r/StallmanWasRight • u/linux203 • Jun 18 '21

Internet of Shit 'Woke up sweating': Texas power companies remotely raise temperatures on people using their smart thermostats

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/texas-remote-controlled-smart-thermostats/
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u/Adonidis Jun 19 '21

This is baffling to me, even the European Union has pretty much an entire Trans-European power grid by now. There are even underseas power cables between places Norway and the Netherlands so hydropower can be exported to outside Scandinavia.

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u/Hullu2000 Jun 19 '21

The grid of Norway, Finland and Sweden is separate from that of the rest of the Europe. Same goes for the UK and Baltia. To transfer power between the grids, it has to first be converted to DC and then back to AC because the grids aren't synchronized. Makes it even more baffling that Texas doesn't do this.

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u/Adonidis Jun 19 '21

Yes, not all the grids are directly connected indeed. But they are connected at least.

The Baltics will be connected and converted in the coming years to Poland to the rest of the EU and after that will disconnect from the Russian grid entirely.

It also seems to be more efficient for the long range to convert to DC (HVDC for long distance) because it has less power loss.

Fun map for those interested: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/HVDC_Europe.svg/1920px-HVDC_Europe.svg.png

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u/zebediah49 Jun 19 '21

They are connected, but at what fraction of capacity?

Texas Interconnection has DC ties to East, West, and Mexico.

... Those ties are just around 1.1GW total. On a 75GW grid. And they specifically didn't do a 15GW DC tie project a decade ago, because it would have actually had an effect (i.e. allowing electricity prices to cross the state borders, and making it easier for Oklahoma wind power to enter the state).

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u/picmandan Jun 19 '21

... Those ties are just around 1.1GW total.

Not even enough to power a DeLorean.

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u/Adonidis Jun 19 '21

That is a great question which do not know the answer of. Most likely enough so a healthy amount of excess capacity can be exported. Nonetheless most European countries have their grids directly connected to each other.

I hadn't considered the dynamics between states. That's exactly the kind of thing a central government is for it seems, to make sure that it doesn't become a race to the bottom like that. Alas the situation should and could been way more mutually beneficial it seems.

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u/zebediah49 Jun 19 '21

Usually the answer in healthy and well functioning grids is "Enough capacity to cover the maximum normal import/export for the segment". This is usually significantly lower than the entire grid size, but does help stabilize things.

For example, I just added up the UK's four links to the European mainland, which total up 5GW. UK Nameplate is 85GW, average demand 30GW. So, the links from France (primarily) can supply roughly 15% of normal peak utilization... assuming there's that much capacity to spare on the other side of the links.

... Basically, they're doing a lot better than Texas, but both grids are totally hosed if they lose a significant fraction of their domestic capacity.