• Question: Why do some countries have electricity lose during the day?

    Asked by nidhi6 to Louise on 22 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 22 Jun 2010:

      Hi nidhi6

      Electricity blackouts often happen when there’s a sudden surge in demand which trips part of the network and then the effect cascades to other parts of the network. Faults in power lines can have the same effect.

      There was a massive blackout in Italy in 2003 when the main power line between Switzerland and Italy was damaged by a storm. There was then extra load on the line between France and Italy which caused that to trip too and the whole of Italy was without power for 12 hours! You can read more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Italy_blackout

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