Small Spat Upending Europe's Power Grid -- AP -- March 8, 2018

It sounds like this article/story was written to some extent, "tongue-in-cheek." But I am absolutely astounded how "fragile" the European electricity grip appears to be.

When you read the linked article, imagine if an MDU/REC spat involving Tioga and Williston affected utility customers in New York City and Los Angeles, but apparently that's an appropriate analogy for what we are seeing in Europe.

The AP is reporting that European clocks slowed down, reported the wrong time, due to "a lag in the continent's power grid:

Millions of Europeans who arrived late to work or school Wednesday had a good excuse — an unprecedented lag in the continent’s electricity grid that’s slowing down some clocks.

The problem is caused by a political dispute between Serbia and Kosovo that’s sapping a small amount of energy from the local grid, causing a domino effect across the 25-nation network spanning the continent from Portugal to Poland and Greece to Germany.

“Since the European system is interconnected ... when there is an imbalance somewhere the frequency slightly drops,” said Claire Camus, a spokeswoman for the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity.

I love the spin from Claire Camus: "....since the European system is interconnected ..."

Claire, hellooooo...interconnection is not the problem. Hellooooo. It's all those ill-conceived policy decisions in the EU.

And the farther you read into this story, the worse it gets:

• first time it's ever occurred
• won't be solved for weeks
• lack of energy in Kosovo's system
• needs to be solved politically and then technically

How this all happened, apparently:

Serbia’s power grid company EMS blamed the problem on Kosovo, claiming that in January and February the country “was uninterruptedly withdrawing, in an unauthorized manner, uncontracted electric energy from the Continental Europe synchronous area.”

Kadri Kadriu, deputy manager of Kosovo’s grid operator KOSTT, acknowledged that electricity from elsewhere was diverted to the Serb minority in the north, but said consumers there hadn’t paid for their electricity, causing considerable financial burden to the company.

 This is so incredibly ridiculous -- a spat in Kosovo and Serbia causing grid problems thorughout Europe.

Something tells me that it isn't just clocks that are being affected.

Huge thanks to Don for alerting me to the article.