Talk:Grid connection

Merge/redirect
I thought long and hard about where to redirect this, rather than creating a new stub.

The problem is that the distinction between electric power transmission, electricity distribution and electricity retailing is still (sadly) irrelevant in many parts of the world. One answer to this is an overview article somewhere that doesn't rely on these first-world concepts, which is what I hope this will become.

It could obviously be merged to several places, but I preach caution. There will be a great deal of refactoring required, to eliminate the first world bias of the target article, in order to do this properly. These refactors are probably a good idea anyway, but IMO they should happen first, and I found the prospect rather daunting! Andrewa 20:55, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest we make a new page that describes the electrical grid (or electrical power network) in general terms. I agree that we need an overview article. I think the electric power transmission page attempts to do this, but frowns upon the term "grid". I think it's a perfectly legitimate term as a well known utility has the name "National Grid. "Grid" is also common in American vernacular. How about if I make some edits to your page to provide an overview, and we make plans to move the page to something like "electrical grid"? --DavidDHaynes 00:57, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

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"Power grid" redirects to Electric power transmission. I think "grid connection" and "power grid" should direct to the same article, so I propose a merge. -- Beland (talk) 00:02, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge away - I don't see anything that needs to be in a separate article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

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Grid connection is an issue that plays at both distribution and transmission level. It is covered very broadly, including distributed generation and smart grids, to the extend that one may ask the question whether 'grid connection' is the right title. It is quite a different issue from AC power transmission which is about bulk power transfer, cabling ssytems, system operation, voltage & frequency stability etc. So I prefer to keep these pages separate. Hans De Keulenaer (talk) 14:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. There needs to be greater clarity between the structural clear distinction at a number of levels between intra network connections within a local grid, and inter grid connections between distinct networks.  Intergrid connections are unique at the levels Hans listed, and if I may reiterate: the economics of bulk transmission, the regulatory environment, technologies used, topology, power management techniques, and impact on national energy and global warming strategies.  Intergrid connections have a great deal of currency- in europe, the SuperSmart Grid, in US the idea of the Unified Smart Grid, the Pickens plan all rely on a new continental intergrid connection projects capable of very long haul bulk energy transmission that go beyond the scope of simpler interconnects such as the Pacific DC Intertie.  Merging the articles would confuse the reader about how the world looks at the level inside a local grid versus how the world looks at the intergrid or super grid level.  By the way- I see "super grid" and "inter-grid"- what terminology is clearest?  Unfortunately, "super grid" requires disambiguation- the dominant sense refers to a particular far off technology of merging hydrogen distribution with electricity- leveraging the cold of the hydrogen to cryogenically achieve superconducting efficiencies on the cable.  -Mak (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This merge proposal has been considered since 19 March with no consensus. I propose taking down the notices without prejudice in 1 week.  If anyone wishes to re propose, they may do so.  As it stands, much of the overlapping material has been moved to Grid (electricity), and the unique material about what a "grid connection" technically is remains.  I don't care if it is merged or not, but I do care that there is a persistent notice with no action being taken on it.  Original notice by User:Beland. -J JMesserly (talk) 05:46, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed rename
As discussed in the Merge topic above, the notion of an "electricity network (or grid)" cannot be conflated with electrical transmission because such networks generally also do distribution (see Smart grid article). Nor can the notion be conflated with the concept of electricity distribution because such networks also usually have transmission components.

Since there appears to be concensus that the term "Grid connection" is unnecessarily vague, this becomes a move/rename issue. Proposed names are:
 * Electricity grid.
 * Electricity network
 * Grid (electricity)

WP has many articles on kinds of grids and should have an article on the parent term. eg Smart grid, SuperGrid, SuperSmart Grid, Unified Smart Grid. Unless there is objection, I shall put up a move template to Grid (electricity). -Mak (talk) 17:36, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Given the general WP guideline that article names should use the most frequently used term, by far the most common term used is grid rather than network. I note that there is historical concurrance to the notion that grids describe both distribution and transmission networks.  Consider the history of electricity grid.  In 2006, the redirect is changed  from transmission to distribution with the comment that grids have to do with distribution.  Yet Power grid redirects to transmission.


 * What happens to the old meaning of connections? Linked topics that want further explanation of connections of grids will be linked instead to the article section Connection to the Grid.


 * A new article intro will have to be written to clarify the semantic relations- that transmission grid and distribution grid are subclasses of "Grid". The new article will endeavor to confine itself to descriptions of concepts unique to the superset concept and not to attempt to overlap or describe concepts that belong in the distribution or transmission articles.  I hope that seems fair enough to both the "grids-are-transmission" vs. the "grids-are-distribution" camps of folks.  -Mak (talk) 08:57, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see why all the material in this article shouldn't just be moved into Electric power transmission and Electricity distribution. The term "grid" is already explained there, and having multiple overlapping articles is confusing.  I'm happy with pointing "grid" redirects to "Electricity grid", as long as it's a disambiguation page. -- Beland (talk) 20:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The article is weak as it stands, and I strongly agree that there are blocks of the article that can and should be moved to the other articles. One example is most of the topology description- it is particular to distribution grids and should be moved there.  However the idea that all ideas should moved would actually result in increasing confusion, overlap and redundant coverage of the same concepts.  Here's why:
 * Problem1- Genus terms have shared attributes that we don't have to redundantly explain. Grids generically move electricity around.  Transmission grids, Distribution grids and Smart grids all have Overhead cables and Underground cables.  So why is the discussion of overhead/underground electricity cables isolated in the Transmission article?  There are many other shared concepts in common such as topology, communications and control, stabilization, load balancing, congestions and so on.  If I follow Beland's logic, we may as well do away with the database article and discuss concepts like replication in the relational database article because after all the only type of DBMS that does serious replication are the RDBMS's.  Would we then just have a disambiguation page to vector people to the kind of replication they want to find out about?
 * Problem2- Where are you suggesting articles using the generic term for an electric grid link to? For example, Demand response: "In electricity grids, demand response (DR) refers to mechanisms to manage the demand from customers in response to supply conditions".  Is the customer in your distribution Grid, where the customer is a business that can cut its load on request, or is the it a transmission grid where a wholesale customer is a smart grid cluster requested to cut its power because the wind died in North Dakota?  If we point to a disambig page enumerating all types of grids, then the reader is confused which sense the author meant.  So are we back to asking the article author to enumerate all types of grids in which DR could be used?  It's not an isolated case, many other cases can occur.  In Electrical power industry: "The electrical power industry provides the production and delivery of electrical power (electrical energy), often known as power, or electricity, in sufficient quantities to (homes and businesses) that need electricity through a grid".  Well- both a transmission,  distribution and smart grid (in the case of Boulder Colorado) are true for this statement.  Enumerate them all is one option, but why not just say grid?  That's why we have genus terms.  Examples: Unified Smart Grid and SuperSmart Grid projects is not exclusively a transmission, distribution nor smart grids.
 * I propose we try out this Grid (electricity) article and see how it goes. If the refactoring starts to look like a big mess / folks protest then we can always revert it all.  How does that sound?  -Mak (talk) 02:55, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Giving this further thought, I propose withdrawing the move request since the connection article is a distinct concept that should not be conflated with Grids. -Mak (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Origen of terminology
Surely this page should include a reference to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gridiron, and should make some reference to the historical use of the term "national gridiron", as mentioned in article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Britain)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.243.150 (talk) 01:01, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

reference link
shouldn't the link to Distributed Generation Educational Module. Virginia Tech, National Science Foundation go to http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/ch4/powermgmt.html ? -- 217.224.224.203 (talk) 12:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)