If google wants to "own the grid" and we know they do. Then power will need to be efficiently converted from DC to AC.
If you do this at the outlet, then LED's and other DC favoring electronics could be powered by wires that are DC, and AC would only be used when necessary.
Think of all the devices you have with a power brick to take AC to DC. All of those are losing electrons along the way... (most power supplies are less than 75% efficient).
Modern VFDs have very high part-load efficiency and we can easily maintain a constant power characteristic through the full speed range by operating in the field weakening mode. One way or another you're losing energy in frequency conversion, it's just a question of whether you do that mechanically (with CVT) or electrically (with back-to-back converters).
Also keep in mind that for grid storage devices, we're usually talking about 500+ kW on each flywheel which, at low speed, is A LOT of torque.
You could store the energy in springs ala the da Vinci cart, but again not efficient.
All of these methods require a conversion, where as a Battery, Capacitor, or Leyden Jar will store DC as DC.
Flywheels aren't some hypothetical means of storing power, either - they've seen a lot of exciting R&D over the last 15 years, and there are operators of grid-scale flywheels. e.g. http://beaconpower.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage
Also, interconnection between neighbouring AC grids is an important HVDC application since we don't have to worry about transient stability.
Neither AC or DC are superior. Different technologies for different applications.
I get why AC is better than DC on ~100km, but I don't understand how it changes again at larger scales.
Both systems have resistive loses proportional to the square of the current. However:
1. Total power transferred in a DC system is proportional to the voltage, whereas power transferred in an AC system is proportional to the RMS voltage (which is roughly 0.7 of nominal for a sine wave), so more energy is transmitted at the same current level in HVDC.
2. AC systems manifest impedance which has a resistive (aka DC) component as above as well as a reactive (aka AC) component, i.e. Z = R + jX. In DC systems X = 0. In a theoretical transmission line no energy is absorbed or supplied from line reactance, but in practice we have to transmit a certain amount of reactive power (VARs) to charge the line capacitance/inductance each AC cycle. This reduces the amount of our current capacity (limited by thermal constraints) that actually carries current that can be delivered to the load as active power (watts).
This effect is somewhat although not directly proportional to distance (characteristic impedance has no dependence on line length, but voltage drops along the line due to resistive effects meaning the variation from the optimal reactive power-minimizing voltage level increases).
The effect of (1) and (2) is that for any given conductor, at a given voltage level, more usable energy can be transmitted with DC than AC, and that differential increases with distance.
That being said, building DC converter and switching stations is much more expensive than AC. So for a shorter line, or one that has many switching stations, I could counter the above by simply generating 5-8% more power at the generating station and still come out ahead (because in real engineering everything is about $).
Therefore, DC is only more cost-effective ($/MVA of energy delivered) at long distances.
Follow on: in a national grid, could we just distribute the production of reactive power with capacitor banks in each town / neighbourhood? Heavy flywheels spinning at 50hz?
> building DC converter and switching stations is much more expensive than AC
Is this intrinsic to the technology or is it more because we have economies of scale from building infrastructure around AC for 100 years?
Thank you for this. Really helpful.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvdc
'Depending on voltage level and construction details, HVDC transmission losses are quoted as about 3.5% per 1,000 km, which is less than typical losses in an AC transmission system.[16]'
See the pretty blue picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect
Skin effect in copper is about 9mm at 60Hz