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Quoting from the movie Contact: "Why build one, when you could build two for twice the price?" I'd assume this isn't standard procedure, but agree that it sho

Quoting from the movie Contact: "Why build one, when you could build two for twice the price?" I'd assume this isn't standard procedure, but agree that it should be, considering the increasing importance of power supply to society and in the current terror-paranoia state of the world.

dmix 4y ago
It's probably as idealistic as it gets, governments acting in the long-term interests extending beyond their elected position AND hopefully not turning a it into something costing 10x and 2x as long. But maybe it can focus on a limited set of parts? Terrorism and security has always been a great motivator for gov capital. Although it typically goes to Washington consultants rather than spending it on critical parts.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  Based on actual events (ie. fiction): The report, which cost taxpayers $x million, recommended the purchase of spare parts costing $y thousand, which would reduce the downtime of power transmission, due to the failure of these parts, to hours rather than days or possibly weeks. Actions based on this report are due to be debated following the election, due to be held in 8 months' time.
dismalpedigree 4y ago
This is Duke Energy we are talking about. No way are they going to allocate capital to tons of spares when they could be buying back shares.
myself248 4y ago
I've heard, but have no sources for it, that it's difficult to scale up production of large transformers. And as everyone's said, without government invention, there's no money in having a reserve. It's even worse if the _rate_ of consumption doesn't go up, then adding production to build up a reserve is folly, because the plant is guaranteed to go idle once the reserve is achieved. So, I don't have high hopes for that, at least not in a significant way. Going the other way, decentralizing the grid, putting solar and batteries on as many homes as possible, is already happening. There's already financial incentive. Utilities are adding _disincentives_ every chance they get, because they see it as reducing their customer base, rather than adding resiliency. But, customers and regulators are pushing back, and the situation in most places isn't terrible. And as a result, it's scaling up as fast as the market can scale it. Neither of these things will solve the problem completely, but I think we'll meet in the middle. Over the coming years, an interconnected grid will become decreasingly relevant for larger and larger fractions of the population. And outages, and even the very concept of outages, will approach quaint-memory status. Initially and particularly, this will benefit folks out in the boonies with lots of land for panels, who are usually on the losing end of the response time for outage restoration in the first place.
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  I was previously going to mention the decentralisation that could be provided by micro-grids as a mitigating factor, but don't know enough about how they work to know whether it's just replacing one vulnerability for another, but your mention of home batteries reminds me that, with micro-grids, it should be possible to narrow down to a single household "island" level of granularity if all households have solar and batteries (and the same argument for apartment blocks at equivalent scale). Ideally, this allows for each individual unit (household, apartment complex, commercial building) to bear the costs of the "reserve assets" at the same time as being able to take advantage of them down to that granular level - as long as their battery is able to hold out and their solar able to recharge it. And the reserve assets being smaller, fit better into a manufacturing scenario as there should be a more consistent, less surge-style, demand.
  - fbdab103 4y ago
    One thing to note is that many stand-alone solar installations cannot operate without a live grid connection.

dmix 4y ago

It's probably as idealistic as it gets, governments acting in the long-term interests extending beyond their elected position AND hopefully not turning a it into something costing 10x and 2x as long. But maybe it can focus on a limited set of parts? Terrorism and security has always been a great motivator for gov capital. Although it typically goes to Washington consultants rather than spending it on critical parts.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
Based on actual events (ie. fiction): The report, which cost taxpayers $x million, recommended the purchase of spare parts costing $y thousand, which would reduce the downtime of power transmission, due to the failure of these parts, to hours rather than days or possibly weeks. Actions based on this report are due to be debated following the election, due to be held in 8 months' time.

dismalpedigree 4y ago

This is Duke Energy we are talking about. No way are they going to allocate capital to tons of spares when they could be buying back shares.

myself248 4y ago

I've heard, but have no sources for it, that it's difficult to scale up production of large transformers. And as everyone's said, without government invention, there's no money in having a reserve. It's even worse if the _rate_ of consumption doesn't go up, then adding production to build up a reserve is folly, because the plant is guaranteed to go idle once the reserve is achieved. So, I don't have high hopes for that, at least not in a significant way. Going the other way, decentralizing the grid, putting solar and batteries on as many homes as possible, is already happening. There's already financial incentive. Utilities are adding _disincentives_ every chance they get, because they see it as reducing their customer base, rather than adding resiliency. But, customers and regulators are pushing back, and the situation in most places isn't terrible. And as a result, it's scaling up as fast as the market can scale it. Neither of these things will solve the problem completely, but I think we'll meet in the middle. Over the coming years, an interconnected grid will become decreasingly relevant for larger and larger fractions of the population. And outages, and even the very concept of outages, will approach quaint-memory status. Initially and particularly, this will benefit folks out in the boonies with lots of land for panels, who are usually on the losing end of the response time for outage restoration in the first place.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago
I was previously going to mention the decentralisation that could be provided by micro-grids as a mitigating factor, but don't know enough about how they work to know whether it's just replacing one vulnerability for another, but your mention of home batteries reminds me that, with micro-grids, it should be possible to narrow down to a single household "island" level of granularity if all households have solar and batteries (and the same argument for apartment blocks at equivalent scale). Ideally, this allows for each individual unit (household, apartment complex, commercial building) to bear the costs of the "reserve assets" at the same time as being able to take advantage of them down to that granular level - as long as their battery is able to hold out and their solar able to recharge it. And the reserve assets being smaller, fit better into a manufacturing scenario as there should be a more consistent, less surge-style, demand.
- fbdab103 4y ago
  One thing to note is that many stand-alone solar installations cannot operate without a live grid connection.