Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?

Oh, the 5G thing explains why I've been so tired lately.

You need a smart counter on a dumb meter. Might as well call it smart meter.

Steam plant is locked to the mains. It does not change speed. At most as the steam is fed in, it advances the phase angle to feed more current into the grid.

An noted, it's counter-intuitive to beginners. Steam adjusts power (think conservation of energy) and field current adjusts phase angle, which is why there are rotating machines with no mechanical input or output, used only for system power factor tweaking, like a giant capacitor.

Most generators are run near unity power factor, zero phase angle.

My '61 Alfa Romeo Giulia had driver control of idle speed by turning the choke knob (pull for choke), a very nice feature with Solex or SU carburetors. They just don't make them like that anymore :-).

Power *in* to a generator is normally prevented by a reverse power relay, but if disabled a standard DC field synchronous generator will readily act as a motor. With a wind turbine VSCF generator, where the rotor is 3- phase wound and the rotor field rotated relative to the rotor by a VFD, some significant software changes would be required also, and the gear drive and blade pitch controls also made reverse power capable. I can't imagine why anyone would do that; both solar and wind can easily and quickly be turned down as required, gas turbines a bit slower, fossil steam slower yet, and nuke slowest of all - not normally a part of load following. I have not heard of any grid having a problem with low load except when a large part of the grid is disconnected due to a fault some generators may trip offline on over voltage or frequency.

I heard the story about an electrician who manually paralleled a generator with the bus 180 degrees out to see what would happen, which was snapped mounting bolts and a rotated generator causing bent shaft and frame. This must have happened a very long time ago (1920's?), and is the reason that since then all parallelable generator controls have included a phase permissive relay which prevents closing a generator breaker unless the phase is within 10 degrees of the bus, as well as the reverse power relay.

I once used a submarine generator control switchboard made in 1948 ($2500 from the stock system since the sub class was long gone) as part of a generator paralleling trainer (with small VFD powered generators and a load bank, CT's scaled to look big). It arrived sealed in a crate with desiccant looking like it just left the factory and working perfectly, including phase permissive and reverse power relays.

I also did troubleshooting and ran the acceptance test on a diesel engineroom hot plant ~'95, which included ~1MW generators and a control system with a Woodward APD (Automatic Paralleling Device), which initially did not work. The Woodward factory rep (Woodward customer support rocks) showed up with schematics and we set it up on a bench with fake inputs and followed the signals through, finding and replacing a faulty SSI logic chip.

The APD had 2 inputs, Vac of the bus and oncoming generator, and 3 outputs, raise speed, lower speed, and generator breaker close relay contacts. The Vac inputs were from PT's scaled to 120 VAC at rated system voltage as is standard, to a 120/~60V transformer with one side of secondary to common and the other through a resistor to clamping diodes at

Probably done with uCs these days, but the method will be the same - exactly the way the operator does it manually.

(Vac is the standard for voltage regulator input also, along with -Ib, because with a balanced load reactive power is exactly Vac(-Ib), and you must measure reactive power to control paralleled generators.)

All very straightforward to anyone who has attended the one week course on generator controls and protective relaying by Basler Electric :-).

I met a woman in a gay bar, and she said her MG Midget was running bad. We went outside and it was idling at 3000 RPM, so I whipped out my Swiss Army knife and turned it down to 1000. Then I married her.

In fact the actual phase angle differences are minute. On a perfect generator that would be nil, but internal resistance allows a little phase angle to develop

I'm with Ed on this subthread.

I don't have his experience with boilers, but I do have a wood burning stove in my house.

To get it from cold up to heat takes half an hour or so. Once it's burning properly I can throttle it back to perhaps 20% of output, and it will tick along nicely.

Any less than that and it starts to gradually go out. It'll take a long time - a good load of wood will still be smouldering the next morning - but from that smouldering state it takes a while to get going at full power again.

I _can_ _not_ turn it up and down every couple of minutes. Even though I have complete control over the airflow it takes a while to change.

If it was feeding a steam boiler there would be more energy in the pressurised steam to act as a buffer - but even then you can't go from "hot, but burning negligible fuel" up to a steady state full power output really quickly.

Incidentally I've recently heard that there's a suggestion that the rare metals for batteries may be obtained by strip mining the deep sea floor. I'm sure that that won't affect any of the rare animals that live down there, nor disturb the methane clathrates and release enormous quantities of greenhouse gases. Much...

Andy

One figure of merit for a big steam boiler is turndown ratio, how low the fuel burn can go compared to max. They usually have multiple burners so that helps.

Our Bosch kitchen stove has a great turndown ratio, with essntially multiple concentric gas burners per flame.

I don't believe you, they must absorb some of the air speed.

By "Katy Human"? What kind of a surname is that?

Downwind indeed. Then they were badly positioned.

Who's to say we want to stop it?

Anybody with any sense. You and John Larkin are clearly excluded by that restriction. but don't have enough sense to realise that you ought to shut up.

What kind of first name is "Commander"?

Do they look alike?

Why can't they make the generator exert more torque so it slows to an acceptable RPM?

My neighbour in the 90s had a 20kW huge water tank which turned on by radio signal from the electricity board. It heated his house with radiators.

Water powered air conditioning?! Water isn't cold enough.

The only reason for green stuff is for when oil and gas run out.

At the moment the reason seems to be because of a childish argument with Russia and their gas supply. The Ukraine ought to get back in the USSR where it belongs.

There's a bunch on the hills near me which never all turn at the same speed. Some 5 times faster than others.

Funny, I have some diesel in a gerry can here, it isn't gunk at room temperature.

Toobs, missls, offfffensive. When will you guys learn to speak?