It seems our Indian friends are having a bit of a crisis with 100s of millions without power. they'll have to jump on our energy saving bandwagon by the looks of things. I wonder how close we get to overload at peak times, things can only get worse .

Gary

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Specialised Subject. The Bleedin Obvious. John Cleese

we do ok, and the grid always has a contingency for the loss of 2 plants even at peak time. Pumped hydro storage, a few HVDC links to the continent, even agreements for private emergency generation to feed in, load shedding of blast furnaces etc all keeps it in check.

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Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine....

Every man has to know his limitations- Dirty Harry

I'd wondered the same things - I recall our continental cousins having problems a few years ago. I suspect some problems aren't so much about the total amount of load/supply, but it's locations. If the load/supply isn't where is traditionally was, then sections of the grid can prove inadequate. If they trip out then the alternative paths are then put under even greater strain, and there's a risk of the problem cascading...
- Andy.

Andy, I think you are refering to the 2003 blackout in Italy (2003 was apparently a good year for blackouts). As I understand it a major storm in the Alps took out two power lines linking Italy and Switzerland which caused a cascade shutdown. Italy apparently does not have enough generating capacity and relies on imports, mostly from France and Switzerland. As I suspect that most of the power lines run over the Alps in some quite unhospitable areas its only a matter of time before the next major storm and outage for Italy.

Best regards

Roger

A couple of links looking into the problems. There are a couple of comments that wind power may have made the problems worse.

http://www.newton.ac.uk/progra...eminars/052514001.ppt

http://www.energy.siemens.com/.../Global_Blackouts.pdf

Best regards

Roger

Thanks Roger - interesting read!


Indeed - although I'd suggest it's not the "fuel" (wind) that was the problem, but the lack of control over generators (and arguably equally true, consumers) when trying to re-stabilize a grid. Perhaps the new "smart" meters have a role to play in that (disconnecting/re-connecting traditional load-only consumers and generating (SSEG) consumers at different times depending on what the grid requires).

I suppose the other side of the coin with distributed generation, given that there are a much larger number of much smaller generators, is that the chances of a sudden catastrophic loss of generation are greatly reduced - unlike traditional big thermal stations, where a couple good faults in rapid succession can cause havoc.

There's also the idea of using wind as 'spinning reserve' - as it can be 'turned down' and then back up again very quickly just by altering the pitch of the blades (similar response to good pump-storage schemes) - unlike the tens of minutes needed for thermal stations.

But it all demands a good control system though - covering all generators (not just the big ones), as well as consumers. Interesting times ahead....

- Andy.