First blackout of the wind power heavy system

zeupater

JKenH wrote: »

Interesting article about the black out, particularly the data about the fall in output and the pumped storage hydropower response.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-09/london-blackout-occurred-amid-drop-in-wind-and-natural-gas-power

Hi

Love the degree of root cause analysis in that article ....

So, which is the cause and which is the effect? ... did the drop in wind-power generation occur because of a sudden drop in wind velocity which caused the disconnection seen? -or- was it as a result of a network failure causing a disconnection? ...

Good to see the rapid response of Dinorwig mitigating the issue whilst load shedding & other generation sources came into play though ... note, this 'surge' is definitely effect! ...

Pretty much along the same line as everything else when you look at the detail ... it's a case of waiting for someone to find what combination of events broke the network as that's where the issue manifests ... chances are it could have happened to any form of generation feeding into the grid, including the growing reliance on inter-connectors!

HTH
Z

JKenH

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Love the degree of root cause analysis in that article ....

So, which is the cause and which is the effect? ... did the drop in wind-power generation occur because of a sudden drop in wind velocity which caused the disconnection seen? -or- was it as a result of a network failure causing a disconnection? ...

Good to see the rapid response of Dinorwig mitigating the issue whilst load shedding & other generation sources came into play though ... note, this 'surge' is definitely effect! ...

Pretty much along the same line as everything else when you look at the detail ... it's a case of waiting for someone to find what combination of events broke the network as that's where the issue manifests ... chances are it could have happened to any form of generation feeding into the grid, including the growing reliance on inter-connectors!

HTH
Z

Most of what I have seen suggests the wind farm disconnected (or was disconnected) but why? Did Barford fail or did it disconnect? As they were both up and running in a couple of hours was it a software or electronic switching issue? I might be wrong but high voltage stuff that has physically failed or is damaged takes a while to mend. In my limited experience
there is usually a big bang involved.

GreatApe

JKenH wrote: »

Most of what I have seen suggests the wind farm disconnected (or was disconnected) but why? Did Barford fail or did it disconnect? As they were both up and running in a couple of hours was it a software or electronic switching issue? I might be wrong but high voltage stuff that has physically failed or is damaged takes a while to mend. In my limited experience
there is usually a big bang involved.

A trip doesn't necessarily mean something is up with the electronics it could be a huge range of reasons from low gas pressure in the supply pipe to odd acoustics to a sensor malfunction to high readings of NOX all of which might require an automatic shutdown of the gas fired station. This is okay and the grid is designed for such unplanned shutdowns. It's okay again because the inertia means it's not an instant shut down but takes a couple of minutes or so enough for fast response like pumped hydro to kick in

I think you could be right re the wind farm
My guess is that was a total instant loss of supply
With perhaps the offshore wind tripping when the frequency is below a certain limit
Perhaps the limit is programmed in as the same 49.5 HZ legal limit ?

That might makes sense

The first station trips but inertia means the frequency doesn't drop instantly it takes a couple of minutes to slowly go down and once below 49.5 HZ the wind farm trips taking the frequency even lower needing load shedding

Of course if the wind farm was programmes to trip at 49.5HZ that is a huge !!!!up and they should be fiend very very heavily. I wouldn't be sleeping comfortably if I was the CEO of orstead the developer of the wind farm!

There could even be a cover-up
Hide the fact
Pretend some piegion flew into your emergency disconnect button or somethin...
Don't you love a good conspiracy theory!

Certainly such a rapid fall in frequency isn't normal (power stations tripping are normal so it's something more rare or something kinda new...like a wind farm )

markin

So the wind for no apparent reason dropped 1000MW, after the gas plant reached its limit and dropped its 750MW.

Im sure its just a line of code that needs tweaking.

RWE said its Little Barford gas station, which has a capacity of 730 megawatts, shut down in line with normal practice when demand hit 23,000 megawatts. National Grid and Ofgem need to investigate what was behind the wider system issues, spokesman Lothar Lambertz said.

Data at gridwatch is in 5min segments so not that useful. at 15:55 it dropped to 48.89, Gas went up....

mmmmikey

zeupater wrote: »

Pretty much along the same line as everything else when you look at the detail ... it's a case of waiting for someone to find what combination of events broke the network as that's where the issue manifests ... chances are it could have happened to any form of generation feeding into the grid, including the growing reliance on inter-connectors!

This is the logic that lead to my comments much earlier in this thread. However, having (I think) understood the OP better and thought this through, I've switched my thinking on this.

Lets say, for example, the issue turns out to be with a sub-station or some other form of grid interconnection - i.e. something that is common to both wind and gas. In one sense, it's perfectly reasonable to say that it's just bad luck that the failing sub station took out the wind farm and it could just as well have happened to any other generator. As such, hardly fair to blame the power cut on wind - this is a grid failure, not a wind failure and it just so happens that on this occasion it's the wind power that has been lost.

However, the point that I think is being made in the OP is that where the grid is supplied by a network of gas generators, the impact of, say, a sub station failing is different to the impact if the grid is supplied by a network of wind farms. In the cas of gas generators, if one is lost, the remaining generators can quickly ramp up to compensate for the loss of power caused by the failed sub station, thereby avoiding a power cut, but in the case of wind generators this isn't the case.

None of this, in my view, means that wind is inherently risky or less reliable per se, the risk comes from the manner in which wind power is aggregated and connected to the grid. Or put it another way, this is only an issue if you design and manage the grid to suit the characteristics of existing generators and don't adapt and improve it to suit the characteristics of wind.

Or have I misunderstood this?

GreatApe

mmmmikey wrote: »

This is the logic that lead to my comments much earlier in this thread. However, having (I think) understood the OP better and thought this through, I've switched my thinking on this.

Lets say, for example, the issue turns out to be with a sub-station or some other form of grid interconnection - i.e. something that is common to both wind and gas. In one sense, it's perfectly reasonable to say that it's just bad luck that the failing sub station took out the wind farm and it could just as well have happened to any other generator. As such, hardly fair to blame the power cut on wind - this is a grid failure, not a wind failure and it just so happens that on this occasion it's the wind power that has been lost.

However, the point that I think is being made in the OP is that where the grid is supplied by a network of gas generators, the impact of, say, a sub station failing is different to the impact if the grid is supplied by a network of wind farms. In the cas of gas generators, if one is lost, the remaining generators can quickly ramp up to compensate for the loss of power caused by the failed sub station, thereby avoiding a power cut, but in the case of wind generators this isn't the case.

None of this, in my view, means that wind is inherently risky or less reliable per se, the risk comes from the manner in which wind power is aggregated and connected to the grid. Or put it another way, this is only an issue if you design and manage the grid to suit the characteristics of existing generators and don't adapt and improve it to suit the characteristics of wind.

Or have I misunderstood this?

Kinda but you are putting some propaganda spin on it

I am saying wind needs to be forced to invest in stability because it is more risky

Also it's not the same because a CCGT will be connecting to the grid directly via a AC AC connection. These tend to be very robust

The wind farm will have more points of failure
First you have the converter station offshore which converts AC to DC then you have the converter station onshore which turns this DC back into AC. You have added two additional points of failure. Actually three additional points of failure because the DC cable from the wind farm to onshore is also a point of failure. So that is there points of additional infrastructure that can and will at Some point fail Taking out instantly the whole output of the wind farm

Actually perhaps even a fourth layer of weekness which might be software
Presumably these have much more software than a gas fired stations which might be only run by analogue instrumentation or digital but independent from the internet


This isn't the end of wind power it just means they need to account for and mitigate the additional risk to the grid they pose. This might be as simple as collectively the wind farms having to build and operate a 1GW 2GWh battery which night add a cost of £500 million to 20GW of wind power which isn't a huge additional cost but an additional cost nonetheless

1961Nick

Great_Ache wrote: »

yes, this issue was caused by wind and the fact its so much cheaper than nuclear means we should increase the costs by adding £500million to it. you dont go far enough though and we need a 50gwh battery per wind turbine to cover the whole of the grid output, just in case. this wood add trillions to the cost of wind energy and prove that nuclear is much cheaper and by far the better option because of the lower prices

we must also force solar to do the same and any other clean energy soruce. we must not force nuclear or petrol fueled power stations to do the same as this is unfair to those technologies and would create an unlevel playing field

well done for pointing out the propaganda of that poster. on this green and renewable forum we don't want or need posts from people promoting green and renewable energy propaganda. we need non-propaganda nuclear and petrol generating systems that actually work. they will never get wind power to work. it just sucks energy from the wind and we will all die from suffocation. if the wind does not move oxygen around then we will die. the same with solar the panels suck energy from the sun and eventually this will cause the sun to go supernova. the only solution is nuclear or petrol

I and GA are not cranks

Just one question......will the supernova finally enable me to crack 7 O's?

1961Nick

Great_Ache wrote: »

switch to a magnox series 3 home nuclear generator and plutonium-239 water heater and you will help save the planet. dont be fooled by the so-called green energy pundits on here, they are trying to fool you into destroying the world. nuclear is the past present and future

Will this system last me a "lifetime"?

1961Nick

Great_Ache wrote: »

it will last you 24,100 years before the nuclear battery is half depleted. by then we will have solved nuclear fusion and we will al have a fustion generator in our garden sheds. until then we need to solve the unsolvable home heating crisis and that can only be solved with highly fission systems. solar destroys the sun and wind turbines destroy the wind and so the only answer is radiation

I and my nuclear team are not cranks

After 24,100 years, could the depleted plutonium 239 rods be used to power a barbecue? I do find bottled gas such a faff...

zeupater

Great_Ache wrote: »

it will last you 24,100 years before the nuclear battery is half depleted. by then we will have solved nuclear fusion and we will al have a fustion generator in our garden sheds. until then we need to solve the unsolvable home heating crisis and that can only be solved with highly fission systems. solar destroys the sun and wind turbines destroy the wind and so the only answer is radiation

I and my nuclear team are not cranks

Hi

I wish you'd stop posting misleading information on such a serious thread .. .. everyone knows that even in 24100 years time the latest rumour will be that commercial fusion reactors are only 30years over the horizon! .... :rotfl:

Z