Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain

On 2025-05-02 12:17, Martin Brown wrote:

On 01/05/2025 20:50, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2025-05-01 15:37, Bill Sloman wrote:

>
You can feed in electrical energy from a battery quite a lot faster, and get a correspondingly better result, if you've got the right elaborate control algorithm.

>
Wouldn't it be just easier to switch to DC?

 Some of the newer interconnectors are DC and GW capacity (boggle).
 

Or to at least switch to islands, interconnected by DC.

 That was how they squared this circle in Japan where the NE are on UK mains at 50Hz and the SE are on US mains at 60Hz. Not surprisingly all Japanese kit will work quite happily at either frequency and their exports will also work on a huge voltage range too.
 There is quite an interesting magnetic deviation near big DC links.

I learned today that we can not isolate islands inside the country, because there are regions with a lot of demand and little generation, and other regions with a lot of generation and little demand. To do that would require separate transport.

 

Probably not practical by now.

 No it is perfectly possible. I'm not sure how they do it.
 One of my mates worked on the civil engineering for the DC link in the Irish Sea. This Ireland to UK is 500MW.
 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/04/18/irish-uk-grids-linked-via-500-mw- greenlink-interconnector-subsea-cables/
 ISTR there is a N-S one in the Irish Sea rated at ~2GW and two more planned for the North Sea although the pylon routing for them on land has proved extremely controversial. Southern Nimby's want our northern electricity but they don't want any pylons blighting *their* landscape.

Ah, yes, that happens.
--
Cheers, Carlos.