4 ms·

>Discharge speed isn't awfully important either "On December 14, the Loy Yang coal power plant — one of the largest in Australia — suddenly went offline. In an

>Discharge speed isn't awfully important either "On December 14, the Loy Yang coal power plant — one of the largest in Australia — suddenly went offline. In an instant, the grid shed 560 MW of electricity, enough to power 170,000 homes. 600 miles away, the Hornsdale Power Reserve battery system, as the Tesla system is officially known, kicked in within 140 milliseconds. It reacted so quickly, in fact, that the local grid operator was unable to measure the response time accurately. " https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/27/tesla-grid-storage-battery-reacts-record-time-power-outage/ https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/27/tesla-grid-storage-batt...

NegativeLatency 6y ago
The amount of power for charging or discharging is not the same thing as the latency to start sending power.
beervirus 6y ago
That's switching speed, not discharge speed. Discharge speed is how many amps a battery can put out.
vegardx 6y ago
The article mentioned that the battery was only able to supply 16MW to the grid. By all means a significant amount, but nowhere near the required 560MW needed to stabilize the grid. This is where hydro-based power plants excel, they're able to adjust the power output as quickly as gravity can push the water down the pipes. They're able to ramp up from almost no output to full capacity in minutes. Gas-turbines are also able to do this.
- pjc50 6y ago
  "Minutes" is not "140 miliseconds". But it's well worth reading https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2019/09/eso_technical_report_-_final.pdf https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2019/09/eso_techn... on an actual UK grid trip event to see what kind of things can happen; start at "summary of event" on p4. Note the three paragraphs starting with "However" as subsequent stability systems also failed. > This made the cumulative loss of generation 1,691MW (!) > All of the available “backup” power had already been deployed
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    That UK grid trip event was going to happen one day. The "Vector shift protection" and "Rate of Change of Frequency" in embedded generation (Home solar etc.) means that if it senses anything "funny", it'll shut off. Which in turn means if anything else goes wrong with the grid and there isn't enough generation, then all home solar countrywide cuts out, making the problem 10x worse. Lesson learned: "I detected something weird, lets turn off" is not a good algorithm for everyone to use on a system requiring high uptime! It was obvious from the start really...
    - lambdatronics 6y ago
      Reminds me of the flash crash -- "hey, the market's funny, we're all gonna pull out!"
londons_explore 6y ago
A Tesla car rapidly accelerating is over a megawatt. This installation is far more cells than 560 cars worth. That means each individual cell can afford to discharge slower.

NegativeLatency 6y ago

The amount of power for charging or discharging is not the same thing as the latency to start sending power.

beervirus 6y ago

That's switching speed, not discharge speed. Discharge speed is how many amps a battery can put out.

vegardx 6y ago

The article mentioned that the battery was only able to supply 16MW to the grid. By all means a significant amount, but nowhere near the required 560MW needed to stabilize the grid. This is where hydro-based power plants excel, they're able to adjust the power output as quickly as gravity can push the water down the pipes. They're able to ramp up from almost no output to full capacity in minutes. Gas-turbines are also able to do this.

pjc50 6y ago
"Minutes" is not "140 miliseconds". But it's well worth reading https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2019/09/eso_technical_report_-_final.pdf https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/docs/2019/09/eso_techn... on an actual UK grid trip event to see what kind of things can happen; start at "summary of event" on p4. Note the three paragraphs starting with "However" as subsequent stability systems also failed. > This made the cumulative loss of generation 1,691MW (!) > All of the available “backup” power had already been deployed
- londons_explore 6y ago
  That UK grid trip event was going to happen one day. The "Vector shift protection" and "Rate of Change of Frequency" in embedded generation (Home solar etc.) means that if it senses anything "funny", it'll shut off. Which in turn means if anything else goes wrong with the grid and there isn't enough generation, then all home solar countrywide cuts out, making the problem 10x worse. Lesson learned: "I detected something weird, lets turn off" is not a good algorithm for everyone to use on a system requiring high uptime! It was obvious from the start really...
  - lambdatronics 6y ago
    Reminds me of the flash crash -- "hey, the market's funny, we're all gonna pull out!"

londons_explore 6y ago

A Tesla car rapidly accelerating is over a megawatt. This installation is far more cells than 560 cars worth. That means each individual cell can afford to discharge slower.