home and got some tools and wood and ropes. Got back there in 15 minutes. They had found a way to remove the bars by unscrewing a bolt. I chat with them. Another man passe by car and said he had notified the local police they had to remove the bar and the police was aware. At the moment I though those men were smart and capable and thinking on their feet. We exchanged numbers. We promised to all check the electricity at home and come to fix the bar at the train crossing. (I did go to check this morning at 8am when I woke and electricity was back.) The bar was still missing and lights were blinking. There was a long queue of 40 cars. I checked no train was passing and I started to let the people pass by. After I noticed a technician on the track 100 meters out in a yellow suit. I went to speak with him. Walking on tracks and pebbles is not super fast since you can't run easily. The technician said the trains were not running today. I double checked he was aware the protection bars were removed and that he would put them back when he knew the train were passing.

BACK HOME

When I came back home from the train level crossing during the outage I decided to do what I could. I filled up all bottles of waters I had in the house. Even if the outage was temporary I can still drink that water and it wasn't a waste.

STARLINK INTERNET SATELLITE

I have a Starlink antenna that I use in the summer during the holidays. I rushed to resubscribe that I had cancelled. As far as I understand if you don't have internet is not possible to subscribe and use the Starlink (which you need for internet). I also noticed there is a new cheaper plan for 9€ for 10GB in Spain. So I will be permanently subscribed to that to avoid the fear internet goes away and I can't subscribe back to Starlink and make it work.

FIBER OPTIC/DSL

Anyway this time the 3G mobile network was working and I had a small UPS that was keeping the modem and router working. The fiber connection with the modem&router powered by external battery (UPS) was giving normal internet. It worked for 4 hours until around 18:00 when even with power to the modem&router the fiber stopped working. It was around the same time the 3G/mobile signal had stopped.

I'm not sure if there 4 hours diesel generators somewhere or there was some priority line for telecoms. Please let me know if you know anything.

ECOFLOW BATTERY AND SOLAR PANELS

Somehow I had been a bit paranoid in the past few weeks and I had bought 1 month ago an Ecoflow Delta 3 Plus with 1024Wh, 2 solar panels of 800W each and the Powerstream which is a microinverter from Ecoflow to provide up to 800W by plugging in a normal socket of the house. I had decided to actually test them this weeks during the Easter holidays. I had left the Ecoflow battery uncharged because I thought it would be more obvious with the solar panels input. I cursed by perfectionism. Luckily the Ecoflow came 25% pre-charged.

The UPS was down in 40 minutes already and I saw the Ecoflow battery could maintain the modem&router for 4 hours. I was not sure I would be able to set them up correctly if internet went down. Also there were only 2-4 hours left of sun to charge the battery. So I decided to rush it and try to get the solar panel work. I did manage to connect all stuff but I realized I had forgot to buy the XT60i connector to connect the solar panels directly to the battery without the Powerstream. The shadow of a building in front obscured the patio where the solar pannels where around 18:00. Somehow the INPUT of the solar panels even in the last minutes with sun was reported as 0Watt. I went online and double check but I could not find anything obvious. Time was up for the day (or better said, Sun was down for the day). I decided to switch off the battery and save power for the day after with sun to have internet.

BIKING AROUND AND CHINESE SHOP

Given the sun was down and I couldn't do more I decided to take my electric bike and go around. My first petrol car had 1/3 gasoline tank full. I had just bought a second van with popup top roof last week. The tank was in reserve from the dealer and I had planned to go fill it like tomorrow. I cursed myself. Luckily I thought I still had the electric bike to charge from solar. Not sure exactly for what. So I went around the suburban neighborhood, and people were having a good time. It's Eastern holidays, one bar was opened selling drinks. I passed in front of a small Chinese shop. The shop was open with old people and kids going in and out. In Europe there are commonly small shops with tons of useful house things. They are usually managed by a whole Chinese family. Some people were buying torching and batteries. Only cash accepted of course. I already was stocked on torches and batteries and tools like that. But I browser around anyway. Some kids were playing hide and seek in the dark halls of the little shops. It was very cute. Out of the outage on the first hours people were very excited and happy. I bought a 4 in 1 key with triangle/square heads for 2.30€ (3$). It was good to have anyway and when I had checked the smart meters of the neighbors some required a triangle key to be opened and see if they were working. I don't plan to do anything nefarious. It seemed I was among the fastest and most active responders of the situation so it feels ethically okay for me to own this technician key. Just in case.

THE NEWS

Checked internet through Starlink one last time before bed. They said the outage would resolve from 21:00 to 1:00am. Some friends in Valencia around 20:00 CET told the power was back there.

GOING TO SLEEP

I wen to bed. I left the Ecoflow Delta 3 Plus plugged in the sockets in case the electricity came back during the night (and would go away before I would wake up).

LIGHT BACK

Around 1am I was woken up by the bed-side table turning on. Half-asleep I switched it off and kept sleeping.

WAKING UP

This morning electricity was back when I woke up around 8am. As I said in the TRAIN LEVEL CROSSING section I went there to check. I'll spend the day properly learning how the Ecoflow battery and solar panels work together with calm.

Thank you for reading until here!