4 ms·

The UK imports and exports at the same time (from/to France and Netherlands), which seems to me to just be creating unnecessary joule heating in underwater cabl

The UK imports and exports at the same time (from/to France and Netherlands), which seems to me to just be creating unnecessary joule heating in underwater cables. Is it some kind of price arbitrage? When I did an undergraduate report on the UK electricity network ~10 years ago this happened then as well, so it's not a new phenomenon.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I would have thought that as the grid de-carbonises the greater the diversity of supply the less storage we will need. It's a bit like food where our wheat crop is down 40% this year but we aren't expecting riots because the rest of the world is up.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Most electricity infrastructure can't move energy more than 1000 miles without substantial (ie. >20%) losses. Countries with higher voltage distribution systems (there are a few 1 megavolt in China for example) have less losses, but you still don't want to be moving much power across entire continents.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    These are high voltage DC systems and the distance in the case of France is only 45 miles.
goodcanadian 6y ago
I think you are (mostly) mistaken. The UK mostly imports from the continent, and occasionally exports. I have never caught an instance of simultaneously importing from France and exporting to the Netherlands (or vice versa). I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it is clearly not common. The direction of flow might change over a relatively short time frame due to changes in the production of solar or wind energy. With these and other production and load changes, some apparently illogical or inefficient things might happen for short periods of time as it is the best way of handling the dynamic grid. Also, I know nothing about the state of interconnects between France and the Netherlands. HVDC under the quite narrow English channel might well be the most efficient route.
- sleavey 6y ago
  On the contrary, at the time I wrote the original comment, and as I write this, exactly this situation was occurring. Take a look at the map and see for yourself - perhaps it is still happening when you read this. I also specifically remember 9 years ago during my aforementioned undergraduate report obtaining spreadsheets from the UK National Grid with time segments containing the direction and amount of power transferring via each interconnect (you're going to have to take my word for it... my copy of that data is long gone). These also showed exactly what I described, power being imported and exported simultaneously. I expect there is a reason for this, perhaps arbitrage but maybe more likely some minimum power has to flow to keep connected sensors/relays/whatever from misbehaving, or some other engineering reason.
  - corint 6y ago
    Is it possible that the interconnects between France and the Netherlands are already at capacity, and therefore the losses from going 'via' UK are less than the energy we'd need to expend to bolster that capacity?
    - sleavey 6y ago
      Possibly, but that seems unlikely to me; I expect there are already loads of interconnects just via normal pylons (but I don't actually know).

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

I would have thought that as the grid de-carbonises the greater the diversity of supply the less storage we will need. It's a bit like food where our wheat crop is down 40% this year but we aren't expecting riots because the rest of the world is up.

londons_explore 6y ago
Most electricity infrastructure can't move energy more than 1000 miles without substantial (ie. >20%) losses. Countries with higher voltage distribution systems (there are a few 1 megavolt in China for example) have less losses, but you still don't want to be moving much power across entire continents.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  These are high voltage DC systems and the distance in the case of France is only 45 miles.

goodcanadian 6y ago

I think you are (mostly) mistaken. The UK mostly imports from the continent, and occasionally exports. I have never caught an instance of simultaneously importing from France and exporting to the Netherlands (or vice versa). I wouldn't say it's impossible, but it is clearly not common. The direction of flow might change over a relatively short time frame due to changes in the production of solar or wind energy. With these and other production and load changes, some apparently illogical or inefficient things might happen for short periods of time as it is the best way of handling the dynamic grid. Also, I know nothing about the state of interconnects between France and the Netherlands. HVDC under the quite narrow English channel might well be the most efficient route.

sleavey 6y ago
On the contrary, at the time I wrote the original comment, and as I write this, exactly this situation was occurring. Take a look at the map and see for yourself - perhaps it is still happening when you read this. I also specifically remember 9 years ago during my aforementioned undergraduate report obtaining spreadsheets from the UK National Grid with time segments containing the direction and amount of power transferring via each interconnect (you're going to have to take my word for it... my copy of that data is long gone). These also showed exactly what I described, power being imported and exported simultaneously. I expect there is a reason for this, perhaps arbitrage but maybe more likely some minimum power has to flow to keep connected sensors/relays/whatever from misbehaving, or some other engineering reason.
- corint 6y ago
  Is it possible that the interconnects between France and the Netherlands are already at capacity, and therefore the losses from going 'via' UK are less than the energy we'd need to expend to bolster that capacity?
  - sleavey 6y ago
    Possibly, but that seems unlikely to me; I expect there are already loads of interconnects just via normal pylons (but I don't actually know).