Me neither. Because they aren’t really free. It costs at me at least my personal information, and in some cases they do that thing where they ask for credit card details, and they won’t charge it if you cancel before the end of the month AND they will even let you know beforehand… which is all fine and well, except 1) I do tend to forget to cancel, and 2) they still have my details.
Of course I understand that this must be somewhat frustrating for Richard. He can’t copy the whole article, and we don’t want to go read it either… I don’t know what the solution is man, perhaps copy a portion of it, put it into a quote block, and link it. Still gives people the option to read the real thing if they want to.
Great! Now you guys can listen to Gerhard Salge and figure out why the migration to the new grid requires 300% more power flowing in the grid. (It’s at the end of the podcast)
the answer was in relation to a question about what people will experience with HVDC vs the grid as it is now. The answer was that (parapharsed) “end consumers should not experience any difference but grid operators will need to manage up to 3 times the electrical energy” in the system. I will hazard a guess that it is about the generally up to 3x higher voltage of HVDC vs HVAC? (about 26min into the podcast if anyone is interested)
Edit: the word of the day is parapharsed. Used in a sentence: “the new appy does things half-arsed but he is not the worst, the villageidiot does things parapharsed”…
It isn’t easy to work out the context of this 3x statement.
The gist of what Salga is putting across is a vision of a possible (potential?) future:
Until now, when HVDC was transmitted, it needed an AC wave to synchronize as a grid-following device, like a PV inverter. So HVDC transmission needed additional AC transmission to work.
Now, the idea seems to send the DC to a grid-forming device (like a Hybrid inverter in an off-grid set-up). No AC grid reference is necessary.
So instead of having a national 50Hz, there would be 50hz islands that are out of phase with neighbouring 50hz islands. The vision seems that the grid would no longer be an AC grid but more like a DC spine or several DC spines feeding AC islands.
General references to grid expansion aside:
I think the reference is not to 3x the total energy but 3x the complexity of managing the flows of the same energy, all things being equal.
My comment is, don’t hold your breath. National utilities are risk averse about adopting things like this. It won’t be commonplace in most forumites’ lifetimes. It’ll be a grandchildren problem.
For sure! But it’s fascinating to keep abreast of these developments.
The change brought about by intermittent distributed RE generation will have a big impact. What I’m hearing is that these HVDC feeds are ideal for supplementing AC grids where needed.
I understand the older HVDC transmission lines were fraught with problems. As far as the Cahora Bassa feed is concerned does anyone know how reliable this has been?
Since 1974, we had HVDC. One interesting fact is one of dual parallel lines can go down, but the system still works at reduced capacity vi earth return.
I don’t know what the solution is man, perhaps copy a portion of it, put it into a quote block, and link it. Still gives people the option to read the real thing if they want to.