OT: The North Sea Link.

[Chris Bacon]

I see the power interconnector cable linking us to Norway is now up & running. That's good news.

[Tim Lamb]

In message <sjcir2$1pcl$ [e-mail]>, Chris Bacon [e-mail] writes

I see we are going to supply them when we have excess wind power and it stops raining in Norway:-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

LOL!

[Chris Hogg]

Believe it or not, Norway does occasionally experience low rainfall and consequent concerns about its hydroelectricity supply.

But not often!

[Theo]

Currently 700MW, rising to the full 1400MW over the next three months.

Meanwhile the French interconnector is down 1000MW until the end of March at the earliest.

Theo

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

What is the capacity of a link like that? Brian

[Chris Hogg]

Eventually, 1400 megawatts, but running at half that for three months in the early stages. Should be up to full power in the New Year.

[SH]

currently 700 MW but slowly being increased to 1.4 GW over the next 3 months, and is actually a higher rating that the one that was kncoked out by fire bwteeen us and France.

S.

[Chris Bacon]

Enough hydro-power to supply 1.4 million homes, according to the National Grid.

[SH]

Its actually a bi-directional link so that:

When UK wind is too low, Norway will send us hydroelectric power....

When UK wind is too high and supply exceeds UK demand, the excess will be sent to Norway so they can reduce the supply elsewhere.

[Chris Bacon]

Yup. ;)

[Tim Streater]

Aren't they all?

[newshound]

I think so, and sometimes we do export to France, but our net take from there is very large. I am pretty sure that there is only one (reversible) rectifier/inverter unit at each end.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I dont think that's correct. A quick stab at gridwatch shows that 10,000 5 minute periods have shown more than 2GW export to France

I will admit that the new french interconnector has never been used for export, to date.

However: "IFA2 would be a high voltage direct current (HVDC) electricity interconnector with an approximate capacity of 1 gigawatt (GW) which would allow the transfer of electrical power between the UK and France via subsea cables. The interconnector would be bi-directional allowing the import and export of electricity between the UK and France"

cost is in the cable, not the inverters. It would see fairly dumb not to make it bidirectional

[John Brown]

Does that ever happen ?

More likely to go that way if Norway is in drought etc.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes.

Often wind farms are paid to shut down depending where the link lands, it might be possible to shunt it across the N Sea.

[newshound]

I bow to the expert, especially since he has the data!

I am obviously out of date; in the earlier days there was certainly some bidirectional traffic associated with the time difference of the peaks, but I believe in the old days it was far more in than out.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh it has always been more in than out, but that doesn't mean it cant and hasn't been used in 'full out' mode

[Roland Perry]

In message <bPf* [e-mail]>, at 20:54:21 on Sun,

3 Oct 2021, Theo <theom+ [e-mail]> remarked:

You forgot to say which year:

[The Natural Philosopher]

How sad. France has lost half of its UK electricity export market.