🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <HAGERMAN.92Nov19122352@rx7.ece.cmu.edu> hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John
Hagerman) writes:

>        In 1970 a 1,380-km (856-mi), 800-kV direct-current (DC) line
>        was placed in commercial service to connect northwestern U.S.
>        hydroelectric sources with the Los Angeles area.  Such systems
>        ... avoid stability problems sometimes encountered by AC
>        systems; DC systems are sometimes used to connect AC systems
>        even over short transmission distances.

Wow. Thanks for the information, John. I hope someone will be able to drop the
other shoe and tell us where to learn more about this twenty-year-old
technology. I'd like to know how the DC is produced at source and how it is
handled at its destination. It would also be interesting to know something of
the record over the last twenty-two years of this link, and whether there are
now many more of them.

I am under the impression that our EHV transmission lines here in British
Columbia are all AC. They are of the four-wire spaced configuration which
supresses corona. For that reason I mention them in my teaching, and I'd not
like to think that I didn't know the mode of transmission.

If you've never visited a hydroelectric power generation plant you've missed a
treat. In our Peace River facility there are huge generators one can get up
close and personal with, and even enter if they are open for maintenance. I saw
the shaft end of a generator once on James Burke's "Connections", but I think
that's the only other contact I've had with this impressive sight.

Leigh