3 ms·
I think we will see much more integration across the European electricity grid in the near future, which makes production fluctuations less and less relevant (t
by cycomanic 5y ago
I think we will see much more integration across the European electricity grid in the near future, which makes production fluctuations less and less relevant (they just average out over a large grid). I didn't know how many impediments still existed for an integrated european grid. I only found out when reading up on things today, that Scandinavia operates on a different frequency to mainland Europe, which has been an obstacle for Norway to sell their surplus to the rest of Europe (they are now building a connection to Germany and are bridging the operating frequency so that should be better in the future).
Here is an interesting article about this: https://www.power-technology.com/features/how-norway-became-europes-biggest-power-exporter/ https://www.power-technology.com/features/how-norway-became-...
- _ph_ 5y agoThe first DC connection between Germany and Norway has been put into operations some months ago. Which also solves all frequency problems :). If you look on www.electricitymap.org, you can see how much electricity is already shifted around in Europe. Like with car traffic, Germany is a country which distributes electricity across Europe. Especially France often exports to many European countries, a lot through Germany. (Which creates an inflated impression about how much French electrictiy is exported to Germany, because it is often overlooked that at the same time Germany exports the same amount or even more to neighboring countries).
- bluGill 5y agoFrequency doesn't matter because at a large scale you can't match AC frequencies anyway so you go to DC for transmissions. There are other advantages to high voltage DC over AC as well that I don't remember.
- Symbiote 5y agoWhat is a large scale? The Continental European grid covers 400 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta...