OT - Daily Mail Eco Bollocks - "Big brother to switch off your fridge"

[Bill Wright]

This is getting complicated. What about the thermostat?

Bill

[harry]

You are a very ignorant person. This has been done for years in hospitals because the emergency generators are often not large enough to meet the full load. Essential sockets are usually red. In acute wards, there are no non-essential sockets. Most essential equipment is permanently connected anyway.

[harry]

They get all their stuff transported for free. Most large power using equipment is 220 volts anyway. Only small stuff is 110volts.

This included their cars. They used to bring over American Classics and sell them at a profit. Mustangs Cadillacs etc.

Then they'd buy a Brit/European classic (Jag, Aston Martin Ferrari etc) & have that transported back for free to sell at another profit.

[John Williamson]

In hospitals, the sockets with a protected supply are installed at build time.

It would cost very little to put such sockets into new build housing, but it wold take decades to penetrate the market to any noticeable degree. To retrofit such sockets would mean, as has been suggested, a complete rewire of any existing house.

Doing it later costs a fortune and severely disrupts the area being worked on (Typically a ward or block) unless that area is being refurbished anyway.

[Tim Streater]

I wasn't talking about commercial property, now was I? I was talking about domestic.

[Andy Champ]

That's the idea. To reduce power consumption by reducing voltage, but _without_ changing the frequency. Apparently the UK grid can't do it.

Andy

[Andy Champ]

Last Braun I had had an interesting musical twist. When you turned it off as the oscillation stopped it went up a few notes - almost as if it had a natural 60Hz oscillation...

Use Philips now.

Andy

[Ian Jackson]

If you lower the voltage at the power station (instead of allowing the frequency to drop), and somewhere down the line there are automatic re-adjustments to try to maintain the correct voltage, more current will be drawn from the power station. If the power station again reduces its voltage, the same thing will happen again. Presumably it's all a careful balancing act involving both voltage and frequency.

[The Other Mike]

The generator at the power station and the 400kV, 275kV and 132kV transmission networks all run at or very close to their nominal voltages, always.

The adjustment for voltage us made on the distribution networks, usually on the secondary side of transformers having 132kV on their primaries.

[harry]

Most wiring is in trunking so not that difficult.

[harry]

We are talking about what might be done in the future. Lots of these ideas being put about have been done for years in commercial/industrial situations.

Eg, the thread on energy efficient pumps. Which you average local plumber doesn't understand.

Condensing boilers were used commercially for years before they became the domestic norm.

Heating system controls were used commercially long before domestic use too.

All this stuff becomes viable domestically as the cost of fuel rises.

Lot of people round here need to get their heads out of their arses. You actually need a zero energy house.

[harry]

mp

The object of the exercise is to maintain frequency and voltage at a constant level. Ideally only current varies.

The problem is local voltage fluctuations.

Frequency is less important now than it was as there are fewer timing devices rely on it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

or alternatively build shitloads of nuclear power stations and make energy cheap enough so we don't have to spend billions on finding ways to not use it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Tell that to the German factories running synchronous motors that are having f to intsall massive UPS/inverters because sudden fluctuations in the mains frequency due to sun coming out/wind gust coming along are destroying the machines the motors drive.

Some times I wonder if you actually believe all this bollocks harry, or whether its just you way of amusing yourself by pretending that you do, or whether you actually are a SPIV and make a living out of selling useless irrelevant technology to gullible people.

[Andy Champ]

I think as the generator slows the voltage drops, and this results in a slightly lower consumption (not if taps are changed, or for a SMPSU, but for resistive loads and some simple devices) The frequency drop has B**** all effect. But ICBW.

Andy

[Dave Liquorice]

So 2 GW can drop off the euro frequency zone and produce a 0.05 Hz change in the frequnecy but a few wind mills or photo voltaics can shove the frequency out of spec?

If the factory motors or machinery can't handle within supply specification frequency variations there is something wrong with them.

Or are you saying, counter to what everyone says, the bit of the Euro frequency zone in Germany can alter in frequency relative to the rest?

[The Natural Philosopher]

do you know how MUCH solar energy is n germany. IIRC its about 30GW capacity, and it goes on a sunny summers day from 30GW to the square root of f*ck all when the sun sets.

Its not a few windmills or photovoltaics. Its MASSIVE. So MASSIVE they ae having to buld 20 coal fired power stations to back it up, all of whch will be powered up and running all day to cope with the MASSIVE drop off at sunset.

They can. But the German grid is incapable of keeping TO that specification. They are talking of relaxing the specification. Worse, is not the actual amount of variation, its the speed with which it happens. the grid is upping and downing frequency and power wise over period in the *seconds* range. Beyond the ability of even hydro to compensate for.

Ad the reason is not hard to see. In spinning turbines of large dimensions in conventional power stations there is enough energy on the inertia of the rotors to smooth out any massive sudden loads. And demand fluctuates smoothly - yes you get the odd blip when everybody swtches on a kettle after coronation street, But that only happens one a day and all te pwoer here is from conventional power stations.

Inverters have no inertia. Solar panels and windmills fed through inverters have zero storage. so the possibility of sudden and massive swings in frequency is built right in.

fluctuating demand is a bad enough issue to cope with without compunding the problem by adding very fast acting massive capacity of unpredictable intermittency on to it.

Its so bad the Czechs have indicated that they may disconnect from the German grid if it gets worse.

I am not making this up, its well documented.

[The Other Mike]

As I said in my previous posting. It was the comments of someone, can't recall who. They provided no supporting evidence and I cannot find anything to back it up (despite having access to some non public sources)

[harry]

Nuclear is the most expensive option by far. And we haven't even fixed the waste disposal problem from the past yet.

The taxpayer will be subsidising it in a big way. If it happens at all. All is coming out re the costs.

station

[harry]

mp

hamp

The reason the power from turbines is rectified then inverted via a grid link inverter is so they avoid all the problems of synchronisation. In different wind speeds they need to run at different speeds to be efficient.

AqA

There are much bigger ones available too.

So you half wit, the wind turbines are not synchonised with the grid.

And PV panels generate DC so they are not synchronised either.

Which all goes to show how full of shit you are ranting on about topics you have zero knowledge about. As usual.