Oh I fully believe you, my point is merely that adding battery storage would be more of the same, not really a large departure from what we’ve always done.
I get it though. The energy needs to come from somewhere… adding too much storage without adding more places to get energy from will eventually end up not doing much at all.
Thanks for that link @Phil.g00. Ventured into Wikipedia on Synchronous Condensers and then spat coffee all over my monitor laughing at this bit:
Most synchronous condensers connected to electrical grids are rated between 20 MVAR (megavar) and 200 MVAR and many are hydrogen cooled. There is no explosion hazard as long as the hydrogen concentration is maintained above 70%, typically above 91%.
Ai. 
I presume this development is part of Ireland’s wind power program? See: archive.ph
But as yet they don’t have much capacity on the west coast since they haven’t installed the wind farms out in the Atlantic…
Is this in preparation for the future?
@Richard_Mackay - They are doing very well actually…
“Last year 31% of Ireland’s electricity came from wind turbines, according to Wind Europe, an industry group. The share was higher only in Denmark, which managed 44%. Already this year Ireland’s figure has risen to 36%. The Irish government wants to push its renewables share up to 80% by 2030; it beat this target briefly during one especially stormy weekend in February this year.”
As @mmaritz pointed out there is plenty of wind generation in the West of Ireland. Ireland doesn’t really have mountains to speak of, and the vast expanse of the flat Atlantic allows for wind turbulence to settle.
So I think that on-shore and coastal wind is probably more cost-effective.
On the East coast, there are offshore wind farms (and plans for more), this is what I am basing my opinion on.
My question is about the location of this concentrator. This is on the West coast and I wondered if this was connected to the proposed offshore wind farms they are planning to build out to sea on that coast?
It is connected to the national grid as are the wind farms.
Geographical location is not all-important from a technical aspect as a national frequency shift attempts to affect the rotational speed of all rotating machines in the country. Ireland’s wind generation is quite dispersed nationwide. So the source of frequency instability could not be predicted with any certainty.
It is however important that the site has a strong grid connection, which is why an ex-power station would make a good site. Moneypoint is the source of Irelands 400kV transmission lines to the East.
I don’t know if old generators can be repurposed as synchronous condensers as they are in fact the same machine just run in a different mode.
If they can be, then the likes of Komati or other decommissioned power stations would make ideal sites to add system inertia.
Ok, I’m still stuck on processing this.
Got this in from a pal on WA:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02zNTQtNLz6fZLgoark1ducT56bJPoMVKRSVJFeo94pxCe31FWt4tCHd8UeLoJQiAjl&id=219584198159228&sfnsn=scwspwa&mibextid=nfde2n
EDIT:
As a matter of fact, the quickness of Moody’s and now the new debt. us, as taxpayers, should consider WHY?
One way of getting things “done” is to keep a country in debt. Keep that in mind.
As I said before, there has to be a game plan here … what is it?
I hate the fact that “The South Africans” are basically shooting themselves in the foot there.
We need that money. We need it to work. We should ask for more oversight… not for it not to happen.
I 100% agree with you, but more oversight, I’m sorry, that is not possible.
Did not work for SAA nor the promised, no corruption, in rebuilding KZN.
Unless somehow auditing the Gov is possible, with dire consequences if corruption takes place again, it is not possible.
All we will be left with is more debt for taxpayers for decades to come. Rather shoot a foot off, than lose the entire body.
Why not?
It works like a building loan. You get some money… then you build. An inspector comes, checks that it is up to spec… then you get the next bunch of money. That inspector is appointed by the World Bank… he’s not appointed by the ANC.
The whole thing reminds me of the film “Dave” (excellent film by the way), where the main character (someone who is impersonating the president, played by Kevin Kline) at one point points out that if they take the budgets from a few less important departments, and put it in an ordinary savings account for a single year, they can fund a particular charity. One of his advisers points out that putting money in an ordinary savings account is not how the government does things, and Dave asks: Why not?
Why can’t this be treated like the building loan of every home owner who built his own home?
It can when we think logically about it … we are heading towards rehashing the same views expressed on the Eskom thread, of why we are not dealing with logical people.
Now we must move this discussion to another thread, or Marius is gong to admonish us for …
Are these condensers, peaking plants etc. automated? In other words are they manually controlled by a tech who twiddles a switch or pushes a button?
My knowledge of managing the SA grid is a bunch of operators in Heriotdale who phone up the various plants and inform them to ‘gooi mielies’ or the alternative…
It really doesn’t matter if it’s fully automated or has a human in the loop.
Comes down to cost, and whether your risk assessment thinks the humans or the electronics are more likely to make an irreversible mistake. The design could work for either paradigm.
A degree of both human interaction and automation.
So there is a central demand prediction/management system that is in overall control of generation. Each plant has own management and control oversight system as well. All very sophisticated in own right. Same for transmission, they have control systems. The largest part is Distribution, they have in region control centres, all SCADA and automated but with oversight. Currently 7 Regions that independently control in region distribution.
Groetnis
This then blows my mind … they are going to loan money to SA.
These loans are normally dished out in stages: First step: Money to do x… Second step: Has x been done satisfactorily? If not no more money until…
These donors have learnt the hard way 