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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2024

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  • I’ll give you a short introduction to the power grid (btw. it’s called “stromnetz” (electricity network) in german). The power grid has many “levels”, where each level represents a network of cables that transport current at a given, specific voltage. For example, you might have one 220kV level, and then a 5kV level, and a 230V end-consumer level.

    Between these levels, there have to be translations. These are “transformers” today, transforming high-level AC into lower-level AC or the other way around. For AC networks, they are basically a ring of iron and a few coils. However, for DC networks, other transformers exists, such as Buck/Boost converter.

    My question basically is: is there anyone who can give me experimental data on how well DC networks would work in practice? Personal experience is enough, it doesn’t have to be super-detailed reports.


  • All that aside yes in the future there’s probably going to be a high voltage DC network in Europe. Less so for private consumers, at least not in the foreseeable future, but to connect up large DC consumers, that is, industry, with DC power sources. If you’re smelting aluminium with solar power going via AC is just pure conversion loss.

    Thank you, that was exactly what I was looking for. I know about aluminum production processes, and that it requires large amounts of DC power.





  • well, a large part why I asked the question is because I hope that somebody knows more about what buck/boost-converters can do today. I know they work well enough on small scales, but I have no experimental data for them on larger scales.

    I assume they would work well, but I’d like that somebody links me to the right datasheet or something.

    Edit: you have a very important point there. " Seems like the […] voltage converter should be the prime determinant, rather than specific applications of generation/consumption." YES. So, let me rephrase my question: does anybody have experience with high-power DC voltage converters?