Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: Grand Apagon - Electricity (not) in Spain
Date: Mon, 5 May 2025 02:10:08 +1000
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On 2/05/2025 1:40 am, john larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 1 May 2025 15:48:45 +0100, Martin Brown
> <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>> 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.
> 
> And are easily damaged. I wonder if an electronic version will ever be
> a replacement for tons of steel and copper and oil. They could be
> modular, like big RF transmitters are now. Lower voltage would help,
> namely more regional power generation. In other words, pump gas and
> not electricity. Gas pipelines store lots of energy; electric lines
> don't.
> 
>>
>>> 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!
> 
> Seems like stability is getting worse.
> 
>>
>> 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!
> 
> Cool. One dragged anchor, or a bomb planted by a robot sub, could make
> Europe go dark.
> 
>>
>> Tesla must be turning in his grave.
>> (presumably at 60Hz since he was American).

He may have died in America but he wasn't born there.

https://ethw.org/Nikola_Tesla

>> 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.
> 
> Residential rooftop solar all over Morroco, to be collected and
> exported to europe? Interesting concept.

It has been around for a least a decade, if not longer. The politics of 
the region are complicated.

>> 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. >
> Solar electricity or water heating makes no sense in San Francisco
> either, but people get big subsidies so many do it. It complicates
> roof repairs.

John Larkin's climate change denial propaganda sources do like to claim 
that. The fossil fuel extraction companies want to sell as much of their 
output as they can, while they still can.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney