Tesla to build battery in South Australia

[SWFLA]

The real fix is to go nuke. Quite the novel idea here.
nextbigfuture.com/2017/07/breakthrough-in-size-safety-of-a-complete-nuclear-power-module-in-a-shipping-container.html

[solar pete]

100 calendar days or 100 work days ?

I dont know Mike, probably 100 working days once all paperwork and permits and wot not are sorted. Our electricity grid and the National Electricity market is beyond a joke and indeed a national disgrace. We have been our own worst enemy when it comes to destroying local manufacturing jobs, once apon a time when SA was not part of a national grid and the state owned the mines and power stations we were thriving. Then came along a bunch of slimmy corporate types and they got cozy with the worlds stupidest politicians and whala, low and behold we have the higest electricity prices in the western world and are basically broke and going backwards. Ok rank over, we have dug the hole we are in, being that we now have way to many wind farms the idiots could at least legislate the rich owner's of these very generously dealt with wind farm's should all have to have a giant battery at their own expense not the taxpayer.

The tax payer will foot the bill for this battery I think the battery will essentially be gifted to a private company who will no doubt make a profit at the expense of the people, we will have a cool battery though

[DanKegel]

putting that battery in place doesn't look sensible to me ...

Right, well, I wanted to point out some sensible things that *were* happening.

[max2k]

Several folks were talking about how politics was getting in the way of engineering; I just wanted to mention some of the sensible things happening to reduce chances of another blackout, to cheer people up.

(Easier said than done )

putting that battery in place doesn't look sensible to me ...

[DanKegel]

I'm not clear how it all relates to the original topic.

Several folks were talking about how politics was getting in the way of engineering; I just wanted to mention some of the sensible things happening to reduce chances of another blackout, to cheer people up.

(Easier said than done )

[max2k]

That's exactly right (and I think Sunking said roughly the same thing).
The grid operator can nip the problem in the bud by signalling generators to quickly increase their output. (Loads can also respond to that signal by reducing their load.)
For a US overview, see ipd.anl.gov/anlpubs/2016/01/124217.pdf
For an Australian overview, see aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Guide-to-Ancillary-Services-in-the-National-Electricity-Market.ashx

just to clarify - 'operator' in US pdf refers to the organization, not one of their personnel. 'Signalling' means sending signal from some monitoring system automatically as the time scale for this is in seconds, no human will be able to react that quickly. I'm not clear how it all relates to the original topic.

I just went through original link and the article is full of politics- wind farm + battery is much more expensive than gas powered power plant where gas is available. If that assumption is valid for Australia I don't understand how installing big battery would reduce price for consumers. I think SK diagnosis of the problem makes sense and why Aussie gvmt went onto spending spree in the wrong direction ... I know, it was rhetorical question .

[DanKegel]

When the grid falls short of overall power, voltage starts to sag, and that starts to affect the RPM of the generators, and the frequency starts to try to change. At some point, the phase locking between different generating units starts to drift and the system then starts to dump " out of spec" generators. This starts the cascade of overloaded generators start to slow down and get booted off the grid, leaving the other generators overloaded and they get booted off too. Only takes a couple seconds to loose it all.

That's exactly right (and I think Sunking said roughly the same thing).
The grid operator can nip the problem in the bud by signalling generators to quickly increase their output. (Loads can also respond to that signal by reducing their load.)
For a US overview, see ipd.anl.gov/anlpubs/2016/01/124217.pdf
For an Australian overview, see aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Guide-to-Ancillary-Services-in-the-National-Electricity-Market.ashx

[Sunking]

Its tough to restart from a blackout.

It is more than tough. The POCO has to go every Cut Out Switch in the network and open. That is manually done with Hot Sticks. All Sub Stations will have their Switches open and that is mostly done electronically with SCADA from a control center. From the generation plant they close in the first distribution sub-station. Then one by one reclose the Cut-Out switches manually. Then the next Distribution sub-station is closed in and the process repeats until every thing is reconnected.

Reason is simple as you pointed out. If you tried to connect the generator with all that load would cause it to trip off again. You have to walk-in the load, and that can take a few days.

[bcroe]

I'm going to present my analogy of the grid generation and a blackout.

Imagine dozens of horses in a big harness, pulling a big load. Another horse might run to catch up, hook
up, and help pull. Its easy for a horse to catch up without a load. Once hooked up, a horse is never going
to pull ahead of the other horses, because he isn't strong enough to pull the load alone; they stay "in sync".

When a generator was to go online, it would be spun up under no load, and a light bulb placed across the
connect switch. As the generator drifts in and out of phase, the bulb will go from bright out of phase to
black when in phase (no difference in voltage). When the light is out, the switch is closed and the throttle
thrown open. The generator will pick up load according to its capacity and throttle. It won't get ahead
(out of phase), because the load is too much for it to carry alone. It stays "in the harness" with the others.

A load increase tends to slow the generators, lowering the frequency. All the governors are very sensitive
to frequency, and will increase the throttle to maintain frequency (60 HZ here). If the load starts to reach
generation capacity, some throttles will reach their maximum position. More load may cause ALL the
throttles to be at max, if additional sources aren't brought in. At that point its on the brink. Any more load
will cause the frequency to start dropping. The only thing that can save the system is to cut off some loads,
an extremely disruptive action. If the frequency drops very much, the system will be unable to operate
and equipment will start to shut down. Once a generator quits, the rest will soon follow, blackout.

Its tough to restart from a blackout. All the coolers, sump pumps, wells, and other motors that normally
run intermittently, are sitting there waiting to throw a huge starting surge on the line, all at once.

One way to reduce the load is gradually reduce the voltage. This is very bad for some loads, esp induction
motors. MAYBE a brownout will avoid a blackout.

Bruce Roe

[max2k]

No you were on the right track until Dan opened his mouth with more non sense. All of the largest power outages in the USA are caused by what is called Under Frequency Disconnects. In the utility biz is called URD (Under Frequency Relay Disconnect) When a generator is over loaded, the load slows the generator down, thus the frequency slows down and voltage sags. Now if it were just one generator would not be a huge problem. However the grid is not just one generator. There are hundreds of them all connected together and in SYNC. So if just one generator slows down and out of sync, The shift in phase angle causes potential differences in the system which in turn cause very large amounts of current in the Generator, transformers, and transmission equipment. To prevent a huge MELTDOWN, the generator shuts down to save itself. That has a domino effect. When one generator shuts down without notice, that loads down adjacent generators and they trip. It can blackout a major portion of a country like the USA has experienced.

Look up Blackout of 1965 in the Northeast. 80,000 square miles and 30 million people out of power for 13 hours. After that Black Out Texas disconnected from the national grid and has never reconnected and never will. The only way TX connects to the rest of the world is via HVDC. The whole country could Black Out, but TX will still have lights on. There is no AC connection. TX is an exporter of energy and completely energy independent.

So while you think what I said was political, and you think it is engineering. Well both are true. Australia Energy Policy stopped the country from building power plants. Now they are paying the price for a failed Energy Policy. The right solution is to build power plants, not add some huge expensive battery making the crooked manufacture rich. That is pure politics.

Interesting, never really looked into how grid operates and why blackouts happen. Thank you for the detailed explanation.

[Sunking]

not sure I understand how frequency control can help with situation: if there's not enough energy to supply loads changing frequency wouldn't create it unless of course additional sources are connected to adjust the frequency and that has 'side effect' of adding energy to the grid. I was under impression that when grid doesn't have enough supply its output voltage would sag. Looks like it's not the case.

No you were on the right track until Dan opened his mouth with more non sense. All of the largest power outages in the USA are caused by what is called Under Frequency Disconnects. In the utility biz is called URD (Under Frequency Relay Disconnect) When a generator is over loaded, the load slows the generator down, thus the frequency slows down and voltage sags. Now if it were just one generator would not be a huge problem. However the grid is not just one generator. There are hundreds of them all connected together and in SYNC. So if just one generator slows down and out of sync, The shift in phase angle causes potential differences in the system which in turn cause very large amounts of current in the Generator, transformers, and transmission equipment. To prevent a huge MELTDOWN, the generator shuts down to save itself. That has a domino effect. When one generator shuts down without notice, that loads down adjacent generators and they trip. It can blackout a major portion of a country like the USA has experienced.

Look up Blackout of 1965 in the Northeast. 80,000 square miles and 30 million people out of power for 13 hours. After that Black Out Texas disconnected from the national grid and has never reconnected and never will. The only way TX connects to the rest of the world is via HVDC. The whole country could Black Out, but TX will still have lights on. There is no AC connection. TX is an exporter of energy and completely energy independent.

So while you think what I said was political, and you think it is engineering. Well both are true. Australia Energy Policy stopped the country from building power plants. Now they are paying the price for a failed Energy Policy. The right solution is to build power plants, not add some huge expensive battery making the crooked manufacture rich. That is pure politics.

[Sunking]

not sure I understand how frequency control can help with situation: if there's not enough energy to supply loads changing frequency wouldn't create it unless of course additional sources are connected to adjust the frequency and that has 'side effect' of adding energy to the grid. I was under impression that when grid doesn't have enough supply its output voltage would sag. Looks like it's not the case.

Dan can not answer any question related to electric power.

[SunEagle]

Hi All,

Have you heard that Tesla is going to build the worlds biggest battery right here in little ol; South Oz, and he said if he doesn't build it in 100 days its free

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/07/tesla-to-build-worlds-biggest-lithium-ion-battery-in-south-australia

WooHooo looks like we got a big free battery comming down under

Come on Pete. You know nothing is really free. Some how someone will be paying for that battery. If it isn't Australia it will be the US which will find a way to transfer the debt to someone else.

[Mike90250]

When the grid falls short of overall power, voltage starts to sag, and that starts to affect the RPM of the generators, and the frequency starts to try to change. At some point, the phase locking between different generating units starts to drift and the system then starts to dump " out of spec" generators. This starts the cascade of overloaded generators start to slow down and get booted off the grid, leaving the other generators overloaded and they get booted off too. Only takes a couple seconds to loose it all.

[max2k]

It's not all bad news. wattclarity.com.au/2017/03/lets-talk-about-fcas/ has some information about the situation, and links to reports about the outage. Sounds like they're reacting appropriately by enlisting more power stations (even wind farms!) to provide frequency control ancillary services, and not just by adding a big battery.

not sure I understand how frequency control can help with situation: if there's not enough energy to supply loads changing frequency wouldn't create it unless of course additional sources are connected to adjust the frequency and that has 'side effect' of adding energy to the grid. I was under impression that when grid doesn't have enough supply its output voltage would sag. Looks like it's not the case.