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Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

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Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#131

Post by astrange »

tomsmeding wrote: post #103
astrange wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a gas-powered heater more efficient than an electric heater powered by an LNG plant? Electric heating is pretty ineffective, although heat pumps can work well.

It might be, but it's also depleting a natural resource that refills _really_ slowly. Electricity at least can be (though is often not) generated from resources that do renew, like solar and wind energy.

It is, but this is one of the areas where synthetic fuels would be useful. Airplanes are another, since batteries are heavy and worse don’t get lighter as you use up the charge.

Apparently there is some research in synthetic natural gas, which is an unfortunate name.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#132

Post by yread »

yostrovs wrote: post #102
avianlyric wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite, they’re insisting all all new vehicles will be electric. Even at that point it’ll still be decades before electric vehicles make up the majority of road traffic.

Do people really keep their vehicles for decades?

Average age of a car in the Netherlands is 14 years. So, yes

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#133

Post by reddotX »

nottorp wrote: post #14

Romanian news are screaming about several counties (like 1/5 of RO) being blacked out and this being a problem at the interconnection with the neighboring power grids. From the little I know about power lines, events like this can cascade to half a continent.

https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/economie/energie/ministrul-energ...

the romanian blackout is linked to the european one

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#134

Post by reddotX »

k3liutZu wrote: post #25
nottorp wrote: post #14

Romanian news are screaming about several counties (like 1/5 of RO) being blacked out and this being a problem at the interconnection with the neighboring power grids. From the little I know about power lines, events like this can cascade to half a continent.

High voltage fluctuations today. Instead of 220V we got down to ~165V. Internet outages on top (I assume some hardware failed since multiple counties were affected on the RDS network). Edit. Here's a power graphic: https://www.transelectrica.ro/widget/web/tel/sen-grafic/-/SE... Seems Romanias production fell under the consumption at around 15:30 Water fell at that time, so maybe some hydro was shut down? We did have…

https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/economie/energie/ministrul-energ...

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#135

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

pmlnr wrote: post #127
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just means that you can't max out all your circuits at the same time. I'm pretty sure that's considered normal. If instead of FIR panels you use a heat pump (isn't that the main point of electrical heating), would you still need 32A? And if you're cooking and baking with 10 kW, would you still need heating at the same time? And a 7 kW heat pump water heater should give you ~10 liters per minute of hot shower wat…

Heat pump is a no, thank you. 10k for air source, noisy, ugly, big; 3x100m deep holes for ground source, don't even want to know the price. EDIT: for <5k I'd have the whole house on FIR panels and electric boiler, then I could spend another 5k on solar.

How do FIR panels compare to heat pumps in terms of energy efficiency? Are they really able to reach similar comfort levels at much lower temperatures as advertised?

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#136

Post by srg0 »

pmlnr wrote: post #54

Yet governments insist newbuilds to be on electric heating... I was saying this won't be nice for a long time. Example: my house, a 1954 built semi-detached - the official average unit in England - has a single phase 100A main cutout. Hob 32A, 2x sockets circuits 2x16A, 2x light circuits 2x6A, oven 16A. That's already 92A at total theoretical capacity. If I was to add FIR panels, that's bare minimum +32A, plus water…

The point is that electricity allows to change energy source anytime and be carbon neutral.

Yes, the issue is not plugging in some resistance. Infrastructure should be adequate. Hence, it makes sense to do it right in newly built houses. Upgrading existing buildings will also be necessary. It will also solve the EV charging.

There's no other way to replace fossil energy but to increase electrical power use. 1954 assumptions about maximum household power and current thresholds are no longer valid.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#137

Post by MayeulC »

99_00 wrote: post #114
MayeulC wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that would be using solar as a scapegoat for bad planning.

What do you mean by bad planning. Are you talking about planning that is flexible and responsive to pick up the slack. For example, a high demand day that is cloudy and not windy?

I am talking about designing a grid to be robust, and has enough spare capacity to handle difficulties without failing catastrophically.

For critical infrastructure, you design for worst-case scenarios, inflate the safety margins, and make backup plans (like a plan to gracefully degrade service).

Failing this and cutting corners is what I would call bad planning.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#139

Post by yostrovs »

pmlnr wrote: post #129
yostrovs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really keep their vehicles for decades?

Yes. I have a 2004 Toyota Avensis. I fully own it; no loans, no leasing.

You haven't used it for decades yet. Decades start at 20 years. They just start there. If people used their cars for 40 years, then it would apply more honestly.

Re: Europe: close to power grid blackout (49,74Hz power line frequency)

#140

Post by GekkePrutser »

a9h74j wrote: post #94
GekkePrutser wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also more than ususally cold here in Barcelona, and many people have electric heating (inefficient but rarely needed). I don't know what I'd do if the power fails :S I have UPS power backup for my servers but not for heating obviously (that's way too much power for batteries)

If you aren't aware, heated vests consume ca 10W. I haven't tried one yet, but this is a direction I see things heading.

Oh yeah I suppose that might be an option if the power fails completely. I wouldn't use one instead of regular heating though :)
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