Last month, the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) publicly admonished Serbia and Kosovo for not properly balancing their grids. Their negligence caused the grid to drop from its usual 50Hz to 49.996Hz. This meant that over the course of three months, any clocks that synchronised their time using the grid lost six minutes.
“This average frequency deviation, that has never happened in any similar way in the CE [Continental Europe] Power system, must cease,” the group wrote. “ENTSO-E is urging European and national governments and policymakers to take swift action.”
This week, ENTSO-E announced that oven, microwave, and alarm clocks across the continent were no longer six minutes slow. They ran the continental grid at a slightly higher frequency than normal (50.01Hz) for the same time-period until the clocks were back in sync.
