Comment by KeplerBoy
3 days ago
That only works if the grid operator has control over the inverters, which they often don't have.
We currently have the situation where operators of solar farms of all sizes get a fixed amount of money for each joule they feed into the grid. Of course those people have zero interest in turning down their inverters when the sun is shining and there's already a surplus in the grid.
That isn’t actually structurally true - the way inverters work is they do high frequency analysis of the output power, and then ‘push’ energy in at various parts of the waveform. That’s how DC->AC inversion works. We’re taking much higher frequency than the AC waveform for any non-terrible-quality inverter.
While they can be configured to overvolt the outputs or drive frequency higher than they should if they have the excess energy, that is certainly not a normal setup and seems pathological, frankly. Which I guess goes to your point regarding solar operators - if they have an incentive to keep pushing power into the grid even if the grid doesn’t need it, they certainly can configure their equipment to do that. But that is also a clearly screwed up situation for the grid eh? And of all the generation providers, they are the ones with the least excuse to actually do that.
It’s trickier with something with moving parts (like wind generation), where there may be some element of physical inertia or direct physical coupling to the output power. But inverters are not that.
And my understanding is that all modern wind turbines do automatic blade feathering and a significant degree of voltage/frequency regulation to avoid blowing things up ‘downstream’. So with any luck it would be a minutes at most, type situation.
Still, 90% of the problem is likely with wind farms or the baseload eh? Unless the solar operators are doing this intentionally to screw their competition.