@KathrynPorter26 Well, that was a lengthy read to say the least, and thank you for that! Essentially that's a total revision of my HNC Power Engineering course plus a chunk of Control Engineering from Uni! You mention greater use of Synchronouse Condensers, perhaps a requirement to connect

@hobson1999 There are such requirements in parts of South Australia!

@KathrynPorter26 I truly enjoy reading all your posts. Thank you. I learn something all the time. My one ‘problem’ is increasingly I can’t find anyone that disputes what you say. I know Xiaowei had nitpick over something minor but he agreed with your main thrust on that post. Otherwise - why

@vass_and_ You say that like it's a bad thing 😂

@KathrynPorter26 My only quibble would be your "broadly uniform across the grid", we both know that for "a" grid they are precisely the same, or else physics will take out the outlier, in sparks and fire if no protection.

@beez128 That's only true in a "perfect grid" In the real world you have frictions because real power lines have impedance meaning there's always a bit of a phase difference between nodes when power flows... When there's phase difference there's also a frequency difference After a

@KathrynPorter26 Thankyou. Your posts feel like breaths of logic oxygen on this subject.

@BubSluggo Thanks. These two were a fair bit of work, but worth it

@KathrynPorter26 Read both blogs and was some way to understanding them (got an 'N' in A level physics). Regarding Spain, is it correct to say that if solar producers were mandated to continue producing power, even if price was -€, the grid wouldn't have crashed? PS WHO FUNDS YOU etc 😀

@namagoy Probably because it was the disorderly response to the frequency drop that pushed the grid over the edge. Keeping frequency up by using more generation would definitely have helped

@KathrynPorter26 Problems in Spain and Australia with how Solar (and wind) interact with the grid, and those are places with a hell of a lot more sun than us, so how will using solar (or trying to) make our absurd energy generation problems even worse than they are bearing in min that it gets

@algar2356 The problems apply to wind and batteries as well

@KathrynPorter26 I think it can be solved, in the event electronic inverters can't be scaled up then alternatives like short term flywheel storage, or even, water permitting, thermal storage and a steam turbine for rotational inertia would be another approach.

@Ne14402O You can solve it with synchronous condensers but they are synchronous machines I'm not convinced you can do it without any synchronous machines, but why would you want to?

@KathrynPorter26 Jesus H Christ. Made up you say. Example If you have: - 100 MW of real power (P) - 60 MVAR of reactive power (Q) Then: S = \sqrt{100^2 + 60^2} = 116 MVA and the power factor = 100 / 116 ≈ 0.86 lagging. Flipping made up. FFS. 🤦

@KathrynPorter26 Where does the flywheel storage stands in it? If mass produced like transformers (1-2 MW scale for easier production & granular deployment) for grid scale deployment, wouldn't it help stabilize grid even if spinning reserve/inertia from generation plants is no longer available?

@KathrynPorter26 Had a set of stacks blow yesterday. They know the grid is fluctuating badly and dont have a fix. Quite often inverters can't sync.

@KathrynPorter26 In short: renewables collapsed the grid.

@KathrynPorter26 Thanks! I am happy I stumbled across this gold mine of information on a topic that has interested me for years, but I couldn't find anything about it. I live near the Colgate power plant that is downstream from Bullards Bar Dam in Yuba county in California. I also see the high

@KathrynPorter26 There’s a few ways to make a stable grid using unstable intermittent electricity. They all involve spending lots of money on storage infrastructure- pumped hydro, batteries,,synchronous condensers, Unfortunately they all have limits. Nothing beats high inertia generators- driven

@KathrynPorter26 The 100% renewables Zealots are selling the promise of the unsinkable ship. It’s Marge vs. the Monorail. We need affordable and sensible improvements.

@KathrynPorter26 @grok is this true? I was lead to believe that software & batteries can overcome these challenges mentioned. Won't software & batteries also enable quicker recovery in the case of a large blackout?

@KathrynPorter26 This post makes no sense to me. In 🇩🇰 summer we regularly run 90+ incl. Whole regions on solar. All plants of a certain size has a fiber connection to national grid operater, that can override on frequency, voltage etc. Never a problem...

@KathrynPorter26 True. A synchronous network may be observed as cyclostationary. Doing that reverts it to cyclostationary voltage and somewhat cyclovariable current. Spinning iron handles both by inertia. Inverters are normally built with limited inertia, may tend to only cyclostationary current.

@KathrynPorter26 Ive had some arguements with anti-drax campaigners in the UK related to this. Drax's 4 x 1GW thermal generators centralky located within the UK, are vital to the ongoing stability of the UK grid.