4 ms·
New Zealand has had a 600V HVDC link from the South Island to the North Island for quite some years - most of the power is generated by the hydro lakes in the s
by jurjenh 15y ago
New Zealand has had a 600V HVDC link from the South Island to the North Island for quite some years - most of the power is generated by the hydro lakes in the south, then delivered via a 610km link to a substation in the north, where it is fed into the normal high-voltage transmission grid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Inter-Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Inter-Island
So it is a proven technology to have this as a long distance link (been in operation since 1965) and it is capable of bi-directional power transfer as well.
- nitrogen 15y agoI'm curious where you get the "600V" number from -- is that 600 volts? According to the Wikipedia page you linked the system uses "+270kV and −350kV", which is in the range I would expect. Maybe you meant 620kV, the difference between +270kV and -350kV?
- jurjenh 15y agoMy apologies, that must've been some confusion in my mind... it was a 600MW HVDC link... although it is higher now, and works are underway to bring it up to somewhere near 1.4GW.
- pjscott 15y agoHVDC definitely makes sense for connecting islands together. The cable goes underwater, and in water, the capacitance of the cable is much increased by the greater dielectric constant of the water, which makes AC transmission less efficient.