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Are the electrical grids in northern Europe not interconnected? It would seem that if one country happens to be producing more energy than its people currently

Are the electrical grids in northern Europe not interconnected? It would seem that if one country happens to be producing more energy than its people currently needs, then it should be able to sell the excess to other countries where that is not the case.

dragontamer 3y ago
Even the USA grid is fragmented. There seem to be limits on efficient transmission and synchronization of power on the grid. Connections to import or export excess power are limited in practice. Finding local storage options (pumped hydro, compressed air, etc. Etc.) seems key. -------- Local grids can use the free market (ex: negative prices electricity) to encourage use or savings from the public. Ex, electric car owners can wait for negative electricity before charging. At least, in theory they could. It's all a bit handwavey and futuristic. But these things are possible if we solve a few key issues over the next decade. Energy storage could be partially solved by load shifting: we kindly ask and encourage chargers at certain time, washer/driers or even AC with $$$ incentives to reward those who load shift. It can also be attacked with utility scale storage. And finally additional export/import power lines to other grids.
fifilura 3y ago
A part of it (as my other comment) is that Sweden produce heaps of wind power today. So there is not much point to export in that direction. But the limitation here is the power grid. The cables to southern Sweden and south Norway can not handle the export. And the cables to Germany is even more strained. Some say that this is good for us because otherwise our electricity price would have been much higher last winter.
eesmith 3y ago
They are. Here are the grids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... But there's only so much power you can transmit over the interconnects. If I read the list right, in 2019 Finland could generate 17.3 GW but only transfer 3.9 GW out of the country. Going further requires going through even more interconnects, which might have even lower capacity. There are long-term goals to increase capacity. There's also opposition to those increases.

dragontamer 3y ago

Even the USA grid is fragmented. There seem to be limits on efficient transmission and synchronization of power on the grid. Connections to import or export excess power are limited in practice. Finding local storage options (pumped hydro, compressed air, etc. Etc.) seems key. -------- Local grids can use the free market (ex: negative prices electricity) to encourage use or savings from the public. Ex, electric car owners can wait for negative electricity before charging. At least, in theory they could. It's all a bit handwavey and futuristic. But these things are possible if we solve a few key issues over the next decade. Energy storage could be partially solved by load shifting: we kindly ask and encourage chargers at certain time, washer/driers or even AC with $$$ incentives to reward those who load shift. It can also be attacked with utility scale storage. And finally additional export/import power lines to other grids.

fifilura 3y ago

A part of it (as my other comment) is that Sweden produce heaps of wind power today. So there is not much point to export in that direction. But the limitation here is the power grid. The cables to southern Sweden and south Norway can not handle the export. And the cables to Germany is even more strained. Some say that this is good for us because otherwise our electricity price would have been much higher last winter.

eesmith 3y ago

They are. Here are the grids. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continental_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_grid_of_Continenta... But there's only so much power you can transmit over the interconnects. If I read the list right, in 2019 Finland could generate 17.3 GW but only transfer 3.9 GW out of the country. Going further requires going through even more interconnects, which might have even lower capacity. There are long-term goals to increase capacity. There's also opposition to those increases.