The mystery of ‘induced atmospheric vibration’ and a giant power cut

However, climate change really does threaten electricity grids.

Montage by Chris Baraniuk. Includes imagery from Tayssir Kadamany and Pavel Danilyuk.

This week, Spain, Portugal and part of France were hit by an absolutely massive power cut. The effects were disastrous, and serious. Entire transport networks shut down, hospitals were left relying on limited power from backup generators, and card payments failed – leading to long queues at cash machines.

As people struggled to come to terms with what had happened, three little words stood out. Repeated again and again – they were something to cling to in the madness: “induced atmospheric vibration”.

Except no-one knew what they meant.

The phrase emerged in a statement originally attributed to REN, a grid operator in Portugal. It seemed to refer to some sort of meteorological phenomenon behind the extensive power failures. But the statement was later reportedly retracted by news agency Reuters.

Fact-finding

For non-journalists, let me say that this kind of a retraction from a major news agency is pretty rare. And Reuters is very highly respected. I contacted REN myself to ask where the statement about “induced atmospheric vibration” had come from and whether they had anything to add. They replied only to say: “Sorry, it’s not our statement.”

Separately, Spanish fact-checking website Verificat says it reached out to Reuters, which confirmed the statement was withdrawn. The Reengineer has also contacted Reuters for comment.

In the meantime, many buckets of digital ink have been spilled over the concept, with folks – from journalists to seasoned scientists – straining to explain “induced atmospheric vibration”, and how likely it might be to throw entire countries’ electricity grids offline. I scratched my head over it myself, and discussed what came to mind in a short thread on Bluesky.

Naturally, I and many others first thought about the kind of weather effects that really can damage high-voltage power lines – such as when winds make those power lines sway excessively, a situation known as “galloping”. This can be enough to damage the transmission equipment. Heavy rain can also induce problematic power line oscillations.

But an “atmospheric” effect sounds much more subtle – and more unusual. I have seen various valiant explanations setting out how, for example, sudden changes in temperature and humidity could create atmospheric pressure waves strong enough to induce extreme vibrations in high-voltage power lines.

And yet none of these explanations have provided sources. I’ve searched for such sources myself and come up short. If anyone has evidence that this sort of effect can actually be strong enough to damage electrical transmission equipment, then please contact me. I’d love to learn more about it.

I should say that a few discussions about what happened on the Iberian Peninsula this week have pointed specifically to corona effects, in which some electricity in high-voltage lines can discharge, resulting in transmission losses.

Corona effects can manifest as purple glowing or a humming noise adjacent to those lines. This phenomenon is influenced by local weather, including humidity, but the claim that it could have sent an entire grid offline goes a lot further and requires evidence.

When I ask Adam Bell, director of policy at Stonehaven, a consultancy, about this, he confirms that corona effects can interfere with the current in high-voltage wires but adds: “The magnitude of those effects is not likely to be great.”

No cause, no cause

In short, we don’t yet know what triggered this week’s massive power cut in Europe though, hopefully, the truth will emerge in time. What we can say is that cyber-attacks and reliance on renewable energy sources have been ruled out, confidently, as causes.

For now, there are two takeaways that I think are worth highlighting.

Firstly, whatever the cause, the sheer scale of the power cut suggests that the interconnectedness of electricity grids may put them at risk. Relatively isolated failures can propagate across wider grid systems, as equipment shuts down to account for sudden disparities in supply and demand. In a worst case scenario, that could turn into an example of the problem discussed in the terrifying nuclear war disaster film Threads: “the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable”. That is worth thinking about – always.

Secondly, even if “induced atmospheric vibration” is not really a threat to electricity grids, many meteorological effects are, and some of them are worsening due to climate change. From wildfires to storm activity and heatwave-induced stresses on grids, data shows that these risks are rising. Fortifying electricity systems against such threats seems increasingly important – otherwise, any of us without backup generators could be left in the dark.

Further reading on this week’s story

Among the organisations that have explored the potential impact of climate change on electricity grids are The International Energy Agency and insurance giant SwissRe.

While the interconnectedness of grid infrastructure could be problematic in the event of cascading failures, the rise of interconnectors in Europe is also key for enabling the energy transition, according to Ember, a think tank. For example: “By allowing electricity to move across borders in a matter of minutes, interconnection creates a more flexible system that can balance geographic variations in wind and solar generation, minimising output fluctuations and curtailment.”

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