Baltic countries disconnect from the Russian power grid
19 comments
·February 7, 2025RvdV
foobarian
I am endlessly fascinated that the grid frequency across an area the size of entire countries/continents gets driven, at the end of the day, mechanically by countless titanic sized spinning machines that slow down when more load is offered, and vice versa.
1970-01-01
Off-topic;
Why does America use 60Hz? I've never found a satisfactory answer.
mmooss
Whoever chose it must have been aware of the use of 60 in time measurement and its practicality: 60 min/hr, 60 sec/min, 60 cycles/sec.
Retric
A better question is why does Japan use Both 60 Hz and 50 Hz in different areas? And that’s really just a legacy from early decisions at different companies when the grid was first introduced, and there’s never been a sufficiently compelling reason for either to swap.
60 Hz is slightly better in terms of flickering, but neither has enough advantages to really be a determining factor on their own.
mywittyname
Isn't this a side effect of one area of Japan building their electrical grid with components from British manufactures while the other used American-made components?
clarionbell
These frequencies are often inherited from whoever was the first grid operator, and electricity producer. Same goes for lot of other parameters.
causality0
50 and 60Hz were about equal in transmission efficiency but in 1891 Westinghouse engineers decided 60Hz produced less perceptible flickering in light sources.
SideburnsOfDoom
Things are the way they are because they got that way over time.
mrweasel
The interesting bit is that this includes Kaliningrad. See: https://www.kyivpost.com/post/46628
Hnrobert42
Gosh I love these electricity grid posts. As someone with almost zero knowledge about the subject, I am fascinated by what I learn. The last one I saw was when Ukraine switched away from Russia days before Russia invaded them.
ChrisArchitect
Earlier:
Estonia to disconnect from the Russian-run electricity network on Saturday
zachrip
What does it actually mean to disconnect? Is there some physical connection being broken? How is that done?
yuliyp
Yes it's some physical connection being broken. It's not unusual to adjust the ways in which the electrical grid is connected. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q-aVBv7PWM from Practical Engineering which talks about some of the nuances of building switches which can break connections between different parts of the grid safely.
RvdV
Yes, they are already keeping the link at 0MW transferred for a while and will now disconnect it. You can read more on Elering's website: https://elering.ee/en/synchronization-continental-europe
londons_explore
Did they consider connecting to both grids at the same time making a bigger 'supergrid'?
If there is insufficient connectivity between the grids and the connections all disconnect due to overload, you just end up back in the two-grids situation that they have planned anyway.
pjc50
The political situation is not favourable to that.
amenghra
This would require both grids to be exactly synchronized.
casenmgreen
This is very interesting, and the web-site is very nicely done.
On Saturday (8th of Feb), Baltic countries will disconnect from the Russian power grid and synchronise with the Continental European electricity system. They will operate in "island mode" for 33 hours, and then synchronize with the European grid frequency.
The frequency is a key parameter of the grid. If there is too much load, it goes down, and if there is too much production it goes up. A lot of critical grid infrastructure relies on the frequency being in the 49.5-50.5 Hz range.
I built a tool together with some colleagues to track the grid frequency in real time during this operation over the past few days to follow this process in real time!
If you're curious for more details, there is also a great post on the Estonian TSO's website about the process: https://elering.ee/en/synchronization-continental-europe