Hello. I'm registered for the Daily Study Group!
In early 2018, there was an incident in the European electrical power grid. From the Ars Technica reporting on the incident European grid dispute resolved, lost 6 minutes returned to oven clocks:
Last month, the European Network of Transmission System Operators
(ENTSO-E) publicly admonished Serbia and Kosovo for not properly
balancing their grids according to previous agreements. "This average
frequency deviation, that has never happened in any similar way in the
CE [Continental Europe] Power system, must cease," the group wrote.
"ENTSO-E is urging European and national governments and policymakers
to take swift action."
Two days later, on March 8, the Transmission System Operators (TSOs)
from Serbia and Kosovo confirmed that they were back to balancing
their grids appropriately.
The incident piqued my curiosity: it's a unique example where load influenced the frequency of the AC power grid. Even though the 50Hz grid never dropped below 49.996Hz, this remains (to the best of my knowledge) a unique deviation from that most-important frequency. Technically, what happened? What was the imbalance, and how could it have this significant an impact on the entire European grid? My understanding is that a 1% drop in the line frequency of a grid could have serious impact on some old (stodgy) generators. Is it possible to have a Wolfram Language simulation showing what happened for the class? What was this imbalance, and how much of an imbalance would it take to produce a 1% drop in the frequency? I'd love to hear a brief discussion about this incident during the class, but realize it may be a bit late to change the presentation. Perhaps a homework example?
The dynamics of electricity is a secondary interest to me. Many other systems -- including mechanical systems like our musculoskeletal system -- use stored energy in their oscillating cycles. The same impedance model used in electrical systems can be applied to many mechanical systems. Impedance is inherently dependent on frequency, but most don't understand the frequency-dependent dynamic in biomechanics. That must change.
Since electricity is discussed far more than any other domain studying impedance, I pay attention when Wolfram Research is discussing such things. Thank you for this WSG.