South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
(OP)
South Australia has been steadily reducing its reliance on in-state thermal power, relying more heavily on a combination of windpower and interconnects with states that still burn coal. On Sept 28 the entire state went black, and remained that way for several hours. Here's the updated preliminary report
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Media_Centre...
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Media_Centre...
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?





RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.afr.com/news/south-australia-energy-use...
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Even with a population of 14 million, I suspect that any similiar incident here will not produce the necessary outrage to cause the politicians to start to understand science and engineering. It will take a massive death toll somewhere in the USA with a high population density and a black out in severe sub zero temperatures for common sense to set in. Cities in Germany, Sweden etc might get a bit cool occassionaly but I don't believe anywhere in Europe is taking the same levels of risk.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Our power was out for about 21 hours. I fired up the standby diesel and we had no issues with heating or water or sewage (both on pumps).
We did lose our cell phones and internet connections as soon as the standby batteries went dead.
I should install an indicator light to tell me when the grid is back, but for now, my neighbour does not have a generator but he does have a pole mounted yard light. He leaves it on 24/7 and it is easy to see from our place.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
In the UK we are consulting on DfG (Directive for Generators) and I wonder if National Grid realize this.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Is this a one time installation or is JungleMUX becoming widely used for utility protection?
Link
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Incidentally a friend of mine stuck his DVM into the wall socket the other day and measured 277V RMS (on a 240V service). Sunny day, affluent neighborhod, lots of PV systems feeding into a cranky old distribution network.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
As I understand it, somewhat simplified, A number of wind turbine sources were seeing the same disturbances. Apparently they were all set to allow the same number of ride-throughs before tripping and so all tripped at the same time. With that much capacity lost, one of the main interconnects for imported power, the Heywood interconnector, overloaded and tripped off. From there it was all over in a few cycles.
Have I made any major errors here?
I suspect that the system will go to a system of staged WT shutdowns to allow time for the load shedding system to respond.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Dik
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Now I'm not suggesting that something like this is happening 'down under', but you never know...
For those interested in what happened in California:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electrici...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/sa-heatwave-...
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
The crowbar or IGBTs are probably set to short the rotor DC bus before the power electronics overheat due to high currents on DFIGs. After several disturbances, they probably can't follow the LVRT curve due to already being hot.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
We use several natural gas trucks, but mainly for servicing natural gas customers.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Of course you shouldn't go to work in that case. Haven't you read the plans about the grid using everyone who has a car plugged in to shave peaker generation? :)
I would hate it if the utility cycled my batteries but it does make me wonder how many cars you would need to black start a region. In places like India, where a lot of people have backup generation since the their grid is unreliable, I could see people using their car deal with power quality issues. After Hurricane Ike, here in Houston there was a guy using his electric car to power his house instead of a generator like everyone else.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I had about the same thoughts as I watched the news last night, and a story about protesters demanding 100% renewable electric service.
I thought what dreamers.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I take it you mean "argument against". Or is that sarcasm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I think we have a responsibility to adopt best practice in terms of environmentally sustainable power generation, but some of these figures being spouted are just ludicrous.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
So they need 550 MW of generating capacity
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I won't start a separate thread for this, but it is another example of the same government inertia problem. In Brisbane where I live, a new commuter rail line was recently built and opened. But this new line has now thrown the entire commuter system into chaos, because a fundamental planning issue was overlooked...they forgot to train enough new train drivers. Apparently, it will be another year before the "trains are fixed".
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Yes Australia has coal, but it seems like not much will to use it.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a49...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
The newest supercritical power stations are far more efficient than those of fifty years ago which helps to offset the large internal energy use of a CCS-equipped plant. The overall efficiency of supercritical-with-CCS power plants takes efficiency back to roughly where the industry was in the late 1960's, but without the pollution. Not ideal, but not disastrous considering how many coal-fired stations date from the 1960's in the UK and probably elsewhere too.
What method(s) of reliable baseload power generation do you favour John?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
An increase of 25% in the use of a fuel that is 1/6 the cost of many alternative fuels is characterized as a "VAST" expansion.
Possibly an overstatement.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Not that anything as such would happen, but be sure before we proceed.
Solar sort of make since to a point, as the sun shines at the times most humans are active. But we would need to watch the duck curve, and be sure we have the generating capacity to handle sundown.
I am amazed that pre-treating of coal has not taken off more. And that no one has built an actual coal gasification, and gas turbine plant (at least that I know of).
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
There is a process to upgrade heavy oil into a lighter product by the addition of hydrogen. Can this process be used to upgrade heavy oil or carbon (coal) all the way to propane?
It looks good in theory but what are the practical issues?
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
In an ideal post oil/NG world (we are talking the far distant future here) we'd use CTL or a variant to make hydrocarbons to fuel the awkward applications, principally aircraft, and nukes+greeny preferred renewables for electricity (and hence road transport).
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I think the process of breaking heavy oil to smaller hydrocarbons is called cracking. But what would be your hydrogen source? Maybe natural gas or steam?
Much of the sulfur reduction in the US has come from burning low sulfur coal from the west, and less from eastern and middle US coals.
It tends to cost less than additional scrubber equipment.
I have no idea what type of coal exists in Australia.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
And at what point do we start seriously considering conservation/efficiency as a means to addressing these problems. Given all of the negative externalities associated with energy production and consumption, shouldn't this be the first order of business?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Just what method do you propose using to reduce consumption of goods?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=252...
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
"Lower mining costs, cheaper transportation costs, and favorable exchange rates (compared to the U.S. dollar) continue to provide an advantage to producers in other major coal-exporting countries such as Australia, Indonesia, Colombia, Russia, and South Africa."
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Which leads to another question, is there anything else in the ground that can be mined?
Gold, silver, copper.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Honestly we will need to see blackouts before anyone wakes up here.
Maybe they can use tidal power in Washington. That's been thrown around but never proven.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.aemo.com.au/Media-Centre/AEMO-publishes...
Regards
Ashtree
"Any water can be made potable if you filter it through enough money"
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Regards
Ashtree
"Any water can be made potable if you filter it through enough money"
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
There's also the historical data for download.
The final report says that the wind farms reduced supply rapidly as a result of transmission line failures, overloading the Heywood connector, which cut out, resulting in the collapse of the entire system. The Dear Leader of South Australia is adamant that his windmills aren't to blame. Strangely the traditional generators stayed on line right through to the blackout. I think the Dear Leader is going to pass a bill banning high winds so that he can meet his renewable energy target.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Sure, it would cost about $43 in hardware.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Google "synthetic inertia" and wind turbines. The trick in the inverter is for it to be able to take the inertia stored in the wind turbine and pass it through to the electric grid.
GPS clocks have been around for some time, which allowed synchronised time to be available almost anywhere. But I'm not sure what the intended benefit is in using a synchronised clock pulse to drive the inverters.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
It might be possible to design an electrical grid that didn't need inertia, whether real or artificial, but we're far from implementing such a beast.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
The issue might be that there is a third party involved, called the customer, who has no idea that any of this information is important.
So none of us will really know how the system will respond, until there is an event. And even then, any units not within the event won't be known.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Inverter manufacturers have done a poor job of communicating with the system planning engineers, let alone the protection engineers.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I recall steam turbine plants that were not allow to operate at CVWO because of contract to be able to support grid stability.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Any reasonably gifted electrical engineering student can design a motor controller to accomplish that efficiently.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
OR, could you implement a persistent local phase lock, that would just keep the local inverters' clocks running pretty much in sync with the grid even through a disconnect of some specified finite time? Sounds like something that could be sold as a product improvement, or maybe mandated for new designs, and rolled out with normal replacements as the supply chain flushes.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
With regards to inverters, they do not need to be all synchronised to the same independent clock source to be able to provide synthetic inertia. All they need to do is be capable of providing a brief overload in the event of system frequency dropping. Plenty of wind turbines already have this capability.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Utilities would need to install spinning devices because they can not count on inverters with unknown synthetic inertia.
And what master clock are you talking about? There is no master clock, other than the speed of the grid, which ever one you are on. None of them operate at any exact speed, but at a ball park speed.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I don't know about now, but, at least in the US, they used to be at an exact average speed, as many AC-powered clocks used the line frequency as a clock reference. This allowed AC clocks to be accurate to better than a second per year, or so.
I'm not really following parts of the discussion here, since "inverters," by definition, are converting DC to AC, and as such, they have to be phase-locked to the line frequency to efficiently transfer power. They are nominally crystal-driven to the 60-Hz line frequency if they are free-running, but if they're connected to the grid, they phase lock to the grid's frequency. Which means. they'll accommodate variations in frequency, up to a point, assuming the changes aren't rapid and random.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
So what we will have in the US is a ball park speed.
I can't speak as to what the other two grids are doing for speed stability.
Machine inertia can provide close to fault current levels of energy into the grid, where inverters are self limited to some level the semiconductors can handle. The issue is the machines are braced for the higher levels of energy for a short duration. But inverter inertia could potentially provide energy for a longer time into a larger system event, but only if there is a source behind it.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Inverters imply AC.
Raising the voltage will cause a reactive current to circulate but will not transfer power.
To transfer power, the inverter frequency must be a fraction of a cycle ahead of the grid frequency. That is why a grid reference is needed.
Consider a diesel generator. When the generator is synchronised, the output wave will be in step or almost in step with the grid and little or no power is transferred to the grid. As the throttle is opened the sine wave of the generator pulls a little ahead of the grid sine wave. Still the same frequency but a few degrees out of sync.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I also agree that 38% battery sounds high.
38% of 1.5 TW= 570 MW (Hr) battery?
I don't know about being paid extra, but each company is required to have some amount of spinning reserve, and hot standby. Wind and solar can't do that. But energy storage can if it is big enough.
The key is more likely the ramp rates of each unit, or combined ramp rates of several units.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Over here the CCGT generators are paid for 'ancillary services' other than simple generation. Gas turbines can respond more rapidly to changing system conditions than steam turbine stations which need time to increase boiler firing rate, and one of the ancillary services provided by the GT's is frequency correction, whereby the turbine governor becomes more aggressive in response and the firing limit of the engine is raised above the normal operating limit, thus allowing the engine to be over-fired in a bid to prop up a falling grid. It eats up hot parts life at a disturbing rate and understandably the machine owners want to be financially compensated for the loss of engine life before the machine has to be rebuilt.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Here's a company that is doing what i proposed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2014/01...
and here's why
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/ferc-seeks-input-f...
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
"An Australian state will install the world's largest lithium ion battery in a "historic" deal with electric car firm Tesla and energy company Neoen.
The battery will protect South Australia from the kind of energy crisis which famously blacked out the state, Premier Jay Weatherill said.
Tesla boss Elon Musk confirmed a much-publicised promise to build it within 100 days, or do it for free.
The 100-megawatt (129 megawatt hour) battery should be ready this year.
"There is certainly some risk, because this will be largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin," Mr Musk said in Adelaide on Friday."
Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-40527784
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Dik
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
It could also limit the impact of 'brownouts', which those of us living here in SoCal can vividly remember from 2000/2001, when our state's power grid was being manipulated by the illegal actions of Enron, in an attempt to boost the 'cost' of electricity so as to unfairly cash-n on a 'crisis' that they had created:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electrici...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Funny, that's the way I considered it... Their problem is systemic and I think of this as a tiny bandaid.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-energy-rich-austr...
They have a weak national grid and pipeline system, they allowed gas to become the primary generation fuel with no storage requirements, and they didn't plan at all.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
AES and Siemens create joint-venture for energy storage
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-aes-siemens-batt...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/
They are talking about 2GW x 8hrs, and trains are a well established technology.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Before I watched the video, though, I was trying to imagine how a system like this would work. I was imagining box cars full of water, running downhill in the same fashion as the video. However, in MY version, I imagined them emptying the water at the bottom of the hill so the cars would be significantly lighter to pull back up the hill. How are the cars filled with water, you ask? Snowfall at the top of the mountain. Getting the snow to melt for space efficiencies wasn't quite worked out in my plan yet.
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Runzoni downhill...
Dik
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
For instance a wind generator that is only 80% as efficient at extracting wind energy as a competitor that costs 30% more is actually going to make more sense.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
60% would be for regen braking charging a battery or supercapacitor, then discharging it through the motor when the energy is used, correct?
Whereas the grid-connected storage concept does not have the battery/capacitor charge/discharge step, with its associated losses.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
If you wanted to you could limit the total number of cars by unloading at the top and sending empty cars back down for another trip.
Just like with pumped storage the cost/eff of the initial 'charging' is irrelevant, the power is worth zero anyway since there is no other use for it. Storing as much as possible, and being able to recover it on demand is the issue. And to scale up you need rail cars and rock, not too hard.
I love supercapacitor talk, since the max recoverable power is 50%. It isn't hard to beat that.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Tank cars might be a little better than box cars for liquids, but loading and unloading would eat into operating the trains.
Question is if this would be an AC system or DC system requiring an inverter. And if it is an AC system, would you have three collector rails?
Also what is the cost of replacing wearable parts?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Elect...
Over the past couple of days the price paid per MWh went from $74 to $268 in NSW. At one point in SA it was -$545
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Thinking about it, though, I guess I can see the logic in the right circumstances - the technology would work where you have limited gradients (steel-wheel-on-rail doesn't work well on steep grades), plenty of horizontal space but limited elevation to play with, limited amount of energy storage requirement - and no suitable water / dam sites.
However, where there is a suitable elevated water storage site above a lower pond, it is hard to see how this technology could compete with Pumped-Hydro for capacity (scale) or efficiency.
E.g. the Ares Nevada project is looking at 50 MW / 12.5 MW.hr capacity (15 minutes storage at full capacity). Existing Pumped-Storage schemes are already in the multi-GW range, with tens of GW.hr storage (i.e. able to run at full capacity for hours, not minutes), and with round-trip efficiency > 80%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydro...
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I just think that ARES is a cleaver way to look at things. Use existing well proven technologies and rearrange them.
Scaling up to a few GW and 8-12hr run time is just a matter of more stuff, not new tech.
I have seen the 80%+ number sited for PHES many times, but I have never found the original analysis. The only ones that I have found assume that the original electrical power is free, a stranded resource, and they only account for the hydraulic energy. Even then I find it hard to believe that a motor-pump-pipe-pipe-turbine-generator would only total 20% loss.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Re: 80% round-trip efficiency for pumped-hydro storage - believe it, the figures are real, and proven many times, over many operating plants.
Hydro-electric generation efficiency runs at over 90% for large scale plant http://www.mpoweruk.com/hydro_power.htm and large electrically-driven pumps can achieve similar efficiencies, but there is a slight loss of round-trip efficiency for a system which has to operate in both generating and pumping modes. Frictional losses are small in a typical plant, because the penstocks are usually kept quite short (e.g an ideal plant has the upper and lower storage ponds very close to each other, with the plant located directly below the upper storage), and flow velocities are kept within manageable limits.
Of course, there's still the cost of transmission to / from the grid (a lot of the most efficient schemes look to co-locate the storage near the intermittent generation plant), O&M costs, costs of capital, etc, but for energy efficiency when you need to store a few GW.hours of electricity, there's not much that can touch pumped-hydro at the moment.
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Also - don't underestimate the capital benefits of reducing the amount of installed base-load generating plant that you need to build. It can be much more economical to build and run 1 GW (say) of base-load plant continuously (operating at maximum thermal efficiency), together with 0.5 GW of storage (say) to account for the peaks, rather than building 1.25 GW of base-load plant, and cycling it from 0.75 to 1.25 GW to match demand.
(Made-up numbers, just used to illustrate a point.)
http://julianh72.blogspot.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia...
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
south-australia/diesel-generators-promised-in-plan-to-save-sa-from-summer-blackouts-cant-run-at-full-power-on-hot-days/
output degradation due to ambient conditions should be known to the power company, the reporter just seems to sensationalize their "discovery".
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
is a better link. Quite why news.com.au is annoying everybody with their silly subscription paywalls is beyond me, since they also offer a mechanism to circumvent it.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
You have to expect sensationalism from the press. That's what they do.
But the story continues to be that South Australia is in dire straits because of their dependence on renewables, and their failure to plan. Thus they have to depend on measures like diesel generators, not the preferred option for generation for big cities.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
the phrase diesel generator is misleading. they appear and reported to be Combustion TURBINEs, that will be intially fuel with diesel. this types of units are being extensively built in the US. they could add a boiler to the exhuast and a steam turbine and have a very popular plant arrangement
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4098547-grid-conn...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Tesla Delivers the World’s Biggest Battery—and Wins a Bet
CEO Elon Musk had set a 100-days-or-it’s-free deadline for completing the Australian project
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-delivers-the-wo...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Dik
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
The text of that speech was on the White House web site.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
SA's problems are not founded in an inability to plan, but rather in their ability to believe in their plans and their predictions, and themselves.
another day in paradise, or is paradise one day closer ?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Coal causes CO2 emissions. That's not green so it must be dirty.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Didn't Musk just get a battery leveling system installed in SAus?
Ah, here it is:
Musk-beats-deadline-building-worlds-biggest-battery
And what happened with the Train-battery?
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
I'd forgotten the monster blackout was actually caused by dropped lines and not some short-tern shortfall.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Dik
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: South Australia statewide electricity blackout.
from the BBC, "The 100-megawatt battery, built by Tesla, was officially activated on Friday. It had in fact provided some power since Thursday due to demand caused by local hot weather."
link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42190358