Grid Frequency [mains electricity]

My parents had a pre - war Smith's mains powered mantelpiece clock which would stop if the electric went off and had to be manually restarted. Mum used that to know when it went off during the day when no lights were on.

More modern similar clocks are made self - starting but would be 'slow' by the length of time there was no "juice."

The clock face had a small rectangular window in the top half, where the room of a small black wheel could be seen rotating indicating that it was going. The wheel rim had a thin wavy yellow line to show it was moving.

Re. Battery input to the grid: **LINK**

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/uk-power-cut-batteries-national-grid

MichaelG.

Edited By Brian Oldford on 14/08/2019 08:33:02

It has just been on the news that the Lib Dems want 80% renewable electicity generation soon. In view of what has been said above, plus two recent threads on electric cars, I have a sense of impending disaster. I currently have a solid fuel central heating system which is on the verge of being converted to gas, Both systems need electricity to run, so perhaps I should consider getting a suitably sized standby generator. I will also be keeping the old solid fuel stove (less boiler) so I will still have some chance of keeping warm when the power cuts occur.

Politicians should engage brain before mouth, 80% renewable would require us all to generate our own and no Grid.

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I find it a little disturbing that, in that article; reducing short-term demand is being expressed as providing a 'virtual battery'

[quote]

The trials were undertaken by Tesco along with researchers at the University of Lincoln in a mocked-up supermarket, built to test whether fridges can help to balance the energy system.

Researchers found that complex algorithms, developed by the software firm IMS Evolve, can temporarily cut the electricity supply to fridges when needed while still keeping the food cold.

These mini power cuts to the freezers could automatically create short pulses of extra electricity on the grid to match any dips in the grid’s energy frequency.

[/quote]

MichaelG.

I cant really understand why it needs complex algorithims and a mocked up supermarket and university researhers to realise that if you switch off a fridge/freezer for a matter of minutes then nothing really is going to happen to your stored food.

the original more indepth article in the paper rather than the online one i linked to suggested that the fridges were generating power to pump back in rather than just reducing demand

if just tesco are using 50 MW just imagine what the total load is over all of GB for all fridges and freezers industrial commercial and domestic

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I think that's the problem, Ian ... the quality of the reporting.

MichaelG.

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Edit: https://www.ims-evolve.com/blog/supermarkets-cold-storage-could-provide-national-battery-for-uk-grid.html

includes a link to the Science Direct article [a proper report]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 14/08/2019 10:34:09

Most ideas are simple enough on paper but much harder to get working in practice. Any fool can make a paper dart, it's rather trickier to build a full-size glider, let alone a space shuttle.

The basic idea is to save power in a crisis by temporarily turning freezers off. But the freezers (located all over the country) need to know when the grid is overloaded and when normal service is resumed. And also 'how long can I be switched off before the food spoils?' This varies depending on what the freezer is doing (for example chilling down vs deep storage) and how big and full it is. So when the call to reduce load comes, a proportion will need to stay on, while the others can switch off for varying times up to several hours. The devil is in the details.

Not a complete answer to power problems, but a helpful way of managing awkward short-term shortages. Once developed the same technology could be added to domestic freezers, and perhaps other greedy non-critical appliances like vacuum cleaners and tumble driers.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 14/08/2019 10:42:53

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... but an algorithm that treats reduced demand as being equivalent to actual back-up storage, is too reminiscent of modern fiscal juggling for my taste.

What happens when the system fails, or is hacked ?

MichaelG.

We are only nine meals away from anarchy...

Dave

Having to wait for the wind to pick up before vacuuming the carpet sounds a bit medieval to me. Just bite the bullet and get some nuclear stations built. According to the World Health Organisation it is the safest form of power generation (not sure why they don't list gas and oil, but they contribute plenty of CO2

Of course if you have a smart meter they could switch off any or all domestic loads and leave the trains running.