Mains power voltage drop to reduce usage?

On Sunday, 6 November 2022 at 12:23:11 UTC-8, Mark Lloyd wrote: ...

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The frequency of the grid can be changed dynamically to control the loads that have appropriate controllers.

This is used to some extent in the UK to control the demand.

PG&E were offering residential customers a one time payment to allow the installation of a module that would disable air conditioning at times of peak stress. Large customers also can do this on a bigger scale.

If the peak load reduction is needed over say an hour, then as it only takes a few minutes to boil a kettle or heat up a washing machine it will make no difference. You will simply have more kettles on at the same time. In fact it could make the peak load higher.

Assuming it takes five minutes when the voltage is full, and folks put their kettles on sequentially, you load is one kettle.

If it goes up to 6 minutes but we still want 12 kettles per hour then you need to start the second kettle while the first is still boiling, so the load goes up to two kettles for one minute...

If we want to reduce greenhouse emissions then gas needs to be more expensive.....

... you can make green electricity but not green gas, (well you can make green hydrogen but it uses lots more electricity)

Dave

Page 7. I went and looked.

That's very odd. My lights might possibly be voltage sensitive, but **** all else is.

If the kettle is using less power to boil water it will stay on longer.

Averaged over a lot of houses that would mean no change.

The heating is on a thermostat, and if the power output drops it will stay on longer (1). Giving the same power use, but spread differently.

Andy

They run it on the higher side of the range to reduce line losses.

some power quality limits here - just as an example :

Well given its not invested in energy infra-structure so supply is often "flaky" makes it feel a bit like that at times.

Its worse than that, you pay for it on your bill. Mine costs 0.026667€ per day. I also have a contracted peak load. Exceed this and it cuts out. That costs 0.091474 Eur/kW/day and changing the value costs a fair amount.

Dave

I thought this was done by radio? That's how my neighbour's heating was controlled.

You're looking at not enough kettles. Think of it more simplistically. Every kettle will be on at a later time than it would have been, you spread the peak use over a longer period.

Could we stick to reality please?

Gas just creates CO2 and water, zero pollution.

It's the spread they're after.

In the good old days the UK was 250V. F****ng Europeans....

Too much info, quote the bit you want me to read.

Do your teachers, especially physics, math, and social studies, know how dumb you're sounding these days?

I've heard some parts of Italy only have a 3kW supply to each house! They have problems when buying 3kW kettles!

What is your peak load? Is this certain times of day only? I can draw 24kW, if that reduced I'd be f****ng angry.

I'm 47. And the 5 factor is a fact.

Primary load is automatically shed - to maintain very stringent system frequency limits. The big thermal generators are very fussy about system frequency. " Small frequency deviations (e.g., 0.5 Hz on a 50 Hz or 60 Hz network) will result in automatic load shedding or other control actions to restore system frequency. " John T.

Shedding what? I'm aware they ramp up the steam to speed them up if they get too slow.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Not any more.

Apart from resistive loads and motors almost all other consumer items like TVs will simply draw more current at the lower voltage to maintain a constant power output. My PC and other office kit will quite happily run on 110v as will the LED lights. Incandescent lights are visibly orange on that voltage and a kettle takes forever to boil.

This happens in rural locations when one phase out of two supplying a village goes down and the remaining live phase is left taking the strain.

How did the neutral break but the lives didn't?

As for well balanced, that depends how many people were using that broken neutral. If it was just to your house, chances are your loads are not balanced enough.

But you're referring to small things that use very little power. Normally, I can draw 6kW for computers.

TWO?!

I'm not a power expert, but I suspect this is about power distribution between the generators, very large scale. Not the voltage given to customers.