Quote:
Originally Posted by spadlet
Possible not exactly to the point but it seeemed relevant:
One of the things that needs to be considered when connecting a wind turbine to the National Grid is the capacity of the Local Distribution Network. In the UK the National Grid has historicaly developed to take large electricity loads from a few sources throughout the country and distribute them to the rest of the country. Thus there are networks with different electrical load carrying capacities. I am fairly sure (Besoeker or someone similar might know better) that the transformers used to convert electricity between the networks were designed primarily to transfer current from the higher voltage networks (the one that can take the most electricity) to the lower voltage networks.
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I think that about sums up the distribution network.
One thing I would add is that the transformers that transform from high voltage (HV) to low voltage (LV) will work in reverse i.e. LV in HV out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spadlet
If the maximum ammount of electricity that can be generated exceedes the minimum electricity demand on the local distribution network, there may be serious problems. It is not very easy to acurately predict the output of a wind farm half an hour in advance. This means that it may not be possible to reduce the output of other generators on the local distribution network, or increase the ammount of electricity that is being stored within the local distribution network, if the wind farm generates an excess of electricity.
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Good points.
There is usually quite a lot of sophisticated protection to prevent such events becoming a problem - that's a whole discipline on its own.
In terms of ability to accommodate load changes, a conventional generator can normally react quite quickly - provided it is on line, of course.
As an example, we put in couple of fairly large generator controllers earlier this year. They were on a system comprising five similar machines. Part of the acceptance tests was to trip two of the five at the same time and make sure the remaining three could take up the load without disruption.
The key factor is having them already on line - spinning reserve.
And that compromises efficiency.