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A really interesting and informative video about High Voltage DC power interconnectors of the kind we have between Britain and France, Belgium Netherlands, Norway, Ireland and (soon) Denmark. Engineering with Rosie explains why D.C. is chosen and both the benefits/drawbacks of building even longer cables, such as the UK-Morocco link or even a transatlantic cable.

youtube.com/watch?v=JH9-0AbR_1…


Electricity Across Oceans: Is HVDC the Future?

How can we connect power grids across long distances or across seas and oceans? The answer is high voltage direct current, or HVDC, interconnectors.In this v...
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Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
mastodon - Link to source
Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
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@goatsarah @ajlanes I can’t help feeling that the Morocco-UK link would be easier and quicker to do by transmitting through the Spanish and French land-based grids. After all, the east coast side of England’s grid (with most of the interconnectors) has become, at times, a fancy way of selling electricity between non-adjacent European countries.
@Sarah Brown @Alexandra Lanes
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Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
mastodon - Link to source
Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
• •
@goatsarah @ajlanes Whilst it’s not surrounded by water it is (a) surrounded by chalk and (b) running through a long reinforced concrete tube full of rebar, so the cable would have an impedance for AC similar to coax. But I agree that the need for AC synchronisation would result in having to build inverters at both ends anyway, especially for it to be bidirectional
@Sarah Brown @Alexandra Lanes
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Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
mastodon - Link to source
Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖
• •
@ajlanes @goatsarah I’m sure you’re right there. I forgot about those pesky mountains. Also, I’m wondering whether they concluded that, for 3.5GW, it’s more cost effective to own and operate your own cables.
@Sarah Brown @Alexandra Lanes
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Alexandra Lanes
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Alexandra Lanes
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@goatsarah @ajlanes@thegoatery.dyndns.org The train operators might complain if you started using too much of their juice!
@Sarah Brown @Alexandra Lanes
in reply to kæt

Alexandra Lanes
mastodon - Link to source
Alexandra Lanes
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@chiffchaff @goatsarah The article linked to there about the third interconnect says: “The link would be similar to the two currently in service, 400 kilovolts in alternating current and each with a technical capacity of 700 MW.” ree.es/en/press-office/news/pr…
@Sarah Brown @kæt
in reply to Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

kæt
mastodon - Link to source
kæt
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@goatsarah @ajlanes It's also much easier to control flows with HVDC because you can advance or retard the inverters, which makes it a more tradable commodity. Sometimes short HVDC links are added to grids just to improve stability through controllability.
@Sarah Brown @Alexandra Lanes
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kæt
mastodon - Link to source
kæt
• •
@goatsarah Ah right. Afaict from a bit of googling, the cables which land at Tarifa are HVDC, the ones in Gibraltar are AC.
@Sarah Brown
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kæt
mastodon - Link to source
kæt
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@goatsarah AC grids are weirdly organic things compared to what you first expect. You can stick a bunch of power plants, loads, capacitors, etc, here and there, but it's much more like "if we put a rock here, the tide will tend to flow that way" than "send 500MW to Ruritania, stat!" which HVDC can manage. That's why it's often included as a "smart grid" technology.
@Sarah Brown
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