Re: 1GW (sic) Battery Energy Storage Systems

On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 17:40:08 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
 

On 30/11/2024 15:51, john larkin wrote:

On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 10:50:07 +0000, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
>

On 26/11/2024 03:15, john larkin wrote:
>

Having electricity used to be normal.

>
UK power supply is generally way more stable than US.

>
How many hours per year is your power out?

>
Mine personally used to be entirely reliable after they replaced the
perished 1950's rubber insulated 3 vertical strands LT with modern
aluminium compound cable wiring with a steel hawser core. Prior to that
the lights would flicker in storms and burning bits of rubber would fall
to the ground under mostly bare copper wires as wet strips of old rubber
and canvas insulation touched them with much arcing and sparking.
>
Apart from half a day a year for preventative maintenance where they cut
down overhanging tree branches it was reliable in the old days. Failure
is usually because someone has driven into a pole. Hazard of above
ground cabling (which is unusual in the UK apart from rural backwaters).
>
However, since the latest shower cut back on preventative maintenance we
got hammered when storm Arwen hit taking down several (rotten) poles. We
were down for a couple of days but people around me were down for up to
two weeks (not enough poles and/or people and kit to put them in). Their
replace on fail policy can't cope with massive systemic failures. Same
with a couple of inches of snow and UK grinds to a standstill.
>
In the cities mains supplies are underground and pretty much reliable
apart from that infamous incident that I referred to. However, in a cold
winter on a still and cloudy day the margins now are extremely tight at
a level where they have to pay some bigger industrial users not to use
power.
>

I'd estimate two total here, on avearge, but a pole on our street
toppled down recently and that took 5 hours to replace

>
We had that too in my village. Once a tree fell on it and the steel
hawser held it but permanently bent all the poles like bananas and the
other time the milk tanker on sheet ice totalled a pole on one of the
coldest days of the year (Sunday morning). Isolated random incident so
the previous power distribution company had us back on by nightfall.
>
If that happened again today I expect we would get something like :
"Your call is really important to us ... our office hours are 9-5 please
call back on Monday with you emergency power outage <naff music>".
>

Large-region power failures are very rare here, between major
earthquakes.

>
They are in the UK too. We don't have earthquakes (well we do notice the
odd one every few years but they are tiny compared to real earthquakes).

 In Louisiana, a good hurricane would take power out for a week in New
Orleans, and a month or so out in the country. Volunteer linemen would
fly in from all over the USA.
 The 1989 quake here was a 6.9, enough to fracture brick and
soft-foundation buildings, and a freeway, and a big part of the Bay
Bridge. Bricks killed some people, but the Oakland freeway collapse
was the nasty one. That bit of freeway had won architectural awards
for the elegance of its delicate supports. We engineering students
used to make fun of the architects.
 I had some plaster walls crack, and a brick chimney collapse. Power
was out for a day or so, so we had a neighborhood ice cream party. A
mag 8 or so would be really bad, horizontal accels around 1G.
 Further up, coast of Washington and Oregon, could be really bad.
 There are still about a billion people in the world without
electricity, which usually means no clean running water, and cooking
over found wood or dung.
 

>

The public consultation was yesterday. It really is 1GW injection power
and 4 hours so a 4GWhr battery farm (40x bigger than the largest system
currently in the UK and being built by a startup with no track record!).
>
It will have ~900 container modules of batteries as close together as
they dare (half the US regulation spacing) and in double lines of 50.
>
SO that makes me wonder how big is a 1GW transformer operating at 400kV?
And how much does one cost?

>
Big utility transformers are made to order, and that can take years.
The hazards there are obvious.

>
That is what I thought. I'm trying to put bounds on the lead time. I'm
more impressed with their sales pitch than I expected to be. My back of
the envelope calculations suggest an air of unreality about their
claimed/intended GW injection capacity. Availability of supergrid line
is not in doubt two main corridors run close by. You can light up a
fluoro tube stood on end under them. Indeed an artist did just that!
>
https://www.industrytap.com/florescent-bulbs-unplugged-and-shinning-tapping-electromagnetic-fields/1763

 I wouldn't have suspected that, to have enough field near the ground
from 3-phase lines way above.