"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
news
On 13/03/18 12:13, NY wrote:
What were the reasons for the UK having its own grid, with a *DC*
connection to mainland Europe? Was it just that the UK wasn't part of
Europe at the time, or was there another more technical, less political
reason?

Well you see its this odd and not very political thing called GEOGRAPHY.
You maye have heard of it although its not as fashoinable as gay marriage,
but what it means is that if you walked all round the COAST like that
ponce on TV you find that is water on every side!

And that means its a long way to string pylons in shipping lanes so teh GB
grid is naturally isolated and always was, since ints inception in IIRC
the 1930s

Yes, that's a very good reason for not having *any* connection between UK
and mainland Europe. But given that there *is* a connection, is there a
reason why it is DC rather than AC? People have mentioned propagation delay?
How does the north-south length of the UK compare with the length and width
of the linked parts of mainland Europe?

Presumably if power is to be exported/imported over the DC link, there needs
to be a means of converting the DC back to AC at the correct frequency and
phase - probably at one time this would have involved rotary converters (DC
motor driving AC generator). Wouldn't this cause greater losses than in
transformers of an AC link? And the system needs to be reversible so energy
can be sent in either direction according to who has a surplus at any
instant.