Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 01/05/2025 15:06, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 1 May 2025 10:27:36 +0100, Martin Brown
<'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
 

I hadn't realised that the French government have deliberately limited
400kV link capacity over the Pyrenees to protect EDF nuclear power from
cheaper competition from Spain's massive solar PV investment.

 One consequence of using a lot of solar power is that interconnected
networks get bigger hence less stable.

There is no reason why a larger network should be less stable - if anything it should become more stable the more kit attached to it.
The only caveat is when the magentosphere goes haywire like in the Carrington Event of 1859 and then long wires at high latitudes like in Canada can get fried. That is a realistic mode of failure for our very electricity focussed world. GPS going bad will also cause chaos.
Big transformers have *very* long lead times.

A lot of mid-sized natural gas power plants (or, eventually, small
nukes) would allow regions to be independent when they have to be.

The networks have been continent wide for long while now. The newer national interconnectors and offshore long distance lines are DC now!
There are schemes to build vast solar arrays in Morroco (pretty good location for them) with DC links into Europe and even to the UK!
Tesla must be turning in his grave.
(presumably at 60Hz since he was American).
Installing solar PV in the UK is highly profitable but a wasted opportunity since at our high latitude there really is no huge aircon peak in the mid summer afternoons and we get too much cloud.
It is a double benefit in a lower latitude country to have solar panels on the roof since it shades the roof from direct sunlight slowing heat ingress and provided power as well.
Sun barely makes it above the horizon in the UK for 5 hours in mid winter if it isn't cloudy. Solar powered "smart" road signs invariably fail on frosty winters mornings. Ironically they say "please slow for the dangerous bend ahead" - they work fine in mid summer but in mid winter they wreck their batteries. Guess when there is ice on the road?
--
Martin Brown