Crikey !! I didn't know what I was starting when I opened this thread !
OK. Lets put some figures on it.
Last figures I could find were for 2003. Total UK generation capacity was
78.5GW at that time. Power generation for the year was 376.8 BkWH. Power
consumption for the year was
399.8 BkWH, a shortfall of some 5.1 BkWH, which was imported from our grid
connection to mainland Europe, via France.
There are some 23 countries cross connected in the European grid, supplying
approx 450m people ( that's a few more than the U.S. grid ... )
The typical cross border capacity appears to be 2 way - ie to two adjacent
network operators -at 2.5 GW per way - a net import / export capability of 5
GW per border crossing.
The original UK / France undersea cableway, comprised two single conductor
cables with a DC capacity of 160MW total ( the power is rectified to DC and
reinverted to AC at either end ). This cable has since been replaced with a
4 cable system, each comprising a positive / negative pair. These are buried
in the sea floor in trenches 600mm wide, separated by 1 km to avoid
interaction of the magnetic fields with marine navigation equipment.
The total capacity of this connection is 2GW DC net import / export.
The total consumption of the 23 countries, is around 2300 TW.
So, a total grid somewhat larger than the US one,in terms of subscribers,
and quite possibly in distances and geographical area, and to the best of my
knowledge, it has never fallen over in such a spectacular way as the US one
sometimes does.
Geoff
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Do Little2 wrote:
Don't be silly. All overhead supplied domestic supplies are RCD
protected. Fitted by the supply provider.
Not silly at all, I only wrote what a Canadian visitor saw in a barn
near Whitby in the UK.
A barn is unlikely to be directly supplied, but 'exported' from the
adjacent farm house. And will then be protected by the supplier's RCD.
And if it really did have a knife switch that dates back to DC days - ie
before WW2. I've never seen one outside a museum of such things. ;-)
None of the silly thermal devices so loved across the pond. ;-)
Good point! However, most thermal devices have been outlawed (in the
1970's ?) in television, radios, etc..
But as circuit breakers in domestic installations?
BTW, just how do they adjust the electrical heating for the houses in
the UK ? :-)
No one in their right mind uses electricity for heating. We use gas or
oil.
It would only make sense if that electricity was generated by some other
fuel - like renewable energy. But not if it's generated by oil or gas.
You can get very close to 100% efficiency with a condensing gas boiler -
not really possible with a variable demand gas burning power station, even
before the transmission losses.
--
*Life is hard; then you nap
Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.