They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:06:24 +0000, Andy Bennet wrote:

On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

I didn't know / imagine that (or guess why)?

Cheers, T i m

On 06/03/2018 14:32, T i m wrote:
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:06:24 +0000, Andy Bennet wrote:

On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

I am a bit surprised they have let it drift quite so far though. I guess
it must have been very cold everywhere and they lacked any spare
capacity to catch up even in the quiet hours of early morning.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

I didn't know / imagine that (or guess why)?

It is even more important in Japan where the east half the island is on
UK 50Hz mains and the west half on US kit at 60Hz. The voltage is also
non-standard at 100v which makes it marginal for real US kit to work.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 06/03/18 14:41, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 06 Mar 2018 14:32:24 +0000, T i m wrote:

On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:06:24 +0000, Andy Bennet wrote:

On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

I didn't know / imagine that (or guess why)?


AIUI short-distance undersea interconnectors are sometimes AC, but
long-distance ones are almost always DC, because they experience
significant capacitance* losses if AC due to being surrounded by an
earthed conductor, i.e. salt water.

*but might be inductance. IANAE

Not usre there are ANY undersea AC links

It is capaacitance that kills - power factor is vile and that leads to
large out of phase currents which heat the cable up



--
"If you dont read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain

On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 16:05:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Not usre there are ANY undersea AC links

Isle of Man to Bispham near Blackpool
40MW at 90kV
104km (longest in the world)

Spain to Morocco
600MW @ 400kV
27km
--

On Tue, 06 Mar 2018 14:41:39 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:

snip

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

I didn't know / imagine that (or guess why)?


AIUI short-distance undersea interconnectors are sometimes AC, but
long-distance ones are almost always DC, because they experience
significant capacitance* losses if AC due to being surrounded by an
earthed conductor, i.e. salt water.

*but might be inductance. IANAE

Thanks Chris, it makes sense.

Cheers, T i m

Andy Bennet wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx


Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

It's exactly *why* they're DC as I understand it, the difficulty of
synchronising our grid with the French grid.

For longer cables DC makes sense for other reasons but for the 25 odd
miles across the channel I'm pretty sure it was the synchronisation
issue that was the reason for using DC.

Weren't they originally huge mercury arc rectifiers or is that just my
wierd imagination? :-)

--
Chris Green
·

On 06/03/18 14:57, Chris Green wrote:
Andy Bennet wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx


Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

It's exactly *why* they're DC as I understand it, the difficulty of
synchronising our grid with the French grid.

For longer cables DC makes sense for other reasons but for the 25 odd
miles across the channel I'm pretty sure it was the synchronisation
issue that was the reason for using DC.

No, it is losses.


Weren't they originally huge mercury arc rectifiers or is that just my
wierd imagination? :-)

Yes.



--
"If you dont read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain

On 06/03/2018 16:05, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/03/18 14:57, Chris Green wrote:
Andy Bennet wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx



Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

It's exactly *why* they're DC as I understand it, the difficulty of
synchronising our grid with the French grid.

For longer cables DC makes sense for other reasons but for the 25 odd
miles across the channel I'm pretty sure it was the synchronisation
issue that was the reason for using DC.

No, it is losses.


Weren't they originally huge mercury arc rectifiers or is that just my
wierd imagination? :-)

Yes.


Indeed. According to Wikipedia, the largest were rated at 270 MW (the
main French interconnector is 2000 MW

"However, starting about 1975, silicon devices have made mercury-arc
rectifiers largely obsolete, even in HVDC applications. The largest ever
mercury-arc rectifiers, built by English Electric, were rated at 150-kV,
1800 A and were used until 2004 at the Nelson River DC Transmission
System high-voltage DC-power-transmission project."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercur..._Gillam_MB.jpg

On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:57:56 +0000, Chris Green wrote:

Andy Bennet wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx


Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

Good job the interconnctors are DC!

It's exactly *why* they're DC as I understand it, the difficulty of
synchronising our grid with the French grid.

Isolating the grids into separate frequency regions is useful with a relatively
weak connection but it's not just for system stability and frequency purposes,
the losses are lower and above all you have the ability to alter power transfer.
If the UK agrees with France for a 500MW export from our end that is nothing
more than a few key presses away. They can set a specific export level almost
regardless of the prevailing conditions on the AC network with small balancing
adjustments in the order of 10's of MW's easy to make. The effect of that
transfer will be to make the UK frequency and voltage to drop and the
continental frequency and voltage to rise. That will be corrected by the
generator governors responding throttling back the continent and raising in the
UK.

Reverting to a fully floating state and reversing flow without physically
breaking the connection is also extremely rapid.

That transfer adjustment can be done on an AC network with quadrature boosters,
but then the losses end to end would be significantly higher and there would be
no separation of frequency region.

For longer cables DC makes sense for other reasons but for the 25 odd
miles across the channel I'm pretty sure it was the synchronisation
issue that was the reason for using DC.

Weren't they originally huge mercury arc rectifiers or is that just my
wierd imagination? :-)

The original link built back in the 60's did, the 2GW link from the 80's uses
thyristors. Fully updated and refitted a few years ago with a new control
scheme and uprated power electronics.


--

On 07/03/18 09:46, The Other Mike wrote:
Isolating the grids into separate frequency regions is useful with a relatively
weak connection but it's not just for system stability and frequency purposes,
the losses are lower and above all you have the ability to alter power transfer.

Yes. The propagation delay across the USA mandates that at 60Hz you
really dont wannna be THAT big..ortherwise your i8nphasde geretair is
out of phase at the other side of the country.

I suspect that the European grid may yet fragment a little more into
chinks with DC interconnectirs.

about 2000km is as big as I think you want to be



--
Any fool can believe in principles - and most of them do!

On 06/03/18 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

It is.


--
"If you dont read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed."

Mark Twain

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
On 06/03/18 13:52, newshound wrote:
On 06/03/2018 13:46, Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

Seems surprising.

I'm not sure if the continental grid is kept synchronised across all
countries. In the UK, any daily lag is usually fixed overnight.

It is.

Before the Berlin wall came down, there were two continental Europe
synchronisation zones, Western Europe run from Switzerland, and
Eastern Europe run from Moscow. The first was +/- 0.1Hz, the second
was +/- 1Hz, IIRC. The western side was actually very short on spare
capacity (particularly Germany), and the east had lots, but from
highly poluting sources. When the wall came down, Germany was in a
dilema at the time on using power from the east which Western German
industry desperately needed, but seriously pumping up the resulting
polution.

I haven't seen a good write-up since the political geography changed.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel

Before the Berlin wall came down, there were two continental Europe
synchronisation zones, Western Europe run from Switzerland, and
Eastern Europe run from Moscow. The first was +/- 0.1Hz, the second
was +/- 1Hz, IIRC. The western side was actually very short on spare
capacity (particularly Germany), and the east had lots, but from
highly poluting sources. When the wall came down, Germany was in a
dilema at the time on using power from the east which Western German
industry desperately needed, but seriously pumping up the resulting

Germany and Austria also have a separate grid to distribute power for their
railways,due to the electrification commencing in the 1900s and the
characteristics of motors of the era a low frequency of 16 and two thirds
was adopted. This low frequency is also used in Switzerland and Scandinavia
but they tend to generate from nearby hydro or convert from the 50hz grid
where required.

GH

On 08/03/2018 23:14, Marland wrote:
Andrew Gabriel

Before the Berlin wall came down, there were two continental Europe
synchronisation zones, Western Europe run from Switzerland, and
Eastern Europe run from Moscow. The first was +/- 0.1Hz, the second
was +/- 1Hz, IIRC. The western side was actually very short on spare
capacity (particularly Germany), and the east had lots, but from
highly poluting sources. When the wall came down, Germany was in a
dilema at the time on using power from the east which Western German
industry desperately needed, but seriously pumping up the resulting

Germany and Austria also have a separate grid to distribute power for their
railways,due to the electrification commencing in the 1900s and the
characteristics of motors of the era a low frequency of 16 and two thirds
was adopted. This low frequency is also used in Switzerland and Scandinavia
but they tend to generate from nearby hydro or convert from the 50hz grid
where required.

They must have 'normous transformers.

--
Max Demian

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

We've not maintained our average either - if the mains locked digital
clock I have here is to be believed. It is now further out than at any
time since I've had it.

--
*We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Yes well, I whenever convinced it was that accurate since I saw hum bars
rolling down tv screens in the 1960s.

I blame the solar inputs from invertors myself.
Brian

--
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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
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"Andy Burns" wrote in message
...
They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

In article , briang1
@blueyonder.co.uk says...

Yes well, I whenever convinced it was that accurate since I saw hum bars
rolling down tv screens in the 1960s.

Ah yes, I remember them well - bit our mains driven Smiths
Sectric clock was always right to the second at 8am the
following day!

--

Terry

---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com

In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:
In article , briang1
@blueyonder.co.uk says...

Yes well, I whenever convinced it was that accurate since I saw hum
bars rolling down tv screens in the 1960s.

Ah yes, I remember them well - bit our mains driven Smiths
Sectric clock was always right to the second at 8am the
following day!


I've just adjusted my mains locked large LED digital clock by a minute -
for the second time this year. First time I've had to bother - except when
the hour changes.

--
*The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:49:19 +0000, Terry Casey wrote:

In article , briang1 @blueyonder.co.uk
says...

Yes well, I whenever convinced it was that accurate since I saw hum
bars rolling down tv screens in the 1960s.

Ah yes, I remember them well - but our mains driven Smiths Sectric clock
was always right to the second at 8am the following day!

Hum bars would have only become apparent with the advent of colour TV
broadcasting which started mid 1967 in the UK. Prior to that, the
monochrome broadcasts (both 405 and 625 line) were locked to the national
grid.

I remember admiring the frequent adjustments being made (about every 15
seconds or so) by the national grid when watching the barely perceivable
hum bars roll up and down the mid grey, "after hours" raster display on
our TV set in the late 70s when it was obvious the master power station
(s) was (were) being controlled from a crystal/atomic clock reference
source to retain the grid's state of hard won resynchronisation with
'real time' during the wee small hours.

--
Johnny B Good

In article ,
Johnny B Good wrote:
On Thu, 08 Mar 2018 14:49:19 +0000, Terry Casey wrote:

In article , briang1 @blueyonder.co.uk
says...

Yes well, I whenever convinced it was that accurate since I saw hum
bars rolling down tv screens in the 1960s.

Ah yes, I remember them well - but our mains driven Smiths Sectric clock
was always right to the second at 8am the following day!

Hum bars would have only become apparent with the advent of colour TV
broadcasting which started mid 1967 in the UK. Prior to that, the
monochrome broadcasts (both 405 and 625 line) were locked to the national
grid.

I'm pretty sure the BBC went off mains lock once BBC2 turned up.

I remember admiring the frequent adjustments being made (about every 15
seconds or so) by the national grid when watching the barely perceivable
hum bars roll up and down the mid grey, "after hours" raster display on
our TV set in the late 70s when it was obvious the master power station
(s) was (were) being controlled from a crystal/atomic clock reference
source to retain the grid's state of hard won resynchronisation with
'real time' during the wee small hours.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

In article ,
Johnny B Good wrote:
Hum bars would have only become apparent with the advent of colour TV
broadcasting which started mid 1967 in the UK. Prior to that, the
monochrome broadcasts (both 405 and 625 line) were locked to the
national grid.

Not so. They went off mains lock some time before colour. I think it may
have been not long after BBC2 started.

--
*I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Fri, 09 Mar 2018 00:14:28 +0000, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Johnny B Good wrote:
Hum bars would have only become apparent with the advent of colour TV
broadcasting which started mid 1967 in the UK. Prior to that, the
monochrome broadcasts (both 405 and 625 line) were locked to the
national grid.

Not so. They went off mains lock some time before colour. I think it may
have been not long after BBC2 started.

Interesting, I wasn't aware that they'd divorced the system from the
mains frequency ahead of time. Prior to the start of actual colour
broadcasting, the 625 line system could have remained locked to the
national grid frequency. It was only when the PAL colour system came into
use that they were obliged to synchronise everything to the colour burst
frequency and run independently of the national grid reference which was
no longer stable enough in the short term to be of any use in the PAL
system.

Presumably, this change was implemented early on in readiness for colour
transmissions, perhaps to ease the final transition to a system that
could no longer be locked to the mains frequency.

--
Johnny B Good

On 06/03/2018 16:46, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 13:46:31 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

How much has UK paid for French electricity and foreign gas. What happens if
Russia turns off the flow of gas to UK? Something a bit more relevant to worry
about in UK.


Not much because we don't get much gas from Russia.
Now if Russia turned off its gas to the rest of its customers the price
would rocket.

I was actually thinking that I'd imagine powe cuts were the biggest
annoyance to clocks that cound mains cycles myself, not a slight loss due
to cycles.

Brian

--
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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"dennis@home" wrote in message
...
On 06/03/2018 16:46, Martin wrote:
On Tue, 6 Mar 2018 13:46:31 +0000, Andy Burns
wrote:

They've lost 5 minutes worth of cycles since mid-January

https://www.entsoe.eu/news-events/announcements/announcements-archive/Pages/News/Frequency-deviations-in-Continental-Europe-including-impact-on-electric-clocks-steered-by-frequency.aspx

How much has UK paid for French electricity and foreign gas. What
happens if
Russia turns off the flow of gas to UK? Something a bit more relevant to
worry
about in UK.


Not much because we don't get much gas from Russia.
Now if Russia turned off its gas to the rest of its customers the price
would rocket.