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The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

wsj.com

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Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#101

Post by bsder »

smeej wrote: post #73
rconti wrote: post #57

It looks like during last year's heat wave, California FINALLY broke its previous all-time peak load of 50,270mW in 24 July 2006, with a whopping 52,061mW on 6 September 2023. Still, peak usage year over year looks flat to my eyes. I'm sure we can't keep time-shifting and efficiency engineering ourselves out of a fundamental need for more total energy for a huge % of EVs and the push to phase out natural gas, but it…

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from wh…

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand.

Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful.

Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift.

Anything other than Shitcoin.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#102

Post by vel0city »

tedunangst wrote: post #3

> When the wind blows, for example, power lines are cooler, allowing for more capacity. Okay, but what do you do when the wind isn't blowing? How do you get people to only charge their cars when it's windy?

> How do you get people to only charge their cars when it's windy?

My electrical provider gave me a good discount on my fixed rate plan by letting them micromanage the charging times of my car. I tell them I need it X% charged by some time in the morning, and they'll make sure it's at that charge by that time.

If I really need to charge it right away I can still just do that, but the vast majority of the time I don't need to think about it. My car sits in the garage for many hours, there's plenty of time to optimize the charge timings.

Chances are they even pick up a lot of time where spot prices go negative, so they're making money selling it to me and buying it from the grid.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#103

Post by bsder »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #23

EDIT: Where I live, there is mostly 69 kV and 138 kV, with only a few 345 kV lines. There aren't nearly enough 500 kV lines, and 765 kV aren't present in the region. EDIT2: Here's what a 765 kV line looks like: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3fV1hFuQmpq3hVNx5 Map of US electric grid: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=d409... Real wiring is dominated by current, resistance of the conductor, and cooling.…

Is there any reason we can't repurpose these lines for HVDC?

It seems like we could get quite a bit of extra juice by changing to DC transmission.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#104

Post by aidenn0 »

hi-v-rocknroll wrote: post #23

EDIT: Where I live, there is mostly 69 kV and 138 kV, with only a few 345 kV lines. There aren't nearly enough 500 kV lines, and 765 kV aren't present in the region. EDIT2: Here's what a 765 kV line looks like: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3fV1hFuQmpq3hVNx5 Map of US electric grid: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=d409... Real wiring is dominated by current, resistance of the conductor, and cooling.…

At what point does HVDC start to make sense? IGBTs have only gotten better and cheaper since I first read about HVDC, so it seems like the fixed conversion costs ought to have come way down.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#105

Post by adrianN »

necheffa wrote: post #96
smeej wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from wh…

> one of its biggest hurdles is that it can't adjust up and down for demand very well This is a historic limitation. We have the technology to perform load follow with the legacy fleet. Most utilities just designed their fleets around the assumption that nuclear would be base load and therefore are less incentivized to operate their nuclear reactors this way.

No, it's an economic limitation. You can of course turn the output of a nuclear plant up and down, reasonably quickly. The problem is that nuclear power is mostly capex. If you throttle your plant to 30% output, it just means that you produce power at three times the price.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#106

Post by aidenn0 »

ksec wrote: post #78
pyrale wrote: post #4

These ‘grid enhancing technologies’ look like cheap fixes that can only buy some time before real work is needed. Sure, with better monitoring and some overload management systems you may work closer to some limits, but that’s not a solution for long-term usage increases. Where I work, they are used a lot to adjust for renewables power surges, not to increase transit. The bit about automaticaly shifting power to othe…

If one day there is a battery for every house or even flat. That is double the capacity of Tesla power wall at half the size while lasting twice as long. Do we still need to upgrade the grid infrastructure? I assume With that many buffer in place the whole thing should be able to self balance relatively easily. But I wonder if that is also a false assumption.

If EVs are competing with power walls for charge, then presumably you couldn't charge overnight, so a longer-than-normal heat-wave could drain all the household batteries.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#107

Post by adrianN »

bsder wrote: post #101
smeej wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the topic is anathema on HN, but a personal friend of mine was working with people in New Hampshire to help make the nuclear power plant a better solution for the regional power needs by equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. I know next to nothing about nuclear energy (or most other kinds of energy), but what I understand from wh…

> equipping it with bitcoin miners that can be turned on and off algorithmically to deal with the fluctuations in demand. Turning excess energy straight into heat is NOT doing something useful. Install a boatload more storage. Set up desalinization plants. Get manufacturing to move to 3rd shift. Anything other than Shitcoin.

If you had enough storage you could just build more renewables and produce the power at lower cost.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#108

Post by seventyone »

ordu wrote: post #22
pyrale wrote: post #4

These ‘grid enhancing technologies’ look like cheap fixes that can only buy some time before real work is needed. Sure, with better monitoring and some overload management systems you may work closer to some limits, but that’s not a solution for long-term usage increases. Where I work, they are used a lot to adjust for renewables power surges, not to increase transit. The bit about automaticaly shifting power to othe…

The article says they are buying the time. New lines are slow to build, so while they are being built, it is possible to squeeze more from the existing lines.

You don't need to build new lines, just replace the existing. The new conductor tech is incredible

https://www.2035report.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GridLa...

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#109

Post by neltnerb »

applied_heat wrote: post #88
neltnerb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, although distributed power generation is an actual solution to reduce transmission loads, I agree that it's too soon. It is very complicated (but I think doable!), but even then probably takes too much space for populated areas. I like the idea of knowing if a transmission line is hot enough to start a fire, but that isn't a substitute for new transmission capacity from remote PV farms or just to be more resili…

It’s not the complexity of distributed generation that prevents it from being widespread but the cost vs. cost savings

... things can have multiple reasons?

Space, cost, reliability, of course it's complex to integrate new generators that require communications to work together properly alongside planning the real wire infrastructure.

I believe it can be done, sure, but it's still complex and utility companies are not a fan of complexity.

Re: The aging U.S. power grid is about to get a jolt

#110

Post by r00fus »

tedivm wrote: post #82
r00fus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days with even off-peak being 40-80c / kWh the best way to charge EVs (which are mostly owned by homeowners) seems to be to bypass the grid and charge using rooftop solar during the middle of the day (or time shifted using battery storage). Obv. not possible for renters or condo owners or for people who can install solar.

Where do you live with power costs that high? My power is about 11c/kWh (Chicago).

California - where the power utilities are being bailed out by their customers through massive rate hikes
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