Author Topic: The European power grid has been running slow  (Read 13996 times)

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Offline tookiTopic starter

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #50 on: March 10, 2018, 03:06:55 pm »
Online power grid frequency display for most of the world.

FNET/GridEye Frequency Display
http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/tabledisplay.html
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me that it’s got a disclaimer saying it’s just sample data:
 “The frequency values displayed here on the public website are fed from a set of sample data and do not represent the current system frequency.”
 

Offline Jeroen3

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #51 on: March 10, 2018, 09:14:36 pm »
Next time I'm in the mood of doing risky stuff I'll plug the scope into the mains and see what I find on the Hz arena.
I just did. It was more interesting then I had expected. Especially if your timelapse it.

Yellow: mains. (no, trough 12V plug in transform)
Blue (trigger): DS1104z-s function gen set to 50 Hz.
2018-03-10 21.26.50 + 10 minutes.


The second one was even more interesting, it dropped to 49.95, so it went fast.
2018-03-10 21.53.10 + slightly under 10 minutes.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2018, 09:29:04 pm by Jeroen3 »
 

Offline Gary350z

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #52 on: March 11, 2018, 01:49:23 am »
Online power grid frequency display for most of the world.

FNET/GridEye Frequency Display
http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/tabledisplay.html
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me that it’s got a disclaimer saying it’s just sample data:
 “The frequency values displayed here on the public website are fed from a set of sample data and do not represent the current system frequency.”
Yes, that statement is a bit vague. A quick look at their website seems to indicate that they have lots of monitoring boxes that collect the data that is presented on their website. I was just looking for an online display of the US mains frequency and found the above.
If  anyone knows of a online display of the US mains frequency let me know. :)
 

Offline bitwelder

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #53 on: March 11, 2018, 06:25:45 am »
You beat me to it !   I had already rephrased that before your post because of the same reason you state here.
And remember to suppress your curiosity regarding what happens around the magnetron  ;)
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #54 on: March 11, 2018, 06:49:53 am »
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks to me that it’s got a disclaimer saying it’s just sample data:
 “The frequency values displayed here on the public website are fed from a set of sample data and do not represent the current system frequency.”
Yes, that statement is a bit vague. A quick look at their website seems to indicate that they have lots of monitoring boxes that collect the data that is presented on their website.

The statement seems clear enough to me: Yes, they do operate a large network of measuring devices and collect the data in near real-time. That costs money, and they have set up an academic/industry "consortium" to fund the work -- http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/index.html

You have to be a member of the consortium to actually get access to the data and any results and forecasts derived from it. That web page with the large "raw data" set is only a dummy to show off the size of the data set that goes into the anaylsis; it does not provide the actual data.
 

Offline Karel

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #55 on: March 11, 2018, 10:48:22 am »
This one does show the actual, realtime, frequency of the powergrid, but Europe only:

http://www.mainsfrequency.com/

If you leave your browser open on that page too long (one hour or so), it will stop working and you have to wait
till next day before it starts working again. I guess to limit server load.
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #56 on: March 12, 2018, 03:45:32 pm »
There is a recent NY Times article, which places some of the blame on political frictions within the Balkan states.
(Removing sarcasm filter): Who would have though that over 100 years later, there would still be political friction on the Balkans?  :box:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/world/europe/kosovo-serbia-clocks-europe.html?emc=edit_th_180309&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=371077490309
« Last Edit: March 12, 2018, 04:14:23 pm by schmitt trigger »
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #57 on: March 12, 2018, 04:07:12 pm »
Power generator synchronization and phasing between different countries is one of the reasons that makes HVDC interlinks attractive.


Now an opinion:
In these days related to the IoT craze, one of the things that could be simply implemented and would benefit enormously, is timebase synchronization via the web.

No need about synchronizing different clocks all over the house.
No need to adjust for daylight savings time.

Fortunately my mobile phone does that, so it has become my primary time reference.
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #58 on: March 12, 2018, 04:31:25 pm »
Power generator synchronization and phasing between different countries is one of the reasons that makes HVDC interlinks attractive.


Now an opinion:
In these days related to the IoT craze, one of the things that could be simply implemented and would benefit enormously, is timebase synchronization via the web.

No need about synchronizing different clocks all over the house.
No need to adjust for daylight savings time.

Fortunately my mobile phone does that, so it has become my primary time reference.

See http://www.ntp.org/

Be aware that the more you look at anything related to time and date the more difficult it becomes. For a taster, consider how many seconds there are in a minute, hours in a day, seconds in a day, and months in a year. Then you can move onto the more intractable questions.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #59 on: March 12, 2018, 04:48:57 pm »
It used to be the case here in the UK that the frequency was higher during the night in order to correct clocks for lower frequency during the day. The CEGB (Central electricity generating board)as they were
 back then worked hard to keep clocks telling the correct time.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #60 on: March 12, 2018, 04:57:10 pm »
This is a fun take on the issue.

https://youtu.be/bij-JjzCa7o
 

Offline Jeroen3

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #61 on: March 12, 2018, 06:50:47 pm »
In these days related to the IoT craze, one of the things that could be simply implemented and would benefit enormously, is timebase synchronization via the web.
We have had DCF77 for decades. Works fine. It just sometimes takes an hour to sync time.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #62 on: March 12, 2018, 07:28:56 pm »
We have had DCF77 for decades. Works fine. It just sometimes takes an hour to sync time.

The US equivalent is WWVB, I believe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #63 on: March 12, 2018, 07:57:38 pm »
I'm familiar with WWB, and we can purchase some so-called "atomic clocks", which synchronize to that station.

My comments stems from the fact that every week one sees a new, preposterous gadget utilizing the IoT for the most absurd things: "Learn your cat's feeding habits with this IoT enabled cat feeder".

So, I was only wondering.....why not use it for something useful, like keeping ALL the clocks accurate? Instead of relying on the powerline frequency accuracy?
« Last Edit: March 12, 2018, 08:01:14 pm by schmitt trigger »
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #64 on: March 12, 2018, 08:01:15 pm »
My comments stems from the fact that every week one sees a new, preposterous gadget utilizing the IoT for the most absurd things: "Learn your cat's feeding habits with this IoT enabled cat feeder".

So...why not use it for something useful, like keeping the clocks accurate? Instead of relying on the powerline frequency accuracy?

But doesn't pretty much every IoT-enabled thingamajig in fact contain a clock? What's missing?
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #65 on: March 12, 2018, 08:09:19 pm »
The plain-vainilla gadgets, like a microwave oven or the coffee maker.

Of course, once that it is web-enabled...well, you know, one has opened another can of worms.
 

Offline grifftech

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #66 on: March 15, 2018, 11:35:25 pm »
The grid in Texas is running slightly slow 59.99hz
 

Offline Jeroen3

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #67 on: March 16, 2018, 07:03:09 am »
The grid is running fast now, 50.037, but the error has not reduced.
-368.844 s at 2018-03-16T07:02:54+0
 

Offline tookiTopic starter

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #68 on: March 17, 2018, 05:43:53 am »
The grid is running fast now, 50.037, but the error has not reduced.
-368.844 s at 2018-03-16T07:02:54+0
That's because even after they said they were fixing it now, it was running slow for another week. I've had my bench meter sitting there showing the frequency, and until yesterday, 9 times out of 10 when I looked at it, it was still running slow.
 

Offline stj

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #69 on: March 17, 2018, 11:23:01 am »
what is the official accurancy of mains??
i'm not sure i'v seen the numbers mentioned.

i think it's a bit unfair to expect 50.0000000000000000Hz  :-DD
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #70 on: March 17, 2018, 12:13:54 pm »
Used to be that the accuracy spec was less than 1 second from midnight to midnight, though you could have errors during the day as it slowed down, but you would correct it later to make up the total error. However there have been recent changes to relax this, making the accuracy less as the mess of separate and different energy providors made it harder to keep the accuracy spec.

Clocks powered by mains it is easy enough to differentiate on power on if the input mains is 50Hz or 60Hz, and set an internal divider to compensate for the clock. This makes a clock that works all round the world, though they can eeasily be confused with UPS or generator power suuply as this can vary quite a lot from a nominal frequency, generators by up to 10% easily from no load to full load.
 
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Offline tookiTopic starter

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #71 on: March 17, 2018, 02:23:41 pm »
what is the official accurancy of mains??
i'm not sure i'v seen the numbers mentioned.

i think it's a bit unfair to expect 50.0000000000000000Hz  :-DD
Read the Swissgrid link in the original post.
 

Offline fergch

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Re: The European power grid has been running slow
« Reply #72 on: March 17, 2018, 02:50:14 pm »
 
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Offline edavid

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