Re: Independence Day

Tim Merrigan  <tppm@rr.ca.com> wrote:

On 7/23/2024 6:40 AM, Gary McGath wrote:

On 7/23/24 6:58 AM, Paul Dormer wrote:

I used to work for the National Grid, originally part of nationalised
electricity generation and supply industry.  National Grid ran the
electricity distribution part of the grid: the substations, overhead
lines and towers - never call them pylons.  In the rail companies, there
was Railtrack which ran the railway infrastructure.  In 2001 it ran into
financial difficulties and was replaced by a government-owned company.

 
There's a National Grid in the US which supplies electricity. No idea if
it's related.

National grid plc runs the UK grid and also serves consumers in NE US
with gas and electricity. I assume they bought one or more US
companies.

I've heard that there are three national level electricity grids in the
U.S., East of the Rockies, West of the the Rockies, and Texas, I don't
know whether any of them are called "The National Grid".

How is "Texas Interconnection" national level? It's explicitly
DESIGNED to be Texas-only to avoid pesky federal oversight and
"expensive" redundancy requirements. Or alternatively to make sure
their electricity providers can get rich quick, opinions on this vary.

The US is usually considered to have two major and three minor "wide
area synchronous grids" (or "interconnects" in US parlance) though in
reality it's actually two major and four minor since the "Alaska
interconnect" is actually two completely independent parts.

In order of size they're Easter Interconnection, Western
Interconnection, Texas Interconnection, Quebec Interconnection and
Alaska Interconnection (combined or separately).

The reason why Eastern and Western is considered "major" isn't just
that they span multiple states and countries, they're also WAY
larger than the Texas grid (7.8x and 3.4x the size respectively). The
jump is much larger than that from Texas to Quebec (1.9x) so putting
it with the minors makes sense.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_area_synchronous_grid