This is part of a series on UK Energy Security: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V. In the previous parts of this series, we documented the physical unraveling of the UK grid: the hollow generation mix, the reliance on weather-dependent interconnectors, and the alarming “frequency thrash” visible in the data.
Under “The Wrong Machine”, it says:
I actually don’t know for sure, but I believe there is a huge error here.
I think very little, perhaps almost none of the existing grid / transmission system can be used in a DC power scheme. Practically all the components and design of what we currently have would be wrong. For example, all the power lines we have now use 3 phase wiring, and under DC you’d need 2 wires and they would need to be quadruple the diameter. DC doesnt use step down transformers etc etc. I suspect a lot of these problems and solutions are doable in theory but very very hard at scale.
This is a bit of a hand-wavey dodge of the complications. There are probably significant constraints on what a big system overhaul could look like.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence