Message from @ManAnimal
Discord ID: 619248525737459723
yes, this is true
Take out four or five major power plants and you knock out half the nation's electric grid.
but the expense required to run it in the fashion you are suggesting?
Whereas a smaller scale model would be far more resilient. Take out four or five power plants and four or five cities are without power.
Instead of the entire Eastern seaboard.
realize that a single substation transformer takes 6 months to wind
6 months
the grid can be made more robust
and in fact, the grid IS far more robust that what you are suggesting cause you can always circumvent any MAJOR outage as long as it isn't too close to the customer
Decentralization is how you make things more robust. You ensure that failures are not catastrophic and global by segmenting and partially segregating entire systems, where the connections are severable and have failsafes in place to automatically cut off the connection if certain conditions are met (IE - massive power surge going through a transfer center).
the tie from oklahoma might go down, but alabma and TN can tap their reserves to compensate
well, agreed; but until we have efficent energy storage, that is a bit of a pipe dream
You can do that under a private model.
Just require that a power company create transfer centers linking to all of their competitors, and dictate that they have to sell power to rival companies at or below the same rate they sell to their own customers.
'dictate that they have to sell power...' this doesn't sound to private
Only if it's in stock, and at the same rate you charge individual customers.
If you charge residential homes a certain rate per KW/h, then you have to charge rival companies the same rate.
but that is a subsidy
no different than gov
They won't turn a profit buying from you and selling to their own customers, but it'll keep their grid from collapsing and causing a major blackout.
Not really. Just a mandate of service, which would in effect prevent blackouts and brownouts without government ownership or a monopoly, or any kind of national grid.
Only by charging their customers more. Power is sold as power is requested.
it would more likely encourage blackouts
Holy shit you still on about this
because it would penalize companies with extra capacity
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How the fuck would it do that?
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If you have extra capacity, that regulation ensures that you make the same profit selling to rival companies that you get from selling to your own customers.
extra capacity is the only thing that can prevent the blackout short of sheding a portion of the load intentionally
If you have power to spare, then you should be eager to sell that shit because you'll make money from it.
A mandate-to-sell-if-available simply ensures that a big company can't willfully allow a blackout to occur in a rival company's lines if they have the power to stop it from happening.
you do realize that the removal and addition of capacity to a distribution bus is automatic based on the voltage level?
remember, blackouts are inconviences
brown outs destroy equipment
there is no, "shit voltage is dropping on the bus, call our rival and see what they will charge"
You're assuming that you can't have an algorithm that automatically makes the purchase.
there is just, "oh look, GEN10-15 just started and are paralleling to thebus... must be a demand spike"
If they don't have enough to meet the order, then they buy from another company.
...and if that company doesn't have enough to fill the order, THEY buy from another company.
Thus creating the system we have now, except it's possibly to breakup the monopolies and have actual competition.