Re:Texas was minutes away from months-long power outages, of...
by amluto on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:19PM
(#26186529)
It’s a bit more complicated than this. A lot of big generators are induction generators, and the associated electronics can make a tradeoff of voltage and frequency. In a grid setting, the frequency will be maintained at 60 Hz plus or minus not very much. Everything is, hopefully, arranged to maintain the correct voltage and frequency. The actual mechanism behind this have always struck me as arcane and somewhat fragile, especially in light of modern loads that don’t act at all like resistors under varying voltage conditions.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Texas was minutes away from months-long power outages, of...
by rhodozelia on Thursday February 18, 2021 @05:31PM
(#26186698)
are you referring to modern wind turbines and solar farms which have their output converted through power electronics?
I have literally never seen a large induction machine used as a generator, every machine larger than 300 kW I have seen has been a synchronous machine. If I've read about 600 different power plants, 598 of them have had synchronous machines.
Where in the world, what application, and in what age of installation are engineers choosing induction machines + power electronics over synchronous machines?
Re:Texas was minutes away from months-long power outages, of...
by thu2111 on Friday February 19, 2021 @10:17AM
(#26194045)
I think it's indeed a reference to wind and solar.
There's a discussion of the problems posed by loss of system 'inertia' here:
https://www.drax.com/technology/shock-absorbers-keeping-grid...