Busbar Electricity Prices at the Tehachapi Wind Farm This Evening.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

49. What surprises me about it is how old the technology is.

The project was authorized sixty years ago. The system has been in operation for over fifty years. The thyristors go back to 2004.

Overview

The idea of sending hydroelectric power to Southern California had been proposed as early as the 1930s, but was opposed and scrapped. By 1961, US president John F. Kennedy authorized a large public works project, using new high voltage direct current technology from Sweden. The project was undertaken as a close collaboration between General Electric of the US and ASEA of Sweden. Private California power companies had opposed the project but their technical objections were rebutted by Uno Lamm of ASEA at an IEEE meeting in New York in 1963. When completed in 1970 the combined AC and DC transmission system was estimated to save consumers in Los Angeles approximately US$600,000 per day by use of cheaper electric power from dams on the Columbia River.

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History



Sylmar East station, rededicated as the Sylmar Converter Station in 2005 following the upgrade to 3,100 MW.

The first phase of the scheme, completed in May 1970, used only mercury-arc valves in the converters. The valves were series connected in three six-pulse valve bridges for each pole. The blocking voltage of the valves was 133 kV with a maximum current of 1,800 amperes, for a transmission rating of 1,440 MW with a symmetrical voltage of 400 kV with respect to earth.

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• 2004: The Sylmar East station situated at 34°18′42″N 118°28′53″W was upgraded from 1,100 MW to 3,100 MW. The controls and older converters, including the mercury arc valves, were completely replaced by a single pair of 3,100 MW 12-pulse converters built by ABB. In parallel with this project, the six-pulse mercury arc valves at the Celilo Converter Station were replaced with Siemens light-triggered thyristors in compliance with their Modified Age Replacement Policy (MARP).

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Somewhere in my computer I've got a .pdf of a study to take electricity from solar panels in the Sahara Desert via cables under the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

I don't know if that's just a pipe dream or something that might really happen.

Desertec