Measuring AC supply frequency

You are just another f****ng IDIOT Google monkey.

..... Phil

Yes I have measured it, most recently with an ac plugpack hooked uo to a HP5386A via a x10 scope probe, though the most convenient way to see it change in real time with the equipment already on my bench was to set an analogue scope to line trigger mode and then look at the output of a xtal locked signal generator set to 10kHz. Very small variations are easily visible.

And, if you were better at googling you might have found histograms like this one, which demonstrates what I was trying to tell you:

I google things that I already know, for your benefit, because it would be a waste of my time to write an entire article just to educate you, when someone else has already done it.

More Chris Jones GARBAGE

---------------------------------------

My simple, all analogue method is way better.

Oh right - that is in fact what you know.

..... Phil

Yet again, you are wrong, and I have to google yet another thing for you because you can't even RTFM:

Chris Jones wrote: ===============

My simple method is still WAAAAAAAY better.

..... Phil

One doesn't have to. The Telsa grid battery in South Australia feeds current into the grid (or sucks it out) to maintain frequency stability. About half it's capacity is devoted to that single job and it's going to earn back it's purchase price in less than two years from what it gets paid for that. The business of paying up excess generation capacity when it is cheap and selling it back when the offer price is higher is profitable but an order of magnitude less profitable. The gear that used to do the stablising job is all retired.

You now have a phase-locked loop, where you are the phase detector and the p+i controller.

People seem to adapt to the role of loop controller pretty well.

(Well, except for certain persons who flail household and car thermostats.)

It's like they were all connected on one sort of flexy shaft. The frequency is by concensus.

John Larkin wrote: ===============

On the east cost of Australia, the orchestra leaders are hydro generators in the Snowy Mountains. A massive scheme of dams built in the 1950s to regulate flow in a major river. It generates power during the day and takes it back at night to refill the high dams.

IOW a water filled battery bank.

Elon Musk would not be amused.......

...... Phil

I recently saw an analysis of what would happen if europe went all solar, cars and houses and everything, with battery storage. There aren't enough of the critical minerals on the planet. About half of Spain would be paved over with solar panels.

John Larkin wrote: ================

..... Phil

That would have been published in one of his climate change denial propaganda sources.

There are, but we haven't found them yet, mainly because we haven't been looking. China has been running the usual scam of keeping the prices low when anybody is trying to raise money to find more of them, and jacking them up again when they stop trying. People finally noticed and there's more exploration going on, and new mines are getting opened up in Australia and Malaysia.

More likely a rather smaller proportion of the Sahara. Germany was thinking seriously about doing this a few years ago. It may lead to some political tidying up in North Africa, not before time.

It's factored in.

From what? Solar cells don't shed toxic metals.

On a sunny day (Tue, 09 Mar 2021 16:58:55 -0800) it happened John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote in snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yes, solar panels appearing here everywhere, windmills too, only solution IMO is nuclear. Germany is taking all nuclear power plants offline and compensating those companies with billions (after they sued).

At least here we are discussing building new nuclear power plants. It is all so silly, if a Dutch nuke plant does the Tjernobyl thing, then Germany is in downwind... But _fear_ is the lock. How many would die mining all the stuff for solar and batteries?

You now see governments run by flipped idiots using fear for some virus closing the whole industry. And then they play fear for the Russians, and for what not....

Maybe a global war is what it takes to get a more realistic view, at least all will radiate and 'oh yea, what difference does a few more nuke plants make?'

This society is very much in the state it was in medieval times when they were hunting for witches, take any women, throw in water, if she sinks she was OK (but dies), if she floats she is a witch and gets executed... Fear used to make people dance to the religion / system of that time, crusades.

It is not improving, now the racists jive explored by part of the population, sanity lost. Roman empire, slaves risings up, is no more. Its technology was lost too. Took hundreds of years to be re-invented,

Maybe not (solar power also uses mirrors and steam, photoelectricity isn't the only option). More important, 'the critical minerals' argument is completely bogus. As far as tapping the mineral wealth of this planet, we've put a few scratches on the surface.

Usually, that kind of analysis relies on 'economically viable ores', i.e. ignores any source that costs an extra 3% to mine. No one bothers to file claims (which identify a known source) unless it is economic, so there's not an official record that it exists.

=================

...... Phil

Phil's mixed metaphor is remarkably silly, even for him. When I was growing up Tasmania's tin mines kept on shutting down when the international price dropped and opening up again when the demand went up enough to get the price high enough to pay the miners. It was a bit silly. Getting extra mineral for lots of solar cells and grid batteries is going to need a rather more persistent effort, and the fossil fuel extraction industry will try to sabotage it, in part by spreading the kinds of lies that John Larkin has posted.

===============

It was damn funny.

If you are going to use a scope and Lissajous curves, you could input a fixed 50 Hz sine wave to one plates and the mains frequency to the other plates. Measure the _time_ it takes when the phase difference changes from 0 degrees through 180 degrees back to 0 degrees. Thus you get the phase change rate in degrees per second and hence get the frequency.

Without a scope, adjust the amplitude of the two signals to be the same. Subtract the signals from each other to check when the phase difference is zero and count the time the next time is 0 degrees.

To get rid of much of the mains noise, feed the mains signal into a 50 Hz LC filter (Q=10 .. 100). Also clipping the signal to Vpp removes very high but short spikes which reduces ringing in the LC filter ("noise blanker").

The way of connecting multiple generator sites in parallel relies on the varying phase shift and hence frequency change with variable loads. No need for accurate timing to all generators or dedicated timing signals to all generator sites. Just compare the largest generator to a reference and the other generators will follow.

In order to connect multiple DC generation sites the problem is how to share the loads between multiple generation sites. Either have a relatively high generator source resistance (and hence losses) or use some communications network to adjust the power output from each generation site.

There are about 300 million vehicles in Europe. About 1 GW should be enough to handle 1 million EVs, thus 300 GW (24/365) would be needed in all EV situation. The COP for solar power is around 20 .. 30 % to consider night and morning situations. Thus 1000 .. 1500 GWp panels would be required

Assuming 10 % panel and system efficiency, a square meter of panel will produce 100 Wp, thus up to 15 000 sq km needs to be covered by solar panels, which is 3 % of the land area in Spain. This could supply all cars in Europe, not just in Spain.