The words "it's a miracle it works at all" routinely popped up in those conversations, which is... something you don't want to hear about any sort of power generation - especially not nuclear - but it's true. It's a system basically built to produce "common accidents". It's amazing that it doesn't on a regular basis.
I wonder however how being part of the "continental Europe synchronous grid" affects this, and how it isolates to Portugal and Spain like this.
But yeah there are a lot of capacitors that want juice on startup that happily kills any attempt to restore power. My father had "a lot" of PA speakers at home and when we tripped the 3680w breaker (16A 220v) we had to kill some gear to get it back up again. I'm also very sure we had 230v because I lived close to the company I worked for and we ran small scale DC operations so I could monitor input voltage and frequency on SNMP so through work I had "perfect amateur" monitoring of our local grid. Just for fun I got notifications if the frequency dropped more than .1 and it happened, but rarely. Hardly ever above though since that's calibrated over time like Google handle NTP leap seconds.
I love infrastructure
Is that what Dr. Sattler is doing in this scene from Jurassic Park?
Nice attention to detail by the filmmakers.
Small diesels could be an option but they're harder to pull start for a given size.
They're my kryptonite, but I accept it's mostly my ignorance.
Air compressors have more valves and gaskets that are vulnerable to oxidation, especially in salty environments, so I'd have thought the upkeep between the two, the two stroke would be easier.
Having good, fresh fuel on an oil rig. They need an engine that can run on crude.
Maybe there are other concerns for an oil rig.
The hand-pumped air compressor is the tool of last resort. You can try an engine start if there's someone there who's able to pump it. You don't have to worry about how much charge is left in your batteries or whether or not the gasoline for the 2-stroke pump engine has gone stale. It's the tool that you use as an alternative to "well, the batteries are dead too, guess we're not going to start the engine tonight... let's call the helicopters and abandon ship"
Could the batteries be dead and the generators not start? I guess but it's very unlikely. I get that on an oil rig it might be a matter of life and death and you need some kind of manual way to bootstrap but there's not much that's more reliable than a 12V lead-acid battery and a diesel engine in good condition.
In a real black start, the guys might very well grab a portable generator and just use that instead. But having the option to hand crank something rather than rely on batteries that might run flat is good.
Most vessels will experience a blackout periodically and the emergency generator start fine, normally on electric or stored air start, and then the main generators will come up fine. It's really not delicate, complex or tricky - some vessels have black outs happen very often, and those that don't will test it periodically. There will also be a procedure to do it manually should automation fail.
There are air starters on some emergency generators that need handling pumping. These will also get tested periodically.
The most complex situation during black out restoration would be manual synchronisation of generators but this is nothing compared to a black start.