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I take this to mean that HVDC links of the modern type can quite readily be used for short terms system balancing, making the need for OCGTs redundant. Or have I completely got this wrong?

Dave A

From: An ABB person…

Sent: 14 October 2008 18:46

Subject: RE: Speaker on HVDC

Hi,

Yes, that is one of the benefits of HVDC – you are able to control the power transfer with a response time in the 100-ms range!

Regards, L

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L
ABB Power Systems

Sweden

2008-10-13 11:28

Please respond to
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To
L

cc

Subject
RE: Speaker on HVDC

Hi Lennart – great shame you cannot come but no problem

Can I ask you a simple technical question please?

With a typical modern HVDC line, is it possible to control the transfer?

So in the case of a very high amount of wind power in say the UK, but with let us say 8GW of interconnections to the continent and Europe, to allow export of surplus and import during shortages, is it relatively possibly or straightforward to control the power delivered from / to the continent for the purposes of system balancing?

That is, could control of HVDC import / export substitute for say either OCGTs or spinning reserve from coal plant?

I would be interested in your views.

Kind Regards

Dave Andrews

I am not suggesting we need to go back to the appalling conditions endured during WW2, merely pointing out how easy it is to ramp up production if the will is there.

I think what you are not admitting, is that the NPV of 250,000 tanks, airplanes and anti aircraft guns is not only in itself negative, since they do not go to any productive purpose and do not earn a return, but furthermore is negative to other economic activities since they are used to liquidate other resources including buildings and people.

Also in WW2 vast numbers of men were conscripted into the army which is a fundamentally useless thing economically.

If we spend the same money as was invested in guns, tanks etc the difference is, that they earn a real rate of return and therefore have a positive NPV.

Hence by investing the 0.6% of GDP we are increasing net wealth, not liquidating capital as happened in Germany.

Kind Regards

Dave
Titanic Deckchair Logistics

“Dear Dave

This discussion about military production in WWII is an example of the lack of any willingness by Claverton members to be at all critical about they are saying.

No one doubts the huge efforts during WWII made by all countries to increase military expenditure. But there is no counter balancing points made about the effect that this had on the civilian economies, across the globe.

For example in the USA car production stopped overnight. In the UK petrol rationing led to a cessation of normal motoring. All normal maintenance work on the railways stopped. Women were conscripted into the land army and factories. I think the only major piece of capital expenditure which was done was the completion of Waterloo Bridge in 1942.

All the European Countries that were fighting needed to sustain their economies by imports. In the case of Britain these were from the Commonwealth and the USA.In the Germany case it was done by forced imports from the occupied countries and Sweden.

But the objective view in Germany was that, by and large, Western Europe had nothing to offer…these were advanced technological countries who sustained their peacetime economies by imports of coal from Germany and the UK, and by imports of raw materials from their overseas empires.It was this reason, perhaps, why Hitler wanted to starve the UK into submission rather than conquer it. The Nazis had got comparatively little from The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France and Norway.

In my view, the UK is still living with the effects of WWII, since for a long time afterwards it had no money to spend on a genuine refurbishment of the economy.

So please stop promoting a WWII type of drive as a solution to the our energy problems, as if there was no economic and political downside. When you are prepared to think through what this might mean in terms of switching resources from consumer durables and the service economy you will have written something worth reading

Best regards

Negative Fred

Dear Dave E – pretty much agree with you – but don’t forget, Gregor was making the specific point that a scenario (one of many) worked at today’s prices, using known and costed technology.

If wave or whatever else turns out to be cheaper etc, then that can be incorporated into a programme – but the key is to start planning to build the super grid.

By the time we get there – 10 years hence, you can adjust whatever it is you want to plug in at the time….Best….Dave A