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To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

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Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#121

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

jnsaff2 wrote: post #40
repelsteeltje wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Grid itself can't store energy, the generation and consumption needs to be in balance. So while there may be huge variance in on both sides (a sunny day, a wind gust versus switching on the AC a train leaving the station) the only way to adjust is open a valve add steam, fuel? Will that scale to when, say, 80% of electricity sources are weather dependent? Or is that the pumped hydro / big batteries / future technol…

Grids have many-many consumers and many generators. So switching on a single AC does not have a noticeable effect. There are however correlated events like the famous East Enders peak in the UK (daily TV show at the end of which a large number of britons go and make tea with their 2kW electric kettles). But weather can span large areas and the solutions can be roughly categorized as: - some form of energy storage: ba…

The TV Pickup is a wonderful piece of trivia.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#122

Post by chx »

salamandersss wrote: post #105
helloooooooo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US and Canada grids are split east-west, and then there is a third grid restricted entirely to the geographic region of Texas

Texas is connected to Mexico and some other exceptions. The fed though would rather frozen dead Texans than deregulate and allow ERCOT to connect as they do to Mexico. Fed basically holding some of the poorer rural Texans hostage to influence some rich ERCOT bureaucrats to change their regulations -- pretty fucked up IMO.

say what

Texas has made a conscious decision since 1935 when FDR signed the Federal Power Act to stay away because they didn't want the feds to mess with their grid. The feds have no power here because the Texas grid does not cross state lines. When West Texas Utilities did connect through state lines in 1976 (called the Midnight Connection) both HL&P and Texas Electric Service Company immediately disconnected from them to avoid falling under federal regulation. It was not the feds. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/connecting-past-and-...

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#123

Post by chx »

rootusrootus wrote: post #118
helloooooooo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US and Canada grids are split east-west, and then there is a third grid restricted entirely to the geographic region of Texas

But all of those are connected via HVDC, so aren't they the same grid? Or are you limiting your definition to synchronous grids?

Indeed a sync'd grid is what is typically being called a single grid. HVDC only got the required fast breaker a decade ago so it is nowhere near as widely deployed as the AC system (it's hard to make a HVDC breaker because even if an AC breaker arcs it'll self extinguish in an extremely short period of time as the voltage crosses zero, HVDC never does this so you need something to force the current to zero). Maybe the definition will change over time, it is, after all, completely arbitrary.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#124

Post by salamandersss »

chx wrote: post #122
salamandersss wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas is connected to Mexico and some other exceptions. The fed though would rather frozen dead Texans than deregulate and allow ERCOT to connect as they do to Mexico. Fed basically holding some of the poorer rural Texans hostage to influence some rich ERCOT bureaucrats to change their regulations -- pretty fucked up IMO.

say what Texas has made a conscious decision since 1935 when FDR signed the Federal Power Act to stay away because they didn't want the feds to mess with their grid. The feds have no power here because the Texas grid does not cross state lines. When West Texas Utilities did connect through state lines in 1976 (called the Midnight Connection) both HL&P and Texas Electric Service Company immediately disconnected from t…

Yes the federal regulations make demands in order to connect. The feds can release their hostages and drop the federal regulation demands and deregulate and Texas would surely connect to these interstate grids as they did to Mexico.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#125

Post by applied_heat »

londons_explore wrote: post #104

Nearly all of the purposes for these flywheels could equally be met with existing infrastructure with software only changes. Solar inverters can produce/absorb reactive power easily - but while that can frequently be configured from the control panel of individual units, rarely is that ability exposed to grid operators. Inverters at DC undersea links can do the same. As can some kinds of wind turbine. All three can a…

In the case where a system splits and one area is 6.3 GW in deficit how is an inverter going to conjure up that power?

The only thing that can help in that case is batteries.

98% of the power plants I’ve been to run the voltage regulator in voltage control mode with 5% droop. Solar and wind farms can do that too, and I am sure it is required by the system operators to allow them to connect.

If grid operators want more or less reactive power they call us and tell us to change our voltage setpoint on our plants. Can’t they do the same with solar and wind? The grid operator does not need real time control of the setpoint since the control loop responds in real time.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#126

Post by danans »

londons_explore wrote: post #104

Nearly all of the purposes for these flywheels could equally be met with existing infrastructure with software only changes. Solar inverters can produce/absorb reactive power easily - but while that can frequently be configured from the control panel of individual units, rarely is that ability exposed to grid operators. Inverters at DC undersea links can do the same. As can some kinds of wind turbine. All three can a…

> Nearly all of the purposes for these flywheels could equally be met with existing infrastructure with software only changes.

While that's true, sometimes it's easier to have a single-purpose infrastructure, so that you don't have conflicting requirements.

For example, if a wind farm needs to feather its turbines due to excessive wind (which could damage the turbines), that could conflict with a simultaneous objective for frequency regulation.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#127

Post by Waterluvian »

rbanffy wrote: post #94
chx wrote: post #31

As an aside, one of the most stunning proofs of how successful the European Union is happened with the grid. On 8 January 2021, the synchronous area of Continental Europe split into two, the system separation resulted in a deficit of power (approx. -6.3 GW) in the North-West Area and a surplus of power (approx. +6.3 GW) in the South-East Area, The reaction speed was something to behold. The event happened at 14:05 CE…

The EU itself is a thing to behold. Just managing to prevent wars between their members for so many decades is a remarkable accomplishment, unheard of in the continent's troubled history. Not perfect, and certainly not invulnerable to bad actors, but still a beautiful accomplishment of will and politics.

Seems like the trick really is to deeply intertwine economies.

It kind of feels similar to how monarchs tried to form lasting peace further back: inter-marry so that everyone is someone’s cousin they grew up with. Of course that didn’t exactly work perfectly.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#128

Post by type0 »

halper wrote: post #68
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this article from bloomberg on the event! > Europe’s grid, which is usually connected from Lisbon to Istanbul, split into two as the northwest and southeast regions struggled to keep the same frequency. The problem originated in Croatia and led to the equivalent of 200,000 households losing power across Europe. Supply to industrial sites was cut in France and Italy. > Transmission grids need to stay at a freq…

Apologise to pick nits, but if it is not Turkey it is Türkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English.

I just hope they don't go back to Arabic alphabet, it would be a pain to write. Btw when will China start demanding we refer to it as Zhōngguó, or better yet 中國 /s

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#129

Post by lmm »

pcl wrote: post #80
throw0101c wrote: post #48

HVDC facilities look like something out of a scifi movie: * https://new.abb.com/news/detail/19701/abb-wins-600-mw-hvdc-o...

... meanwhile, it's hard to believe that Japan still runs two separate grids at two separate frequencies. Seems like it'd be worth sorting out a transition plan instead of building that sort of facility, and (presumably) a bunch of others just like it.

On the contrary, as inverters and HVDC get cheaper, large synchronous grids are less worthwhile. Smaller grids are more resilient and easier to recover; that's the direction we're headed in, with plans to decouple some of these continental grids.

Re: To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again

#130

Post by gumby »

ako wrote: post #107
standeven wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics work, but cost has historically been the issue. My current project involves driving down the cost to make extremely affordable 50 kWh flywheel modules.

Sized to fit in a car?

A stationary car…I’d imagine it would make steering difficult. And if you had a crash…!!
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