No subject

We had our annual rural electric coop meeting this week.  We can ( a limited number of connections) connect either a photovoltiac or wind generator up to 2 KW net net.  Anything much above that requires a complete re-engineer of some switching and fusing on the local lines and is cost prohibitive to both sides right now.

They also do not like the electric water heaters that only heat on demand.  They tend to all go on at peak periods and mess up the loads with no float.

Surprisingly, the maximum wind generation capacity in Kansas is at night in winter, just when the load is lightest.  Plus we buy electricity in the winter from the NW Pacific area quite cheaply!

Last fall we had high speed linear winds which our local grid survived, but the Westar 345 KV lines came down on our grid at 14 places resulting in some interesting situations!

Lots of engineering required here.  Including last summer when I visited the Grand Coulee dam in Idaho where they had one turbine running no load at sync speed just in case they needed a very quick jump in output.

N0UU