Induced atmospheric oscillations.

I found it an interesting read. One of the conclusions was that to maintain grid stability some solar/wind plants must be run at a level below their maximum so that they can be called upon in an emergency.

Their maximum is of course not their theoretical maximum, but the maximum they can produce with the wind/sun as it is at that moment.

I have a feeling that is not compatible with the contracts they have in the UK, but I may be wrong there.

Andy

Well no, you risk a lot of damage if you flatten a battery in 9 seconds.

Which is the sort of toime period you need to replace spinning mass.

Well of course they can, but as with grid stabilisation it needs to be massive and expensive

And of course paid for so doing. That's only one way. And completely ignores the effect of essentially shoving a massive load on a wind turbine gearbox as it goes from free wheeling to full load.

Ultimately wind power meets the EU 'renewable obligation'. It is not required to meet any other criterion of performance.

Where d'ye-all think I got the figure of a one trillion quid from?

Just a question..

Is the "grid" as well linked as we seem to think it is or is it switched around depending on capacity of generation and load thereon. In differing areas?.

Or..

Is a gas turbine spinning gas genset in say the far north of Scotland actually providing power here in say Cambridge?.

Is it linked to say another spinning mass gas genset in Cornwall?..

If you see what i mean..

Only in emergencies

yes

yes

I think an adequate analogy would be a sheet of heavy horizontal material, call it a tabletop, supported by many legs. North Scotland is a leg, Cornwall is a leg. If Cornwall is low, ie not feeding enough power, the tabletop sinks.

If there are many legs, some will press up against the tabletop more, others will "hang" from the tabletop, dragging it down. This last is (or was) done: spin an unused generator by feeding from the grid. The only energy this uses is friction and some resistive losses. The frequency drops: the tabletop moves closer to the floor -- the "leg" of the spinning generator now isn't hanging, but supporting the table. As the generator isn't hooked up to anything turning it, it will start to slow: the leg isn't particularly solid, but squishy. But the inertia will keep the table supported for a bit, so like a battery that goes flat quickly.

Also, this models the difficulty of lifting a tabletop off the floor if it has collapsed, and some of the legs are unable to push until it is X off the ground. Either push harder, or unload the tabletop, or break it up into smaller bits that can be lifted, ...

Thomas Prufer

To avoid the papal bull yesterday I went up a channel to the Parliament channel. The lords yesterday? well at least televised yesteday, were discussing this stuff in surprising technical detail, rotatational inertia, DC conversion, pump storage, resilience,Operation Yarrow? and Operation Mighty Oak etc ,shame I did not have time to continue watching it. And I did not see one lordship asleep

And their grid connection must be running below maximum.

When the spinning generators are not providing much inertia, (some of) the solar/wind plants will be close to the theoretical maximum

Allegedly, solar/wind plants running at maximum may get paid for electricity that can not be transmitted/used.

Most of this massive thread is outside my technical knowledge but, I can claim (so far) to be the only respondent who has actually started up a generator and linked it to the local main supply!

Clywedog Dam West Wales, 1967 or thereabouts. 500kW hydraulic generator.

Avpx

I have been told that flickering light bulbs were involved in synchronizing generator and mains. Googled an explanation: a light bulb flickers at the frequency difference between the two -- ideally zero.

Thomas Prufer

"The government report said the number of generators the grid had available to provide voltage control on April 28 was lower than it had in previous weeks and that not all units that should have responded did so as expected."

In other words. no f****ng margin.

It sounded waffly enough to let people see what they expected to see. I think we would really need hard data to understand fully. Or maybe they will let an expert see the full facts, but from listing to Watt logic earlier in the year, it sounds like the electricity companies conceal the full data.

Thanks, Nick, but it is too long and technical for me to comprehend. I now understand the basics of turbine dominated grids:

volts->amps->torque->frequency + turbines tend to sync frequency,

but not much more than that.

All I'm saying is I think the devil will be in the detail and the initial media reports will just take what is spoon-fed to them.

electricity at the time of the blackout."

"Had conventional power plants done their job in controlling the voltage there would have been no blackout"

So as conventional plants are continually reduced to be replaced by renewables, they have to work harder and harder to prop-up the grid?