When people you respect all recommend the same thing, it deserves to be passed on. In this case it is a video about how a United Kingdom blackout starts. Tom Shepstone brought it to my attention first, Meredith Angwin recommended its clarity, and Richard Ellenbogen explained how the conditions described occurred last summer in Downstate New York. It describes the risks we are facing and what a blackout means.
Video Overview
Paul Burgess describes the video as follows:
This is an in-depth video, but hopefully very easy to understand, with a lot of graphics to explain everything. By the time you watch this video, you’ll have a very good understanding of how our national grid works and what peril it is in. Basically, our grid is being run by ideology, not by engineers and we are risking national blackouts like never before.
Tom Shepstone said that “the 39-minute video addresses how the UK grid really works, or doesn’t work, as the case may be. The lessons apply to all grids and Burgess explains everything in detail in ways easily understood”. Meredith Angwin said that it is a “clear video showing how grids fail and what it takes to start them again” and that “everyone should watch this”. Richard Ellenbogen said: “It explains in simple terms how the electric utility system works.”
The mechanics of grid stability
If you only watch the first 5 minutes, you will understand a lot about the complexities of operating the electrical grid and the challenges that are being introduced by adding wind and solar. Ellenbogen knows it will also explain what happened on the downstate NY system in early July and why they had to load shed, blacking out portions of Westchester, the Bronx, and Brooklyn.
A couple of things to keep in mind. The video is based upon the UK utility system where they use a 50 hertz (Hz) standard. North America uses a 60 hz standard. The grid delivers alternating current, or AC electricity. Rather than flowing steadily in one direction, the current repeatedly flows one way and then the other. One complete back-and-forth pattern is a cycle. Frequency tells us how many of those complete cycles occur each second: at 60 Hz, the pattern repeats 60 times per second. It describes the rhythm of the electricity, not the amount of electricity being delivered. Also note that when he says “gas stations”, he is referring to natural gas generating plants, not somewhere to fill up a car.
Burgess explains that a reliable grid must control frequency. He explains that for the frequency to remain stable the supply and demand must be in balance.
Source: The Anatomy of a UK Blackout – The UK Electricity Grid Walking On A Tightrope!
Burgess explains that if the generators produce less power than the demand the frequency goes down and if the generators produce more power than demand the frequency goes up. The key point is that “The grid must continuously balance generation and load to keep the frequency inside the narrow safe band around 50 Hz in Europe and 60 Hz in the USA. If the frequency goes outside the safe band the grid operators must take action.
Burgess uses graphics to illustrate the principles of the grid. He shows that grid frequency is like a tight rope and then goes on to describe what happens when the frequency starts to wobble. The key point is that there are automatic load shedding triggers to protect the grid. Figure 2 lists reasons why equipment must disconnect.
Figure 2: Why Equipment Must Disconnect
Burgess goes on to explain how adding wind and solar changes the grid and make frequency control more difficult. In the old system coal, gas, and nuclear provided dispatchable power that could be controlled to control frequency. Those systems also provided inertia that kept the system stable. Wind and solar do not provide inertia and changes in the weather affect power output significantly over short periods. All this makes the system even more difficult to manage.
Burgess points out that these problems can be addressed with more infrastructure. However he concludes that solving a problem that didn’t exist before costs money. Proponents that argue that renewables save money do not include those added costs that make them more expensive than the existing generators.
He goes on to describe how these issues could cause a blackout. Then he walks through a scenario that explains what it would take to recover from the blackout.
Batteries and Energy
Burgess also raises an important point about battery energy storage systems. There are two roles for batteries: storage needed to address intermittency and micro-balancing to address frequency inertia. You cannot use the same batteries to address both problems.
Burgess also explains how the batteries support inertia. It turns out that the addition of wind or solar systems needs inertia support close to those systems and distance matters. That means that battery storage systems will have to be located near wind and solar or synchronous generators will have to be added which of course adds costs.
The remainder of the video describes blackouts. First, he explains what is needed to recover from a blackout. Then he does a simulation of a blackout caused by a lightning strike on a transmission line. In his scenario the grid goes down in seven minutes but takes a week to recover. He states that there can be laws to mandate recovery targets but “they cannot change the laws of physics or engineering limits”
Burgess estimates that in his simulated blackout excess deaths could be as many as 3,000. He concludes with a list of the impacts of a blackout that contribute to the excess deaths:
Hospitals
Emergency generators last only limited hours (often 24-72 hrs depending on fuel).
Only critical care continues temporarily. Non-critical patients, surgeries and wards are at risk. Ventilators, monitors, dialysis and cold-chain medicines eventually fail.
Fuel & Transport
Petrol stations and diesel pumps stop — no electricity means no fuel.
Trains stop. Electrified lines and signalling fail. Passengers are stranded.
Traffic lights fail. Roads become chaotic. Airports and ports are disrupted.
Electric vehicles cannot charge. Diesel generators eventually run out of fuel.
Food & Cold Storage
Your freezer and fridge stop — food melts and spoils.
Massive warehouse and supermarket cold stores fail. Vast quantities of food are lost.
Food distribution and logistics collapse once fuel and power are gone.
Water & Sanitation
Water treatment and pumping stations stop. Clean water supply faiIs
Sewage systems back up. Hygiene and public health risks rise quickly.
Communications & Payments
Mobile networks fail as battery backups drain. Internet and data centres go down.
Cash machines, card payments and banking systems stop. Cash becomes hard to obtain.
Emergency services communications are degraded.
Heating, Lighting & Safety
Electric heating fails. Many gas boilers need electricity for pumps and controls. Lighting goes out. Accidents, falls, and crime increase in the dark. Elevators trap people. Security systems, alarms and CCTV fail.
Industry & Cascading Effects
Factories, chemical plants and continuous processes halt — some dangerously. Refrigerated medical supplies (vaccines, blood, insulin) spoil. Livestock farming, milking and food processing stop. Once fuel runs out, even backup generators fail. Recovery becomes much harder.
Ellenbogen Description of the July Downstate Blackouts
In an email, Richard Ellenbogen explained what happened on the downstate NY system in early July and why they had to load shed, blacking out portions of Westchester, the Bronx, and Brooklyn.
Incidents described by Burgess in the video explain the power issues that were responsible for the Yonkers sewage treatment plant spill, a 350% increase in Fire Department elevator calls across the region, numerous issues with air conditioning, and solar array or other inverter shutdowns.
Ellenbogen goes on:
Notice the plus and minus 0.2 hertz frequency band required for system stability that is mentioned in the video. In the graph below, which is real time data collected at the factory during the early July time period, you will see 0.5 hz and larger variations because the downstate system had insufficient generation and became frequency unstable.
In Figure 3, there was a dip down to 47.7 hz and then a rise to 60.5 hz for an extended period. Both are well out of the allowable plus or minus 0.2 band of acceptable frequency. Solar inverters were logging frequency issues for two days and shutting down taking their power off-line.
Figure 3: Con Edison System Frequency at Ellenbogen Home, July 3, 2026
As the downstate generation further ages and becomes more unreliable, generation failures will become more likely which will result in even worse and more widespread blackouts than the rolling blackouts of this past summer.
This is our new reality. Biologists, climate activists, and politicians have interceded as utility system planners in what should have only been an engineering process. Those parties don’t know how much they don’t know and the fragile state of the downstate utility system is falling victim to their incompetence.
For complex reasons that they do not understand because they have no training, intermittent renewables and batteries cannot solve the problem. The video makes that clear. Further, the frequency issues documented in the graph and explained in the video will make all of that technology shut down and become useless.
The video and our reality in downstate NY speak for themselves. It is no longer just the warnings that several of us have been issuing for the past seven years. It will now be a fact of our daily lives every time the temperature rises.
Unfortunately, seven years ago the improvements would have taken two to three years to implement and could have already been in operation. Now, with the huge demand for electrical energy across the US, the lead times for equipment have gotten much longer and this might not be repairable for four to seven years, at a minimum.
The downstate NY system is not just walking on the tightrope mentioned in the video. It is a severely frayed tightrope and we may be stuck on it for nearly a decade.
If you get to the 27 minute mark of the video, you will see the number of deaths that can be expected from the energy system failures.
I hate to be a voice of doom and gloom, but ignoring reality doesn’t make it go away.
Conclusion
Burgess draws a comparison between the root cause of the Chernobyl disaster and what we are facing today: “The people in charge in 1986 were indeed primarily Communist Party officials operating within a system that prioritized political loyalty, and propaganda over technical competence and safety.” Sadly, I believe there is a parallel to New York. The Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act transition plan is disconnected with engineering reality because ideological political appointees are toeing the Administration’s line on implementation rather than listening to the experts who run the electric system.
Finally, after watching the video and reading Ellenbogen’s comments in the back of my mind I heard the lyrics to Send in the Clowns:
Don’t you love farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you’d want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns
Don’t bothеr, they’re herе
