Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?...

[Sylvia Else]

On 19-Mar-23 3:31 am, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

Sylvia.

If a steam plant makes too much power until it can throttle down, and
nobody wants the power, why not dump steam into the condenser?

I don\'t know what the technical issue is, but here in Australia, it\'s
not especially unusual for the spot electricity price to go negative at
night when coal plants don\'t want to reduce their output. If they had
another solution that didn\'t involve spending money, I\'m sure they\'d use it.

Sylvia.

 

[Bob F]

On 3/18/2023 9:23 AM, alan_m wrote:

On 18/03/2023 15:31, John Larkin wrote:

We do get free LED bulbs and Christmas lights from TDPUD!

No you don\'t. The only way they reach you from the money you pay either
by a company overcharging or from taxation

Maybe not.

The power companies know that LED bulbs cost a lot less than new power
sources.

 

[Ricky]

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 5:43:54 PM UTC-4, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 10:39 pm, Peeler wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else, another brain dead,
troll-feeding senile ASSHOLE, blathered:


Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing output.

And the second retarded troll-feeding senile ASSHOLE appeared and willingly
fed the attention-starved trolling Scottish swine!


You could kill-file me. I promise I won\'t mind.

Really? You think it will do any good at all to talk to that guy? Or was it for our entertainment?

--

Rick C.

-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[alan_m]

On 18/03/2023 19:09, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in
hand held pad, goodbye.



Never heard or that long.  Been once a month here for over 70 years that
I know of.  30 seconds?  Really?  So five minutes for 10 houses.  Try it
and get back to us.

In which country is this once a month appearance by a meter reader?

Here in the the UK in 40 years of house ownership I\'ve only had the
meter readers enter my property around 20 times. The water meter is
outside and read around twice a year (water and sewage bills are every 6
months but paid monthly by direct debit straight from my bank account).
I also pay for my electricity and gas by a monthly direct debit.

I was making the comparison about 15 minutes to fit a smart meter which
didn\'t include any allowance for travelling or picking the meter up from
a depot. It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

 

[alan_m]

On 18/03/2023 20:41, Bob F wrote:

On 3/18/2023 12:09 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered
in hand held pad, goodbye.



Never heard or that long.  Been once a month here for over 70 years
that I know of.  30 seconds?  Really?  So five minutes for 10 houses.
Try it and get back to us.

Indoor meter for someone that is never home?

That bill could really hurt.

Only if the power company haven\'t overestimated the usage for when they
take the monthly DD.

From the defunct Bulb Energy FAQ

Morrison Data Services carry out meter readings for us.

Meter readers are required to visit everyone\'s property at least once
every 2 years to make sure everything\'s safe and ticking over properly.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

 

[Rod Speed]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 08:51:20 +1100, alan_m <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/03/2023 19:09, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in
hand held pad, goodbye.

Never heard or that long. Been once a month here for over 70 years
that I know of. 30 seconds? Really? So five minutes for 10 houses.
Try it and get back to us.

In which country is this once a month appearance by a meter reader?

He\'s a yank. So is Bowman and Cindy.

Here in the the UK in 40 years of house ownership I\'ve only had the
meter readers enter my property around 20 times. The water meter is
outside and read around twice a year (water and sewage bills are every 6
months but paid monthly by direct debit straight from my bank account).
I also pay for my electricity and gas by a monthly direct debit.

I was making the comparison about 15 minutes to fit a smart meter which
didn\'t include any allowance for travelling or picking the meter up from
a depot. It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.

The difference is that the meter reader goes down the street
reading meters. Meter installers don\'t.

 

[Bob F]

On 3/18/2023 2:46 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 19-Mar-23 3:31 am, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing
output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

Sylvia.

If a steam plant makes too much power until it can throttle down, and
nobody wants the power, why not dump steam into the condenser?


I don\'t know what the technical issue is, but here in Australia, it\'s
not especially unusual for the spot electricity price to go negative at
night when coal plants don\'t want to reduce their output. If they had
another solution that didn\'t involve spending money, I\'m sure they\'d use
it.

That would be really nice for charging your car.

 

[Ricky]

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 5:51:28 PM UTC-4, alan_m wrote:

On 18/03/2023 19:09, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in
hand held pad, goodbye.



Never heard or that long. Been once a month here for over 70 years that
I know of. 30 seconds? Really? So five minutes for 10 houses. Try it
and get back to us.
In which country is this once a month appearance by a meter reader?

Here in the the UK in 40 years of house ownership I\'ve only had the
meter readers enter my property around 20 times. The water meter is
outside and read around twice a year (water and sewage bills are every 6
months but paid monthly by direct debit straight from my bank account).
I also pay for my electricity and gas by a monthly direct debit.

I was making the comparison about 15 minutes to fit a smart meter which
didn\'t include any allowance for travelling or picking the meter up from
a depot. It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.

But do you think they drive back to the shop for each meter? The truck is full of meters and they go from one house to the other fitting them. Here in the US, the meters fit into a base. There\'s no wiring to the meter. It\'s not much different from plugging in a big lamp bulb. I\'d expect it to be 15 minutes only if that includes the paperwork and the driving.

--

Rick C.

-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 6:04:48 PM UTC-4, Rod Speed wrote:

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 08:51:20 +1100, alan_m <ju...@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/03/2023 19:09, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in
hand held pad, goodbye.

Never heard or that long. Been once a month here for over 70 years
that I know of. 30 seconds? Really? So five minutes for 10 houses.
Try it and get back to us.

In which country is this once a month appearance by a meter reader?
He\'s a yank. So is Bowman and Cindy.
Here in the the UK in 40 years of house ownership I\'ve only had the
meter readers enter my property around 20 times. The water meter is
outside and read around twice a year (water and sewage bills are every 6
months but paid monthly by direct debit straight from my bank account).
I also pay for my electricity and gas by a monthly direct debit.

I was making the comparison about 15 minutes to fit a smart meter which
didn\'t include any allowance for travelling or picking the meter up from
a depot. It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.
The difference is that the meter reader goes down the street
reading meters. Meter installers don\'t.

Why not???

--

Rick C.

+-- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Peeler]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 08:43:46 +1100, Sylvia Else, the troll-loving senile
asshole, blathered again:

And the second retarded troll-feeding senile ASSHOLE appeared and willingly
fed the attention-starved trolling Scottish swine!


You could kill-file me. I promise I won\'t mind.

So you could keep feeding the troll without me noticing it? Nice try,
troll-loving bimbo! LOL

 

[Peeler]

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 09:04:37 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

<FLUSH the abnormal trolling senile cretin\'s latest trollshit unread>

--
The Natural Philosopher about senile Rodent:
\"Rod speed is not a Brexiteer. He is an Australian troll and arsehole.\"
Message-ID: <pu07vj$s5$2@dont-email.me>

 

[micky]

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:06:52 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
<esp@snet.xxx> wrote:

There are a lot of stores from meter readers too. Some houses had coal
stoves and people burned all sort of stuff,

When my parents got married, my father bought a stoker, a hopper with a
worm gear, so that my mother (well, I didn\'t exist so they weren\'t
parents yet.) so my mother wouldnt\' have to shovel coal all day long.
He\'d fill it up in the morning. But he was 53 and it didn\'t take long
before he didn\'t like filling up the stoker and they put in a gas
furnace.

such as every other step
going to the basement. They also got to know the exhibitionists on the
route too.

That\'s good.

My electric meter here is read daily. I can go on line or my phone and
see current charges and projected bill at any time.

 

[micky]

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 21:51:20 +0000, alan_m
<junk@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

On 18/03/2023 19:09, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 3/18/2023 2:44 PM, alan_m wrote:
On 18/03/2023 17:34, Rod Speed wrote:

Ours are read 4 times a year and it takes a lot more than 30 seconds
to read.

Where I live it was more like once every two years. Knock on the door
with torch in hand, read the figures on two meters, figures entered in
hand held pad, goodbye.



Never heard or that long.  Been once a month here for over 70 years that
I know of.  30 seconds?  Really?  So five minutes for 10 houses.  Try it
and get back to us.

In which country is this once a month appearance by a meter reader?

The USA.

Here in the the UK in 40 years of house ownership I\'ve only had the
meter readers enter my property around 20 times. The water meter is
outside and read around twice a year (water and sewage bills are every 6
months but paid monthly by direct debit straight from my bank account).
I also pay for my electricity and gas by a monthly direct debit.

I was making the comparison about 15 minutes to fit a smart meter which
didn\'t include any allowance for travelling or picking the meter up from
a depot.

At the start of the day they load 35 meters into his truck, and give him
a list of houses close together, maybe right next to each other. They
plan to do all the houses asap so going one by one down the street is
the simplest way. (If they only do some, then the meter reader still
has to go there for the few houses that are left, and that itself is
inefficient.)

It take a minute to cut the lead-sealed metal strip that holds on the
old meter, a minute to take off the 10\" metal ring that holds the meter
to the base, a minute to pull the meter (10 seconds, really), 2 minutes
to take a new meter out of its box, remove the plastic covers to the 3
big tabs, and insert the meter into the base, a minute to replace the
ring, and a minute to attach a new lead band. That\'s 7 minutes.

Then a minute to enter the meter number (of the new meter) and the new
lead band number into the log, a minute to put the old meter into the
box the new meter came in, and 4 minutes to pick up the old meter and
walk back to the truck. That\'s 13 minutes.

Now, to get to the next address -- maybe it\'s next door -- and take
another meter from the back of the truck.

It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.

My estimate is realistic. I started with an hour until I remembered how
simple it is, that it\'s not necessary to cut the power to the house and
no wiring is required. It unplugs and plugs back in. I myself have
pulled a meter, removed the plastic covers from the tabs, and replaced
it. Took literally two minutes.

 

[server]

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 08:49:35 -0700 (PDT), Anthony William Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2:31:38?AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 10:49:57 +0000, alan_m <ju...@admac.myzen.co.uk
wrote:
On 18/03/2023 09:39, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Windmills will still be useless when there\'s no wind. Pity that there\'s no good way to store electricity.

None that John Larkin knows about.
Pumped hydroelectric storage has been popular for ages,

Pumped hydro requires two quite big lakes at quite close together with
a significant difference in height.Not all countries have such
conditions.

Some back of the envelope calculations:

Assuming 100 m height difference and 1000 m3/s through turbines(pumps.
The electric power is about 1 GW so it can deliver the power of only
330 wind turbines (each 3 MW).

If the water level is allowed to vary by 10 m, at 1000 m3/s stream a 1
km2 surface lake only lasts for 10000 seconds or 3 hours. Usable to
handle day peaks. To ride through a week long calm period, each lake
should have a 56 km2 surface area. This handles just the missed
production of 330 windmills !!

>and grid scale batteries are being installed all over the place, but they don\'t look \"good\" to John Larkin.

The utility size batteries seems to be packed into sea containers
storing about 30 MWh. This will store the production of a _single_3 MW
wind turbine for 10 hours. Install a battery container at the base of
each turbine and the system can handle half a day missing wind
production. To handle a week of missing wind production, several
containers would be needed at every wind turbine. Not very cost
effective !!

Use diesels or gas turbines to back up the missing wind production
during calm days.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-18 20:57, Bob F wrote:

On 3/18/2023 7:27 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-18 12:17, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much
power on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra
power.  Is this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations
they can just turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can
be willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing
output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

Yes, they need a different kind of inverter, way more expensive, to do
that.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

On the other hand, any synchronous generator (without electronics)
runs as a motor if the voltage on the output rises (constant speed,
though). I don\'t suppose they like that on hydro places, could do damage.


There are hydro power plants that pump water up during low usage and use
the motors as generators when more is needed.

Different thing.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 19-Mar-23 2:54 am, Ricky wrote:

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 7:23:16 AM UTC-4, Frank wrote:
On 3/18/2023 5:39 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power. Is
this really true? Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit? Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home. And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?
Does not make any sense. I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you do,
pump back wind?

No, you speed it on its way. Then the next wind farm downstream can take advantage of it and recover the wind you created. Much more efficient than using wires to transport electricity.

It is hard for me to imagine that anyone is taking this seriously. On face value, it\'s a silly idea. Dig into even the basic facts and it becomes preposterous.

Typical Commander Kinky stuff.

Not untypical for a thinking person\'s group. Even if an idea is wacky,
people kick it around, and see what comes out of it. Sometimes one
learns something new.

Sylvia.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

søndag den 19. marts 2023 kl. 00.19.28 UTC+1 skrev upsid...@downunder.com:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 08:49:35 -0700 (PDT), Anthony William Sloman
bill....@ieee.org> wrote:

On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 2:31:38?AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 10:49:57 +0000, alan_m <ju...@admac.myzen.co.uk
wrote:
On 18/03/2023 09:39, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Windmills will still be useless when there\'s no wind. Pity that there\'s no good way to store electricity.

None that John Larkin knows about.
Pumped hydroelectric storage has been popular for ages,


Pumped hydro requires two quite big lakes at quite close together with
a significant difference in height.Not all countries have such
conditions.

you can build one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_Station

 

[Sylvia Else]

On 19-Mar-23 9:07 am, Bob F wrote:

On 3/18/2023 2:46 PM, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 19-Mar-23 3:31 am, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building
new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and
can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing
output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

Sylvia.

If a steam plant makes too much power until it can throttle down, and
nobody wants the power, why not dump steam into the condenser?


I don\'t know what the technical issue is, but here in Australia, it\'s
not especially unusual for the spot electricity price to go negative
at night when coal plants don\'t want to reduce their output. If they
had another solution that didn\'t involve spending money, I\'m sure
they\'d use it.

That would be really nice for charging your car.

Though of course, the end user never sees a cent of this.

Sylvia.

 

[alan_m]

On 18/03/2023 23:19, micky wrote:

It take a minute to cut the lead-sealed metal strip that holds on the
old meter, a minute to take off the 10\" metal ring that holds the meter
to the base, a minute to pull the meter (10 seconds, really), 2 minutes
to take a new meter out of its box, remove the plastic covers to the 3
big tabs, and insert the meter into the base, a minute to replace the
ring, and a minute to attach a new lead band. That\'s 7 minutes.

My electric smart meter was installed with new tails and an isolation
switch. On the same visit a smart gas meter was installed with the
necessary purging and gas pressure/leak safety checks and the additional
checks to ensure all gas appliances were working satisfactory afterwards.

Now, to get to the next address -- maybe it\'s next door -- and take
another meter from the back of the truck.

It\'s a like for like comparison about the meter reader only
taking 30 seconds from entering my property to leaving it having read
both the electricity and gas meters.

My estimate is realistic. I started with an hour until I remembered how
simple it is, that it\'s not necessary to cut the power to the house and
no wiring is required. It unplugs and plugs back in.

In the UK it does not plug in and in my case the suppliers fuse was
pulled to cut the supply.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

 

[Ricky]

On Saturday, March 18, 2023 at 7:02:02 PM UTC-4, micky wrote:

In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 18 Mar 2023 17:06:52 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
e...@snet.xxx> wrote:


There are a lot of stores from meter readers too. Some houses had coal
stoves and people burned all sort of stuff,
When my parents got married, my father bought a stoker, a hopper with a
worm gear, so that my mother (well, I didn\'t exist so they weren\'t
parents yet.) so my mother wouldnt\' have to shovel coal all day long.
He\'d fill it up in the morning. But he was 53 and it didn\'t take long
before he didn\'t like filling up the stoker and they put in a gas
furnace.
such as every other step
going to the basement. They also got to know the exhibitionists on the
route too.
That\'s good.

My electric meter here is read daily. I can go on line or my phone and
see current charges and projected bill at any time.

I have friends who burn wood because it can be cheaper. I can\'t think why anyone would want to do all that work. Filling a hopper seems trivial in comparison. But I don\'t want to do that either.

--

Rick C.

+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209