Comment by epistasis
1 year ago
The inverters attached to solar or batteries can provide frequency support and even reactive power. They just need to have the smarts to do it at the right frequency, and standards for that have come about in recent years. In the early days, there wasn't much need so by KISS standards it would have been the wrong choice to start with grid-forming inverter design.
People who complain about the lack of spinning mass do not have much knowledge about AC power, even if they understand the prior forms of our grid very well. Classic mistake of is vs. ought.
The "it hasn't been done, therefore it can't be done" argument was wrong AGAIN? I'm shocked, shocked.
When you've worked in an industry for 40 years and there have been basically no tech advancements in that period, and there's strong political filters to keep everybody voting the right way to grease the fossil fuel interests, it's almost hard to blame a person for getting it wrong.
But that wrongness spread through an industry is also an opportunity for those with deeper insight!