On 16/02/2021 17:48, jon wrote:
On Tue, 16 Feb 2021 09:20:47 -0500, Paul wrote:

Andy Burns wrote:
Brian Gaff wrote:

Yes well I have no real idea how all generating gear can be
synchronised either. Seems a trifle crude but then I guess getting it
wrong could be rather nasty, so how is it done when they import power
from other countries,
how do they go about deciding who needs to synchronise to whom?

You either have a fully synchronised grid covering a continent
(remember how serbia/kosovo were causing all european mains to run slow
a wile back?)

Or you link them using HVDC, and then you don't need to sync.

And you see in the news today, that Texas is screwed right now, because
it's not integrated into the rest of the grid. They live or die, on the
power they create locally for themselves. And they're doing blackouts at
the moment. The "ERCOT" in the picture here, is the island that does not
have sufficient internal generating capacity at the moment. They did
this, as a means to avoid federal regulation of their power by FERC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_a...s_grid#/media/
File:Nercmap.JPG

There's a lot of this going around. These power islands are all over the
place.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_a...s_grid#/media/
File:ElectricityUCTE.svg

Power islands are clever, except when you don't have enough power.

Paul

It's better to have a central power grid with all power stations piped
into it.

This depends on scale.

From Wikipedia:

"The electrical power grid that powers North America is not a single
grid, but is instead divided into multiple wide area synchronous grids."

Russia has a single grid, China has two.