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Why are Power Grids so Large?

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
Why are power systems so large and interconnected? For example, what technical obstacles prevents the US eastern interconnection from being 8 isolated islands? Why not separate them by ISO/RTO? Why does every power grid in the world strive to be as large as geography allows?


Better yet why not have scattered power plants about (with redundancies of course) feeding load radially? A lot simpler and a lot less to go wrong.

Parents
  • Large and interconnected power grids not only increase reliability whilst only needing a modest level of spare capacity, but also permit of larger and more economic generating plant.

    Modern alternators are often of about 500Mw capacity, easy to connect to a large grid but too big for a single town.

    At times of low load, several large generating units can be run at efficient loadings, far better than ten towns each running plant at low load, and requiring staff.


    Also, exceptionally large loads can be connected to a large grid system, loads that be beyond the capacity of a small town system. Electric railways are a good example, with single phase loads of many Mw that are continual varying. Want of a large interconnected grid often resulted in continuation of steam locomotives when electric power would otherwise have been more suitable.

    Large electric arc furnaces are another example.
Reply
  • Large and interconnected power grids not only increase reliability whilst only needing a modest level of spare capacity, but also permit of larger and more economic generating plant.

    Modern alternators are often of about 500Mw capacity, easy to connect to a large grid but too big for a single town.

    At times of low load, several large generating units can be run at efficient loadings, far better than ten towns each running plant at low load, and requiring staff.


    Also, exceptionally large loads can be connected to a large grid system, loads that be beyond the capacity of a small town system. Electric railways are a good example, with single phase loads of many Mw that are continual varying. Want of a large interconnected grid often resulted in continuation of steam locomotives when electric power would otherwise have been more suitable.

    Large electric arc furnaces are another example.
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