[HN Gopher] To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again
___________________________________________________________________
To free the Baltic grid, old technology is new again
Author : rbanffy
Score : 165 points
Date : 2023-11-13 13:42 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| This is why the common trope of _" The grid can't function
| without the inertia from big heavy generators!!"_ detracting the
| rise of renewables is invalid. Synthetic grid strength has been
| available for a century.
|
| Today the research focuses on "Grid forming inverters". Taking
| the same principle as powering a home in island mode and
| stretching it to the entire grid allowing non-synchronous
| generators to provide the system strength.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| this article is about using very high mass alternators to
| stabilize the grid's frequency
| Retric wrote:
| The clearest term IMO is synchronous capacitors. They are in
| effect large flywheels that can operate as both an electric
| motor and a generator.
|
| Over time they are a net power drain for the grid, but as
| parent says offer synthetic grid stability independent of
| power sources.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Very interesting. I'm wondering whether _distance_ and
| "direction" are an issue here? That is: over large
| distances (how) would (light speed) latency translate into
| phase change if "downstream stabilization" suddenly becomes
| "upstream".
|
| (Sorry for asking such a poorly stated question that I
| really haven't thought through -- I know very little about
| electricity and you seem to understand quite a lot about
| this subject.)
|
| Someone have a link to 101 power transmission? I find this
| fascinating.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Good instinct. There is a site that measures frequency in
| several places in Europe and shows the phase difference.
| [0]
|
| The phase difference is not really about distance it's
| more about energy flows, where it's lagging there more
| power is used and where it is leading more power is
| generated. The flow will be from early phase to later.
|
| [0] https://gridradar.net/charts/map/map.html
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| So I imagine phase difference can be a serious issue, or
| at least something that needs to be mitigated and
| monitored continuously (evidently). I'm assuming a DC
| power network intrinsically solves this (in case of solar
| energy).
|
| But how would current and voltage be stabilized in that
| case? Just huge capacitors? Chemical batteries?
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Frequency and phase difference are indicators of grid
| balance.
|
| Grid itself can't store energy, the generation and
| consumption needs to be in balance.
|
| If transmission balance goes out of whack more electrons
| want to flow to specific places and will always try to
| take the path of least resistance.
|
| Those paths (as in transmission lines) have their current
| capacity measured in Amps and when it gets too much their
| protective equipment in the for of active or passive
| circuit breakers will take them offline (trip) therefore
| moving the current down next best paths and further
| increasing the likelihood of trips.
|
| Voltage is regulated by changing the windings of
| transformers in AC-AC systems or by
| transistors/thyristors in DC coupled networks.
|
| Frequency has usually been regulated by spinning mass, a
| steam powered generator has a pretty large inertia and
| when it slows down there is a governor or other control
| mechanism to add energy to the generator via opening
| steam valves and maybe adding fuel. If speed goes too
| high it is also reduced.
|
| For large load changes there are further compensatory
| mechanisms. Like heavy industrial plants measure grid
| frequency and when it falls below lets say 49.9Hz then
| they will immediately trip themselves offline and shed a
| huge amount of load from the grid. They get paid for
| this.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| > 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 technology
| stuff?
|
| [Sorry for going off topic, here]
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| 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: batteries, hydro (can be
| pumped), flywheels, etc
|
| - dispatchable power - gas fired turbines, coal or wood
| fired thermal plants, nuclear, etc
|
| - demand side response - time of use pricing (like
| nordpool spot market prices) or getting paid to switch
| off your AC during peak hours, etc.
|
| Traditionally we have had a grid management mindset of
| "generation adapts to load", everyone uses as much and
| when they need and grid/generation adapts to it.
|
| With only renewables the mental model of "load follows
| generation" could make sense, people (or rather peoples
| devices) get a signal when it is most beneficial to
| consume and when not to.
|
| I think the reality will be some combination of all of
| the above. Mostly renewables but also diverse set of
| renewables that are somewhat anti-correlated, like
| wind+solar plus distributed. The shortfalls could be
| filled with natural gas fired power plants. Some nuclear
| when/if built/available combined with smart cars and
| devices. V2G will get there eventually as well and then
| the car battery will have much more energy available than
| a typical home uses in a day.
| repelsteeltje wrote:
| Thanks for the great explanation!
| jacquesm wrote:
| > 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
|
| Cruachan to the rescue.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruachan_Power_Station
|
| Zero to full production in two minutes, 30 seconds in an
| extreme case if required. It's the Power Infrastructure
| equivalent of a supercar.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Within reason. If you lead or lag too much it will cause
| trouble (either for you or for other consumers and in a
| really bad case for the grid equipment itself).
|
| That's why the grid will selectively island parts that
| are too far out of phase. Normally this should not happen
| though.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Why would anyone use the term 'capacitor' to describe what
| is basically an alternator, a flywheel & an electric motor?
| callalex wrote:
| It's short term energy storage with rapid charge and
| discharge capabilities. Not all capacitors are
| electrolytic.
| connicpu wrote:
| If we're going to use circuit terminology I think the
| physics of a flywheel are more like some kind of AC
| Inductor. DC Inductors resist changes in the flow of
| current, keeping current flowing even when circuit
| conditions change. It also helps that the parts of an
| inductor and flywheel that are in contact with the
| circuit/grid are coils of wire wrapped around an
| iron/magnetic core.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Transformers also have some of that effect.
| sheepshear wrote:
| I think the article should not have described a condenser as
| a generator. It's causing confusion.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Yep. There are also Shunt Reactors for managing voltage
| stability.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_shunt_reactor
| vGPU wrote:
| Yes, the mechanism which can provide power for some 45 seconds
| is a generator replacement.
|
| Sigh...
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| We are not talking about the energy balance, we are talking
| about grid strength/inertia also known as ancillary services.
| Two orthogonal concepts people tend to mix up.
|
| The article mentions the critical parameters which
| _historically_ have been sourced from big heavy generators
| like hydro, coal, nuclear or CCGT plants:
|
| - Frequency regulation: When grid power crashes or surges,
| the device immediately releases or absorbs energy to minimize
| fluctuation in the AC frequency;
|
| - Short circuit power: When the grid experiences a short
| circuit, the crashing voltage releases a tripling or more of
| current from rotating machines which signals breakers on the
| grid to activate and quickly isolate the fault;
|
| - Voltage support: Producing current and voltage that are out
| of phase generates so-called reactive power that pushes the
| local grid's voltage up or down to stabilize system voltage
| and/or increase the flow of real power.
| hoerensagen wrote:
| Yes?
|
| This is about Inertia and frequency control. Not about bulk
| energy storage.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Lucky that has nothing to do with how grid stability works
| then... We're talking about frequency correction, reactive
| power control etc. here!
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > All nine of the Baltics' synchronous condensers will have
| power-boosting flywheels, as she explains, equipping each
| installation with up to 2,200 megajoules of energy.
|
| Though 97% of that energy isn't available to the grid as the name
| _synchronous_ condenser implies.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| It's not that much energy anyway. 1kwh is about 3.6 megajoule.
| 2200 times 9 divided by 3.6 is about 5.5mwh. This is obviously
| not intended as a battery but more as a very low latency
| control mechanism to control frequencies and voltages. You'd
| only be able to use it for very short bursts of energy probably
| in the order of a few seconds or minutes.
|
| You'd use something like this while bringing online alternative
| sources of energy, which takes time. Of course a grid battery
| probably wouldn't need this as it would be similarly quick to
| come online. Which raises the question why they are going for
| synchronous condensers instead of grid battery. One doesn't
| exclude the other of course.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| I don't see how it implies that. In a DC power supply, for
| example, you can stick a regular capacitor (condenser) in
| parallel with the DC output and it will smooth out fluctuations
| in the voltage. The energy stored in that capacitor isn't
| available for you to use. You need the capacitor to stay
| charged so it can maintain the target voltage level. The only
| way to get a capacitor to be at a certain voltage is to charge
| it.
|
| This is evidently something similar but for AC. It stabilizes
| the AC voltage / phase because its momentum pushes back against
| whatever tries to disturb it.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The flywheel is directly connected to the synchronous
| condenser's rotor, and that rotor is locked to the grid's
| frequency. The grid's frequency must be maintained within a
| very narrow range (for a variety of reasons), so the actual
| speed difference of the flywheel between "full" and "the grid
| is shutting down" is very small and so most of the energy
| cannot be put into the grid. This is why flywheel storage
| uses variable-frequency drive systems; to be able to pull
| energy out of the flywheel over the entire range of full-
| speed to ~standstill.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Oh, I see now. We've been talking past each other.
|
| You mean, "Though 97% of that energy isn't available to the
| grid COMMA as the name synchronous condenser implies."
|
| You _don 't_ mean (as I read it before), "Though 97% of
| that energy isn't available to the grid, and the name
| synchronous condenser implies the energy is available."
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >The energy stored in that capacitor isn't available for you
| to use.
|
| Well, it's only available to use when the power fails or
| something like that.
|
| When you first power up, it requires a finite amount of time
| for the storage/filter capacitor(s) to charge up to their
| full design voltage before your circuit really works as
| intended.
|
| Later when you disconnect incoming power, the stored energy
| from the capacitors does continue to supply DC power to your
| circuit for a finite amount of time afterward, at declining
| voltage as the capacitors are drained.
|
| >This is evidently something similar but for AC. It
| stabilizes the AC voltage / phase because its momentum pushes
| back against whatever tries to disturb it.
|
| Yes, I think this is it.
|
| Seems to me these massive AC stabilizers would help maintain
| frequency and voltage during unavoidable events where the
| grid dropped below nominal, by more gracefully dropping when
| necessary as the grid sucks momentum from the stabilizer down
| to its own level at the time.
|
| And if power completely failed it should end up in a more
| graceful "wind-down" as all momentum for all stabilizers
| require a finite amount of time to come to a complete halt,
| letting whatever limited amount of stored energy they contain
| be delivered to the grid until there is no more.
| chx wrote:
| 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 CET, at 14:09 CET the Transmission System Operators (TSOs)
| were in teleconference but by then some 1.7GW capacity in France
| and Italy was dropped and 420 MW and 60 MW was activated in the
| Nordic and Great Britain. Customers barely felt it: only 70 MW in
| the North-West Area and 163 MW in the South-East Area were
| disconnected. By 15:08 the event concluded.
|
| Yes, there was a mistake in the processes which led to the event
| in special circumstances but , I believe , the respected readers
| of HN know this all too well , the big question is what happens
| when an emergency hits. And those processes held up
| spectacularly.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| https://www.netzfrequenz.info/allgemein/aufteilung-des-synch...
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| 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 frequency of 50 hertz to
| operate smoothly and any deviations can damage equipment that's
| connected. Had the frequency swings not been reduced within
| minutes, it could have caused damage across the entire European
| high voltage network, potentially causing blackouts for
| millions.
|
| > A fault at a substation that caused overloading on other
| parts of Croatia's grid has been identified as the cause of the
| issue, network operators concluded Tuesday.
|
| > "The problem isn't posed by growing green electricity
| directly but by shrinking conventional capacity," said
| Eglantine Kuenle, chief electricity systems modeler at the EWI
| Institute of Energy Economics at Cologne University. "The
| upshot is a gap in secure power generation and grid balancing
| that must be fixed."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230621192146/https://www.bloom...
|
| ----
|
| Personal thoughts. I knew we had an interconnected grid, but I
| had no idea it span from Portugal to Turkiye, nor that the rest
| of Scandinavia wasn't connected. For a system as critical, and
| as complex, it seems like a feat of engineering on all sides
| involved.
| halper wrote:
| Apologise to pick nits, but if it is not Turkey it is
| Turkiye. The former is perfectly fine in English.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Oh, sorry, my bad!
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > if it is not Turkey it is Turkiye. The former is
| perfectly fine in English.
|
| Not according to the Turkish government.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/turkey-
| changes...
| brnt wrote:
| Fortunately they are not in charge of English. Not even
| the English government is. At most they are in charge of
| their respective versions and advocacy of it.
|
| Alphabets and certainly diacritics are used differently
| in different languages, so insisting on a certain way of
| writing can only lead to inconsistent pronunciation.
| chx wrote:
| You don't need that, the official report is good
| https://www.entsoe.eu/news/2021/07/15/final-report-on-the-
| se...
| kzrdude wrote:
| And the work to speed up Moldova & Ukraine's connection to
| the sychronous grid, just after Russia invaded in 2021, was
| impressive too.
| brnt wrote:
| At the time, it was said this plan was the immediate reason
| for the invasion: letting the sync finish would have
| crossed some measure of western integration for the
| Kremlins tastes.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The Kremlin is so easily offended.
| b3orn wrote:
| To be a little nit-picky the grid includes Scandinavia
| through HVDC connections with the rest of Europe, see [1] for
| the entire ENTSO-E grid. If you mean the synchronous grid,
| Denmark is part of Scandinavia and its continental part is
| synchronised with the rest of Europe.
|
| [1]: https://www.entsoe.eu/data/map/downloads
| TMWNN wrote:
| >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 European grid has nothing to do with the EU. The grid
| includes non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway. The UK
| did not leave the grid after Brexit; its interconnections with
| Ireland and the continent still exist.
|
| The US and Canada's grids are interconnected without the two
| nations being integrated as closely as the EU member states
| are.
| chx wrote:
| ENTSOE-E exists because of the 2009/72/EC directive. It's an
| EU entity. As with many such, they also allow / work with
| entities outside of the EU but that doesn't change the fact
| this is an association existing under and because of the EU
| legal framework.
| helloooooooo wrote:
| US and Canada grids are split east-west, and then there is a
| third grid restricted entirely to the geographic region of
| Texas
| salamandersss wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| But all of those are connected via HVDC, so aren't they the
| same grid? Or are you limiting your definition to
| synchronous grids?
| brnt wrote:
| The US isn't even integrated with itself.
|
| And sure, other countries can integrate too, and in fact do.
| Nobody said only EU members are allowed to do it. It is
| however the largest grid on earth, and therefore a technical
| and political feat.
| rbanffy wrote:
| 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.
| chx wrote:
| Almost all of us in Europe have never known anything but this
| peace so it almost feels a given. (I doubt a lot of readers
| are above eighty years old.) Yet a lot of kvetching about
| regulations happen and so it's good to remind people they
| have their own use.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Flywheels are underrated tech for both stability and
| decentralized energy storage. They should receive environmental
| funding just like solar and wind do.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Can you point to resources explaining why they're a good
| choice?
|
| Because the general consensus seems to be that large things
| like pumped hydro are good for centralized energy storage,
| while batteries are the choice for _decentralized_ energy
| storage -- whether in your utility closet or in your EV.
|
| Why should anyone choose a flywheel over a battery?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| https://amberkinetics.com
|
| Advantages over chemical batteries:
|
| >85% round trip efficiency (DC)
|
| >No daily cycling limitations
|
| >No degradation over time
|
| >Full power over full State-of-Charge range
|
| >No HVAC required
|
| >Operates in hot and cold environments (-20C to 50C)
|
| >Fast response time (<1 second)
|
| >Sustainable and recyclable all-steel design
|
| >Safe & reliable-no fire hazard
|
| >Lower O&M cost
|
| >30-year design life
| crazygringo wrote:
| Thanks -- what about disadvantages? Surely it's not _all_
| advantages.
| auspiv wrote:
| What I've seen is they require fancy materials (carbon
| fiber, etc) due to the extremely high rotation rates
| (>100k rpm). For maximum efficiency, the flywheel needs
| to be in a vacuum to eliminate frictional air resistance
| losses. They also need magnetic bearings.
|
| None of these are exactly a problem, they just cost money
| to implement properly.
|
| I would say this copy + pasted list is not great.
|
| No HVAC required - ok but you do need to suck down a huge
| vacuum, which is a lot more difficult than traditional
| HVAC
|
| Hot and cold - see above point
|
| All steel - not sure about that, maybe for lower speed
| applications, which reduces the amount of energy stored
|
| Safe & reliable - hard to say that a huge mass spinning
| >100k rpm is "safe". By itself there is no fire hazard
| sure. but what if your magnetic bearings fail and it hops
| off and starts trying to escape it's (vacuum) enclosure.
| Then you have tons of sparks and pressure differences and
| other non-fun things.
|
| O&M - [citation required]
|
| 30 year life - surely with all the plusses listed, it
| should be longer than 30 year life?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think rather than think about it as "pros and cons", a
| better approach is to think about where these various
| types of storage are used. I think the analogy of hard
| disk drive -> RAM -> on-chip cache for memory storage
| (that is cheapest/longest lived/slowest to most
| expensive/short term/fastest) also works well for energy
| storage:
|
| 1. Pumped hydro is currently best for long term-storage.
| The lack of other cost-competitive long-term storage
| options is currently one of the biggest issues with
| renewables and an active area of investigation.
|
| 2. Batteries are good for daily smoothing (i.e. when the
| sun goes down), but they have limited charge/discharge
| cycles, they lose charge over time, and they don't, as of
| yet, have storage capacities needed for long term
| storage.
|
| 3. As the article points out, flywheels are good at
| instantly changing output based on changes in the grid,
| so they're good for frequency regulation and
| onboarding/offboarding new energy sources. Their biggest
| downside is their limited capacity compared to other
| tech.
| auspiv wrote:
| You have listed the advantages directly from a company that
| sells flywheel devices. Surely there are no biases here.
| cwmma wrote:
| flywheels can go through charge and discharge cycles pretty
| much infinitely at least compared to batteries. Somebody
| posted a chart a chart on reddit recently comparing energy
| storage technologies based on how long they need to discharge
| for and how frequently https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautif
| ul/comments/17r9q6s/oc...
| ben_bai wrote:
| When you have multiple cycles per day, the higher price of
| flywheels trumps over the limited but cheaper battery
| lifespan. Batteries degrade with charge cycles.
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| Are they safe and simple enough to operate at the neighborhood
| or even household level as a backup energy storage, where the
| grid is faulty? For example, in some region of Africa?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Seems like this is already done:
|
| https://amberkinetics.com/installation/the-reliable-
| energy-s...
|
| https://amberkinetics.com/installations/
| gumby wrote:
| People explored them in the 2008-ish climate boomlet and it was
| hard to make the physics/costs work. If something has changed
| since then it might be worth looking at again, else that's
| probably why nobody is pursuing them today.
| standeven wrote:
| 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.
| ako wrote:
| Sized to fit in a car?
| standeven wrote:
| My company is working on this right now. We are early/stealth
| but moving towards a pilot project and acquiring IP.
|
| Placeholder site: vortical.io
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The headline implies the Baltic states will have an independent
| electricity grid, but it's just switching dependence from Russia
| to the EU (for electricity) and the USA (for liquified natural
| gas imports).
|
| Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia would be better off eliminating
| those dependencies entirely by focusing on expanding their
| domestic renewable energy production infrastructure.
| VincentEvans wrote:
| Is this an either/or dichotomy? Perhaps both avenues are being
| pursued, but have different cost and timeframe tradeoffs.
| yencabulator wrote:
| > Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia would be better off eliminating
| those dependencies entirely by focusing on expanding their
| domestic renewable energy production infrastructure.
|
| Perhaps, but the time scale for that is much longer than this,
| and they're very eager to switch ASAP.
| Strom wrote:
| Estonia doesn't really import any electricity from Russia, it's
| primarily export. Also these connections in general are for
| cost and fault tolerance. Estonia has enough domestic power
| plant capacity (including domestic shale oil mining to fuel it)
| to cover even peak usage. It's just often cheaper to import
| from Finland.
|
| There are also a lot of renewable energy projects in progress
| to replace the shale oil systems, but again - capacity isn't
| the issue.
| throw0101c wrote:
| HVDC facilities look like something out of a scifi movie:
|
| * https://new.abb.com/news/detail/19701/abb-wins-600-mw-hvdc-o...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Indeed, they do. The Wikipedia page photos are some of my
| favorite photos of power tech.
|
| Another thing that made a really strong impression was visiting
| a power dam and realizing that it was almost dead quiet while
| an enormous amount of power was being generated. Just a slight
| hum and a vibration in the floor, that was all.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| But if those rotors were even a few grams out of balance,
| you'd feel it. Also, if something went wrong with the valves,
| you'd also hear it. Right before you drowned and/or were
| killed by flying concrete. Moving water does NOT like to
| stop.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, the water hammer from a major dam must be quite
| impressive if you try to contain it by main force rather
| than to reduce the flow gradually.
| cesarb wrote:
| I've seen some videos which show, if I understood the
| description correctly, chambers which contain the
| overpressure from these water hammer events. For
| instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJVBlhgt9j8
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's impressive. I've seen a 2" butterfly valve
| attached to a stepper motor blown clear off the tube it
| was on because it closed too quickly. Oops... expensive
| lesson.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Here's a documentary on one disaster:
| https://youtu.be/OjMtbkFF3RM
|
| 75 deaths. RIP.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Massive page overlay popup. Can't esc from it
| pcl wrote:
| ... 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.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think they might want HVDC either way, and since they'll
| have to convert from DC to AC locally anyway, maybe it isn't
| so bad?
|
| It does seem a little weird though.
| andylynch wrote:
| It's not worth the eye watering amount of money it would cost
| to change. It took nearly seventy years to transition users
| off the much smaller NYC DC grid, which was obsolete in the
| 1920s!
| nielsbot wrote:
| Any time I see rooms like this, I think to myself "Do not touch
| ANYTHING in here"
| rob74 wrote:
| Since the article mentions the Kaliningrad exclave: what will
| actually happen with it once the Baltic states shut down the
| power lines to Russia? Then there will also be no way to transfer
| power from Russia to Kaliningrad - will they be forced to only
| rely on those power plants the article mentions?
| juujian wrote:
| Would be hilarious if the authorities in Kaliningrad exerted no
| time and effort to prepare for such an eventuality.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Did you read part of the article or none of it? You clearly
| didn't read all of it.
| vetinari wrote:
| Submarine power lines exist; Baltic and North Sea are full of
| them.
| mempko wrote:
| The article explains this. Russia built 4 new gas fired power
| plants and an LNG import station at a port in Kaliningrad. The
| enclave is self sufficient now.
| clnq wrote:
| Kaliningrad oblast is an exclave of Russia by the way.
| Enclaves are states like the Vatican - entirely surrounded by
| one state.
| boricj wrote:
| Couldn't the Baltic states switch synchronous zones by
| disconnecting from the Russian grid, blacking out and then
| bootstrapping using the European grid? That would break
| continuity of service and require a black start (far from ideal),
| but that's a contingency they must've thought of in case they
| suddenly got cut off from Russia and Belarus for some reason.
| janosdebugs wrote:
| As I understood from the discussions last winter here in
| Austria, a black start is not a single switch, you need to
| start on one side of a country (where you have power or
| blackstart-capable plants) and then work your way through the
| grid. That takes a while and you don't want citizens without
| power even for a few hours if you can help it.
| araes wrote:
| That LitPot Link [1] to Poland looks really vulnerable if Russia
| / Belarus decide the Baltics need to rejoin. There's three others
| (Harmony Link won't be completed to 2028), yet that looks like a
| quick half-day to sever. Only 40km to the corner of Belarus, most
| artillery listed here can hit 40km+ {2] Get something like this
| if it goes total war. [3]
|
| [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/media-library/a-map-of-the-
| baltic-...
|
| [2] https://www.army-
| technology.com/features/featurethe-10-most-...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upshot-
| Knothole_Grable#/media/...
| nazgob wrote:
| It goes both ways. Whole Kaliningrad region is in range of
| barrel artillery and very, very easy to monitor. Also, most
| troops left to invade Ukraine.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 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 also absorb harmonic power and emit it as
| fundamental frequency power.
|
| Battery energy storage systems can also do all of that, plus also
| provide 'simulated spinning reserve', and also provide brief huge
| increases in energy output to deal with various collapse
| conditions.
|
| Wind can also do this (with caveats).
|
| However, despite lots of 'green' energy sources having the
| necessary abilities, it frequently is lacking software support,
| particularly in the 'control plane'. Part of that is because
| there is no legal mandate to have these abilities, and there is
| (in most markets) no payment for providing this service.
| Therefore operators don't bother to enable these features.
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