April 14, 2021
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Frequency Freak-out: Chaotic Wind & Solar Threaten to Cripple Europe’s Power Grid
Electricity grids are like a living organism and their day-to-day survival is a finely tuned operation.
Balancing supply to match demand on an instantaneous basis, is part of the trick. However, the maintenance of the required frequency (50Hz in most cases) within a narrow and defined tolerance has become a nightmare of continental proportions, thanks to the chaotic and occasional delivery of wind and solar.
A drop or surge in frequency not only fries circuits and incapacitates machines connected to the power grid, but the switching gear and circuits, within it. In that respect, adding more wind and solar capacity over time, only adds to the potential for a total grid collapse.
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\html\coreront\global\customFieldsDisplay.phtml >\html\coreront\global\customFieldsDisplay.phtml >\htmlorumsront opics\post.phtml >February 1 When the rolling blackouts were happening in California, they decried it was due to peak demand and wildfires, and the negligence of the utility company, PG&E, but narrie a peep about the grid itself. Not the deteriorating grid which it is, but reasons that have more to do with renewables than you d think. Peak demand is definitely a factor, but there was an article today on oilprce.com and a piece is pasted below. It is interesting, and our reduction in oil, gas, coal and nuclear may well have more of an impact than is being discussed. In fact, it s not discussed at all.
Rick Rickst29 on January 31 2021 said: I know a bit about Inverter technology. When the Grid is presenting a stable frequency clock to attached DC >AC inverters (attached to Solar Panel Arrays, and to Large Battery storage systems) and to AC >AC Converters involved in some grid-direct wind systems, the inverters and Converters very quickly adapt their outputs to match the 50 Hz AC supply frequency and phase, as presented by the Grid. (60-cycle in the USA in some other countries, of course)
That is a basic requirement imposed on all grid connected Inverters (including my own).
There is insufficient battery capacity to run grid loads from battery storage (alone) through the night in any large region of the Grid. While a Battery Array is able to provide energy at the correctly inverted frequency phase (SEE ABOVE), its inverters will provide that energy in-phase. If you try to overrun the battery, it should shut down. That Grid demand must be pulled in from elsewhere, or dema
A great global restock is at hand, filling ships, trucks and trains, and also firing oil demand.
During the depths of China’s coronavirus crisis at the start of the year, shipping behemoth A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S reported an unprecedented number of canceled sailings as the Asian country all but shut itself off from the world. Since then, the company’s shares have surged to the brink of a record in Copenhagen. In the U.S., BNSF Railway Co., the freight giant owned by Warren Buffett, is riding a boom that’s pushed the number of carloads and containers it hauls up year-on-year in recent weeks.