China’s exports of batteries, electric cars and solar panels hit record highs last year, underlining its dominance of key green industries — and driving a global price slump that’s adding to alarm in developed economies.
I’d really like to know what really needs to be done on the grid to support a multitude of small local power producers.
My electrical knowledge isn’t up to the task and I’m not sure, if there are real technical limits/issues, or if it’s just a money problem to update/gix the grid
The main issue is that the grid was designed to go from a few large providers to a lot of small consumers. The equipment was designed with this, one way flow design, in mind.
Think of it a little like waterfalls. It’s easy to get water from a single source at the top of a hill, down to many ponds at the bottom. It’s far harder to get water from 1 pond to another.
In practice, this means that load balancing can be problematic. 1 area might have a glut of power. This sounds good, but it’s actually not. Without something drawing power, the voltage (and frequency) can climb. This can cause power spikes etc. This is why the wholesale price can sometimes go negative. The power plants are pushing too much power in, and can’t shut down fast enough. They actually pay companies to draw power, to keep the grid stable.
Conversely, other areas might have a sudden drop in capability. With a centralised grid, they can predict and balance this. With a highly localised grid, it can destabilise before they can correct. This will cause either a blackout, or a brownout event. Neither are good.
Basically, the grid needs to be adjusted to move power in ways it was never expected to have to move it. It will also need to react to faster changing supply or demand. Putting the equipment and cabling in to do this is slow and expensive.
Grids need to be updated with modern hardware that allow for intelligent load distribution, as well as generally good & many connectors between locations (the infamous big power lines you see stretching through nature, often the target of various conspiracy bullshit from people living near / under them), so that you can transport excess to where there is demand. It’s definitely an effort but generally worth it, because you can really expand on decentralized power generation such as private solar panels on roofs, balconies, gardens, etc.
I honestly don’t know why NIMBYs are so vehemently against this stuff because it would make their energy supply more independent and even lower their bills, or even give them income if they have a low power usage.
Thanks, I do get the basics. I would like to know, what technically needs to be done and what the real challenges are, to make to grid more flexible.
“Updating hardware” is not the in depth answer I was looking for ;-)
Apologies. The needs depend on the various start & end points of the grid. At home for example you would need smart meters that can read your current consumption & (and potential production) and send that data into the system. Our old electricity grids were sort of static and one way, with power plants running a constant amount of power through to our end points. See Smart Grids on Wikipedia for an entry point and you can also find various videos on that topic, one being even in the article. Basically at every point of generation, consumption & distribution you want devices like this so that we end up with an intelligent network of data points that can eventually automatically distribute power to and from where it is made & needed, especially in the context of variable power generation of renewables, but also our variable power consumption based on human & socioeconomic behavior.
I’d really like to know what really needs to be done on the grid to support a multitude of small local power producers.
My electrical knowledge isn’t up to the task and I’m not sure, if there are real technical limits/issues, or if it’s just a money problem to update/gix the grid
The main issue is that the grid was designed to go from a few large providers to a lot of small consumers. The equipment was designed with this, one way flow design, in mind.
Think of it a little like waterfalls. It’s easy to get water from a single source at the top of a hill, down to many ponds at the bottom. It’s far harder to get water from 1 pond to another.
In practice, this means that load balancing can be problematic. 1 area might have a glut of power. This sounds good, but it’s actually not. Without something drawing power, the voltage (and frequency) can climb. This can cause power spikes etc. This is why the wholesale price can sometimes go negative. The power plants are pushing too much power in, and can’t shut down fast enough. They actually pay companies to draw power, to keep the grid stable.
Conversely, other areas might have a sudden drop in capability. With a centralised grid, they can predict and balance this. With a highly localised grid, it can destabilise before they can correct. This will cause either a blackout, or a brownout event. Neither are good.
Basically, the grid needs to be adjusted to move power in ways it was never expected to have to move it. It will also need to react to faster changing supply or demand. Putting the equipment and cabling in to do this is slow and expensive.
Grids need to be updated with modern hardware that allow for intelligent load distribution, as well as generally good & many connectors between locations (the infamous big power lines you see stretching through nature, often the target of various conspiracy bullshit from people living near / under them), so that you can transport excess to where there is demand. It’s definitely an effort but generally worth it, because you can really expand on decentralized power generation such as private solar panels on roofs, balconies, gardens, etc. I honestly don’t know why NIMBYs are so vehemently against this stuff because it would make their energy supply more independent and even lower their bills, or even give them income if they have a low power usage.
Thanks, I do get the basics. I would like to know, what technically needs to be done and what the real challenges are, to make to grid more flexible.
“Updating hardware” is not the in depth answer I was looking for ;-)
Apologies. The needs depend on the various start & end points of the grid. At home for example you would need smart meters that can read your current consumption & (and potential production) and send that data into the system. Our old electricity grids were sort of static and one way, with power plants running a constant amount of power through to our end points. See Smart Grids on Wikipedia for an entry point and you can also find various videos on that topic, one being even in the article. Basically at every point of generation, consumption & distribution you want devices like this so that we end up with an intelligent network of data points that can eventually automatically distribute power to and from where it is made & needed, especially in the context of variable power generation of renewables, but also our variable power consumption based on human & socioeconomic behavior.
No need for an apology. Thanks for the explanation!
This might not be the depth you want, but it might have some stuff.
Connecting solar to the grid is harder than you think