When Germanys wind power peaks Dutch power grid frys

[XRay]

What did I read in the newspaper this morning, I had to wash my face and read it again. Ok here it is, in short:

"The growing amount of German windmills unbalances the Dutch power grid, witch connects north-Germany with south-Germanys power grid. In a 20 minutes peak, Dutch power grid will be toasted. In December and January last year TenneT had a crises situation and had to ask big consumers to reduce power consumption. The problem is just the speed in which peaks build up and the unpredictable path current takes (shortest path, lowest resistance)"

In this article they also speak about all of west European countries having problems with the German wind power peaks.

Whow!! wind power (almost) toasted Dutch power grid (@@)

But one thing I dont fully understand is: if consuming is almost constant, how come, over capacity can toast the grid??

Greeting,

Ray

Sorry for my rusty Dutch looking English.)

[nothing to lose]

"In December and January last year TenneT had a crises situation and had to ask big consumers to reduce power consumption."

"if consuming is almost constant, how come, over capacity can toast the grid??"

I think the problem is consumption is not constant. You say there it said they had to ask people to reduce usage. Perhaps what they are trying to say is the incomming grid cannot handle the power produced from the Germans mills, they get to much incomming overloading that end of the system when demand is high. Maybe like you have 220V, it's 2 legs of 110V. So if you had a 100amp service and balance the load 50amps each leg no problem, but 100amps on one leg might fry faulty low end wires or something. So maybe the leg comming in from Germany sends in too much durring peaks and over loads that leg, which of course powers many places at once. It goes down and dumps the total load onto the remaing leg which then cannot handle the sudden dump and also goes down.

Or think of 2 gennies running to power a large load. Path of least resistance, the closest gennie supplies the largest part of a close load and the extra load is supplied by a further away gennie. All is fine, now take out a 50 amp gennie and put in a 150 amp gennie with the same wires, breakers etc... The loads try to draw off the larger closer gennie more than the furthest genie but the old wire and circuits for the small 50amp gennie can't handle the load from the 150 amp gennie.

Just one type thought/idea.

Hope I actaully said that close to what I was thinking here so it makes some kind of sence

[XRay]

Ok, Im trying to anderstand the genie part of your replay:

So two 50 amp gennies one close one further away from the load. The total load draws say: 80 amps. What difference would the load be on those old wires if I replace the further away genie from 50 to 150 amp genie? No problem I should say. Please correct me if I am wrong. I think it will get problematic if the load exceeds 100 amps?

Greeting,

Ray

[Gary D]

Ray, it sounds more like Germany has a grid problem. As they put in more gennies, they either need to up the transmition lines voltages, or add more power lines to handle the current.

 The way it seems to be going, they are passing their grid infrastructure issues to other countries. As in a small system, any wire size can only carry so much current at a certain voltage. Either upping the voltage (dropping the amps) or adding more lines would help the situation. But transformers aren't cheap.... Otherwise they possibly should be forced to shut down a few units during "peaks" in production. The EU might need to set rules governing overprodution without grid capability? They obviously need someone to review things gridwise before things get worse... Thoughts from a dummy here...

[finnsawyer]

I assume the big consumers were in Southern Germany and the problem was that the Dutch system couldn't handle the large power demand in Southern Germany.  I'm not sure the problem was actually wind generation per say, but rather that Northern Germany was trying to feed too much power through the Dutch Grid.  That excess power could just as well come from hydro, coal, oil, or nuclear generators.  It may be possible that the wind generators contributed in some way to instabilities in the Dutch grid, due to transient effects.  One needs a more specific explanation of what happened.

[nothing to lose]

I am thinking replace the closest gennie with larger gennie would be the problem here not replacing the furthest one. The one closet to the load it would seem to be the one to get the heaviest draw. And if this one goes down then it dumps full load onto the furthest genny of course. Now if you replaced that furthest one also with a larger one but not upgrade any other equipment you could still have a fried grid when the larger furthest genny tried to supply the full load. It would have the ability but not the connection so maybe it keeps running but fries the old wires and blows fuses etc..??

Kinda along the lines what I was thinking with the info on hand.

[nothing to lose]

Wouldn't the main problem still be the load?

I mean if you run a genny full speed it does not burn out a cheapo zip cord extension cord just because it's a 5K genny running 3500rpm and has a 100watt load, right.

So I really don't see how making too much power is the problem myself. The problem I would think is the demand for that power is too high. Like putting a 3K load at the end of the mentioned zip cord, just ain't going to work. Upgrade to better wires etc... to the source as needed. Same with a breaker, you don't blow a 15 amp breaker on a 5K genny just because 5k is available, you need a load in excess of 15 amps or other problem like shorted wires.

So shutting down power ability is not the answer, I would think fixing faulty equipment is so that the load can be supplied the power that is available.

[farmerfrank]

Just guessing also but I think most of the conventional power is generated in the south. As wind in the north increases, powerplants in the south must cut back or shutdown to keep voltage and frequency in limits. This is when the extra load gets put on the grid which is usually well balanced. During the East Coast blackout several years ago, powerplants went down like dominos almost immediately when the grid failed.

[XRay]

Thanks all,

It's a bit clearer now, this minister who was talking in this article was just blaming windmills, I think to get a better understanding to the people that new extra power lines must be build. People in Holland just don't want more power lines, every ware you look power lines is what you see. Germany really needs to take care of there own grid.

Greetings,

Ray

[bl23]

It most likely messes with the power factor of the grid. If you bring a windmill online 180 degrees out of phase it will look like a short.  Even if it is in phase the transmission line must be bale o handle the load.

[RP]

I think it might be kind of like this:

If the wind farms are near the "thin" end of the grid, then a lot of power could get rammed into a fairly weak link in the network.