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Mystery of 60-Second Fluctuations in Power Grids Solved

30 October 2026

Why do our grids show a brief spike in electricity demand every minute? A team led by Dirk Witthaut from Forschungszentrum Jülich has now demonstrated that this is due to regular power checks carried out by large-scale battery storage systems. These findings could help to make our electricity supply more robust, as the team reports in an article published in Nature Energy.

电网中60秒波动之谜已解

2026年10月30日

为什么我们的电网每分钟都会出现短暂的电力需求激增？由于利希研究中心（Forschungszentrum Jülich）的德克·威特豪特（Dirk Witthaut）领导的团队现已证明，这是由大型电池储能系统进行的定期电力检查所致。正如该团队在《自然-能源》（Nature Energy）杂志上发表的文章中所述，这些发现有助于增强电力供应的稳健性。

Tennet Germany, the largest transmission system operator in Germany, has observed over several years that the frequency in the European power grid dips briefly every 60 seconds. While these deviations were not critical to grid security, they were clearly measurable and unusually regular. The cause of this phenomenon was initially unclear.

德国最大的输电系统运营商Tennet Germany多年来观察到，欧洲电网的频率每60秒就会出现一次短暂下降。虽然这些偏差对电网安全并无致命影响，但它们清晰可测且异常规律。这一现象的起因最初并不明确。

A team from Jülich led by Dirk Witthaut, together with researchers from the University of Cologne and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, set out to investigate – and found the answer: the cause appears to be the many large-scale battery storage systems that check their state of charge every minute. This leads to measurable fluctuations in electricity consumption, which can contribute to turbine wear and tear, for example. The battery storage systems ensure an uninterrupted power supply, and their numbers have increased significantly worldwide in recent years. The researchers found that this was not a European phenomenon, but a global one.

由德克·威特豪特领导的于利希团队，联合科隆大学和卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院的研究人员展开了调查，并找到了答案：原因似乎是许多大型电池储能系统每分钟都会检查其充电状态。这导致了可测量的电力消耗波动，例如，这可能会加剧涡轮机的磨损。电池储能系统确保了不间断的电力供应，近年来其数量在全球范围内显著增加。研究人员发现，这并非欧洲特有的现象，而是一种全球性现象。

Many devices, a common rhythm

“It really was years of detective work,” says Witthaut. The grid frequency pattern is shaped by many different factors. For example, it reveals the influence of electricity trading, with power stations being switched on and off abruptly, as well as the fluctuating feed-in from renewable energy sources, and various other disturbances. “It quickly became clear to us that the cause must be something controlled by the clock,” says Witthaut. There was no other way to explain the precise 60-second cycle. It was also clear that: “The observed effect can only be produced if many devices are consuming electricity at the same time.” A single consumer or generator could therefore be ruled out.

众多设备，共同的节奏

“这确实是多年的侦探工作，”威特豪特说。电网频率模式受许多不同因素的影响。例如，它揭示了电力交易的影响，即发电站的突然开关、来自可再生能源的波动性馈电以及各种其他干扰。“我们很快意识到，原因一定是由时钟控制的，”威特豪特说。没有其他方式可以解释精确的60秒周期。同样显而易见的是：“只有当许多设备同时消耗电力时，才会产生这种观察到的效应。”因此，单一的消费者或发电机可以被排除在外。

Measurements on campus provide the clue

But how do all these devices synchronize their consumption? The researchers finally found the crucial clues with the help of the Living Lab Energy Campus. This research infrastructure on the Jülich campus is primarily used to develop and test highly integrated energy supply systems. The team installed measuring points on end devices at a total of 80 locations – and sure enough, the same periodic pattern in electricity consumption was observed precisely at the locations where large-scale battery storage systems are designed to ensure an uninterrupted power supply. “We took a closer look at one of them and found a spike in electricity consumption at the start of every minute due to the power check,” explains Witthaut.

校园测量提供线索

但这些设备是如何同步其电力消耗的呢？研究人员最终在“能源校园生活实验室”（Living Lab Energy Campus）的帮助下找到了关键线索。这一位于于利希校园的研究基础设施主要用于开发和测试高度集成的能源供应系统。团队在总共80个地点的终端设备上安装了测量点——果然，在设计用于确保不间断电力供应的大型电池储能系统所在地，精确地观察到了同样的电力消耗周期性模式。“我们仔细观察了其中一个，发现由于电力检查，每分钟开始时电力消耗都会出现激增，”威特豪特解释道。

As there are no binding standards for such power checks, Witthaut suspects that most battery manufacturers assumed that a 60-second interval would be sensible. The start of every minute was simply chosen as the test time. “It is entirely possible, however, that battery storage systems are only part of the problem here,” says Witthaut. “It cannot be ruled out that other digitally controlled appliances – such as air-conditioning systems, heat pumps, washing machines, and dishwashers – may also exhibit similar patterns.”

由于此类电力检查没有强制性标准，威特豪特怀疑大多数电池制造商认为60秒的间隔是合理的。每分钟的开始仅仅是被选作了测试时间。“然而，完全有可能的是，电池储能系统只是这里问题的一部分，”威特豪特说。“不能排除其他数字控制的电器——如空调系统、热泵、洗衣机和洗碗机——也可能表现出类似的模式。”

Less synchronization, less wear and tear

The periodic fluctuations in electricity demand are already having an impact on hydroelectric power stations. The brief spikes in demand mean that the turbines slow down momentarily before accelerating back to their original rotational speed. This increases wear and tear. With the expansion of storage technologies, such problems could become even more prevalent. In Ireland, for example, where data centres with large-scale battery storage systems currently account for around a fifth of the country’s electricity demand, the amplitude of the 1-minute signal quadrupled between 2016 and 2021. The solution, however, would be simple: “You would simply have to distribute the checks randomly, rather than always starting them at the same time,” says Witthaut.

减少同步，减少磨损

电力需求的周期性波动已经对水力发电站产生了影响。短暂的需求激增意味着涡轮机会在加速回到原始转速之前出现瞬间减速。这增加了磨损。随着储能技术的扩展，此类问题可能会变得更加普遍。例如在爱尔兰，拥有大型电池储能系统的数据中心目前约占该国电力需求的五分之一，其1分钟信号的振幅在2016年至2021年间翻了两番。然而，解决方案很简单：“你只需要随机分配检查时间，而不是总是同时开始，”威特豪特说。