Satellite Outage Knocks Out Thousands of Enercon's Wind Turbines (marketscreener.com) 50
Germany's Enercon on Monday said a "massive disruption" of satellite connections in Europe was affecting the operations of 5,800 wind turbines in central Europe. MarketScreener reports: It said the satellite connections stopped working on Thursday, knocking out remote monitoring and control of the wind turbines, which have a total capacity of 11 gigawatt (GW). "The exact cause of the disruption is not yet known. The communication services failed almost simultaneously with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine," Enercon said in a statement.
Enercon has informed Germany's cybersecurity watchdog BSI and is working with the relevant providers of the satellite communication networks to resolve the disruption, which it said affected around 30,000 satellite terminals used by companies and organisations from various sectors across Europe. "However, no effects on power grid stability are currently expected due to redundant communication capabilities of the responsible grid operators. Further investigations into the cause are being carried out by the company concerned in close exchange with the responsible authorities," BSI said. There was no risk to the turbines as they continued to operate on "auto mode," the company said. The report also notes that Viasat was "investigating a suspected cyberattack that caused a partial outage in its residential broadband services in Ukraine and other European countries"
Enercon has informed Germany's cybersecurity watchdog BSI and is working with the relevant providers of the satellite communication networks to resolve the disruption, which it said affected around 30,000 satellite terminals used by companies and organisations from various sectors across Europe. "However, no effects on power grid stability are currently expected due to redundant communication capabilities of the responsible grid operators. Further investigations into the cause are being carried out by the company concerned in close exchange with the responsible authorities," BSI said. There was no risk to the turbines as they continued to operate on "auto mode," the company said. The report also notes that Viasat was "investigating a suspected cyberattack that caused a partial outage in its residential broadband services in Ukraine and other European countries"
Does that qualify (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It could if it turns out to be an actual cyber attack
Re: (Score:2)
No.
Re:Does that qualify (Score:4, Funny)
Cyber Don Quixote wanted for questioning...
Re: (Score:1)
Don was right, windmills do cause cancer, who knew?
Re: (Score:1)
It's unlikely they'd find solid evidence it was directed by the Russian gov't. They may find hints that it was, but probably not sure-shot evidence.
Uhhhhh (Score:5, Informative)
Headline: "Satellite Outage Knocks Out Thousands of Enercon's Wind Turbines"
Reality: "no effects on power grid stability are currently expected due to redundant communication capabilities of the responsible grid operators... there was no risk to the turbines as they continued to operate on 'auto mode....'"
Re: (Score:2)
its called click-bait, and BeauHD [twitter.com] wasn't above composing a fictional headline to generate traffic
Re: (Score:2)
The headline was actually in the original article as well.. Which makes it worse.
Re: (Score:1)
its called click-bait
Perhaps to you, Vladi, but I call it fascist propaganda.,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Uhhhhh (Score:2)
Reality is more like EU having to buy more gas from Russia to compensate for the loss of wind generation.
Running in auto mode doesn't necessarily mean they're still generating power for the grid. It means they're not at risk of damage due to excessive wind and no load.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The satellite is the redundant part, they probably use cellular as "main" communication channel.
They could also have some kind of low-rate serial communication over powerline - similar to ISO 10368.
Considering that they must connect power lines to every single wind turbine, adding one more communication line to that would have basically zero effect on cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, did you go to the same school as the writer of the original headline?
Re: (Score:2)
Reality is more like EU having to buy more gas from Russia to compensate for the loss of wind generation.
The EU does not produce much electricity from Gas.
And the Gas pipelines are cut off since the war, dumbass.
Re: (Score:2)
The pipelines have not been cut and the gas is still flowing.
The EU is still heavily dependent on Russian gas.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I was mistaken, it is not cut yet.
Dependent however we are not, can't be so hard to grasp: if we or they cut it, nothing happens. Everything goes as before. Perhaps gas prices increase, and thats it.
Dependent means: you can not live/exist without it. That is a simple concept.
nuclear power with local controllers! (Score:3)
nuclear power with local controllers!
Cloud devices (Score:2)
nuclear power with local controllers!
I hate it when a cloud-connected device goes down simply because the company servers go offline, or the company decides not to support the device.
Hell, my mattress pad requires a remote login with the manufacturer (and my GPS location) (pad is an Ooler), and will not work without it.
Wind turbines go offline without a cloud connection? What's next - prosthetic retinas that go offline [ieee.org] after the manufacturer no longer supports them?
Re: (Score:3)
This is why we should switch to solar instead. Solar works only without the clouds!
Re: (Score:2)
Powerplants will generally go into some kind of reduced functionality mode without communications. A power grid, with all the stuff attached to it, is really a single big machine.
Your heart goes into safe mode if it gets disconnected from your brain too.
reprisals? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Would be nice, but nothing to knock out in Russia. They run the grid (and everything else) on 1950s style analog technology.
Re: (Score:2)
They run the grid (and everything else) on 1950s style analog technology.
... and copious amounts of vodka.
Re: reprisals? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> [Russia runs] the grid (and everything else) on 1950s style analog technology.
That's beginning to sound like a good idea. I'm sure all the big militaries have a database of digital back doors to trigger during "the big one".
Past a point, chaos favors the Flinstones over the Jetsons.
Hard to square... (Score:3)
Satellite Outage Knocks Out Thousands of Enercon's Wind Turbines
and
There was no risk to the turbines as they continued to operate on "auto mode," the company said.
Which is it? Are 5,000 wind turbines "knocked out" or did 5,000 turbines go into "auto mode"? If they are running in auto mode, they aren't "knocked out", and if they are "knocked out" they shouldn't be running in auto mode.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It said the satellite connections stopped working on Thursday, knocking out remote monitoring and control of the wind turbines
Happy to help.
Shouldn't be taken lightly. (Score:3)
This outage shouldn't be taken lightly as it should be clear now that wireless communications will be the first casualty of war. Intentional or not, this should be a wake up call to every critical industry that depends on wireless communications to function. I can't help but get the feeling their "redundant communication capabilities" were actually cellular connectivity. If both were jammed, what would happen? They need to be ensure they have some form of wired communications.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
If both were jammed, what would happen?
Nothing would happen. Wind farms can operate completely autonomously. The communications links are for remote monitoring and management only. At worst some grid efficiency is reduced, equipment failure goes unnoticed, or the energy trade gets messed up (energy providers don't always run flat out). Wind turbines are controlled locally, they have their own local safety systems, their own local weather monitoring, and local electrical synchro gear.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing would happen. Wind farms can operate completely autonomously.
I suspected this was the case but I've seen so many systems with the worst failure modes that I would rather not assume someone designed this system properly.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This outage shouldn't be taken lightly as it should be clear now that wireless communications will be the first casualty of war.
Yes, but there are different types of wireless communication. I understand the convenience of satellite-based communication; but line-of-sight RF relay systems over stretches of countryside are a thing, as are cellular links. At least one and preferably both of these should be used to provide comms redundancy in situations where wired connections are impossible. Hell, for essential infrastructure these methods should be used in addition to wires when possible.
Battlestar Galactica (Score:2)
One of the things I liked most about the reboot (2004) pilot episode/movie was that the 'old' Battlestar Galactica wasn't as networked/wireless as the new 'more advanced' battlestars. And it was the networks on the new battlestars that were the vulnerable points that were attacked and brought them down. Since the 'old' Galactica was hardwired/point to point, it wasn't susceptible to that kind of attack and survived. It's how I've seen the issue of networking our important infrastructure. If we do it more,
Re: (Score:2)
(2004) pilot episode/movie was that the 'old' Battlestar Galactica wasn't as networked/wireless as the new 'more advanced' battlestars.
That was around the time that the US and UK navies were getting bad publicity for their warships depending on Windows NT.
https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]
so.. the headline that says (Score:1)
Satellite Outage Knocks Out Thousands of Enercon's Wind Turbines
did not, in fact happen?
Thats what happens... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Roger, Roger (Score:2)
I regularly make fun of science fiction movies where a central thing breaks and all the monsters or robots suddenly die. This applies to some vampire shows, too.
It requirea extra engineering to make this silly needless dependency, and is a risk to the system, be it vamps or undead or "Roger, Roger!" droids from Star Wars .
Well, who knew it would be done in real life?
Elon to the rescue (Score:2)
They'll get antennas too.
Credit Repair Specialist (Score:1)