Tamaska-gl t1_itorhy3 wrote on October 25, 2022 at 5:09 AM

Reply to comment by EscapeRich9091 in eli5: how long would power stay on if the power company abandoned their post? by larsattacks94

In BC we are something close to 99% hydroelectric power (even the power company is called BC hydro) so we shouldn’t require this switching, does that mean our power grid would run longer without human intervention?

SnooFloofs3486 t1_itp1ezd wrote on October 25, 2022 at 7:15 AM

No. There's still a control room deciding how much water to flow. It possibly could be fully automated, but hydro on my system is still operated via the control room by humans. My guess is that yours is too.

EscapeRich9091 t1_itrihqo wrote on October 25, 2022 at 7:42 PM

If they've fully automated control, it could. But I doubt they have. Grid loading is actually pretty noisy... things like overall weather, temperature, wind gusts, even clouds passing over Solar farms, or large industrial consumers which could be taking in 1-2% of your load... the energy generation operators have to work to match that load as it gains and sheds and typically keep a little (but not too much, because it costs money) extra power generation above what is current needed to respond to micro-spikes, in addition to ramping and up and down with the day.

For example, on your average summer day if it's 30C out, you're going to need a lot more power than on a nice fall day where it's maybe 17C out and nobody is running air conditioning or heating. For a computer to predict that load and match it consistently to the generated power isn't easy.

Maybe they're doing it? But I think it's much, much more common for there to be a control room. There's further aspects to this, because we're glossing over how power grids actually work - there's a bidding process for energy that happens and the energy generators (wind, solar, power plants, hydro, whatever) will ramp up or down their energy contributions to the grid both based on load demand but also on energy pricing. Maybe in BC your utility is not for profit and that's not part of it, but in the US it certainly is a big deal.

In the end, it would run longer even if fully automated, but things like hydro plants are insanely complex. Without regular maintenance and inspection they're not likely to outlast a Wind or Solar farm.

Funny enough, small scale hydro (<10kW) with battery intermediates can be insanely reliable and maintenance free. I've seen reports of off-grid installs basically running for years with no maintenance other than clearing off leaves from the intake every 6mo or so.