Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Wed Feb 17 22:37:21 UTC 2021

Hi Sean,

> On 17. Feb 2021, at 21:58, Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 17 Feb 2021, Carsten Bormann wrote:
>> That’s not how it works.
> 
> https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Artikel/Energy/electricity-grids-of-the-future-01.html

Yes. This is fully consistent with what I said.  This is about the future, I was talking about reality.

> The Federal Government has put the policies in place for expanding the grid more quickly and gaining public acceptance for it. Following the agreement within the governing coalition in July 2015, the cabinet gave the go-ahead in October 2015 for an increased use of underground DC cables (in German). On 3 December 2015, the Bundestag adopted the draft legislation, as amended by the coalition party groups, and the bill passed the Bundesrat on 18 December 2015. The new rules entered into force at the turn of the year 2015/2016.

OK, so 5 years ago the policy for “increased use” of buried cable went into force.
Guess how many cable routes have been completed since… [1] 
(You’ll like the map on page 9, AFAICT 6 of the 43 projects sparsely touching that page use buried cable at least in part.)

> In future, priority will be given to building the new electricity highways (the HVDC transmission lines) as underground rather than overhead powerlines. This applies in particular to the large transmission lines running from north to south such as 'SuedLink' or 'SuedOstLink'.

This is what this legislation is about.  
Lots of “renewable energy” is generated in Northern Germany.  
The biggest consumer pigs are in Southern Germany.  
So we’d need North-South power transmission, but creating working long lines is a matter of decades.

> In general, overhead DC powerlines are to be prohibited in places where people live. They will only be used in exceptional cases, for example in areas where nature conservation interests are identified or where existing powerlines can be used without major impact to the environment. Overhead powerlines may also be used if local authorities specifically request these powerlines in order to meet local needs.

Here you can see that these are mostly political statements: 
The people who want green energy are also often the ones that oppose building the infrastructure for it.  
Burying the cables will put them out of sight.

I actually tend to believe that buried HVDC is the future of long-distance power transmission. 
We might be able to pull off that this transitions from a niche technology to the mainstream, like we did with photovoltaics (at the cost of 200 G€).
Let’s see...

Grüße, Carsten

[1]: https://data.netzausbau.de/Vorhaben/Monitoring/Monitoring_2020-Q3_print.pdf