When a supercomputer is given work and all processors begin work there would be a large spike in demand. Do large supercomputers communicate with power stations to notify them of demand changes from changing workloads?
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9\$\begingroup\$ No more than blast furnaces or electric trains communicate with power stations. \$\endgroup\$– FinbarrCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 0:02
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\$\begingroup\$ the rotational mass of the generators is the energy storage mechanism \$\endgroup\$– analogsystemsrfCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 1:45
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\$\begingroup\$ There are these things called capacitors... \$\endgroup\$– Voltage Spike ♦Commented Jul 21, 2019 at 1:59
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1\$\begingroup\$ @VoltageSpike: Can you elaborate? \$\endgroup\$– TransistorCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 7:39
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2 Answers
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Do large supercomputers communicate with power stations to notify them of demand changes?
No. Within most countries power stations are linked together to share loading. In addition there are stations and generators on standby ready to go online as demands require. Adjustable phase shift networks can trim the line voltage to stay within expected values.
Supercomputers consume a tiny fraction of the power that the aluminum and steel industries do, which often have dedicated power feeds from the closest generators.
For decades now most (but not all) countries have dynamic power grids that compensate for loads, sharing of power, voltage trim,.. etc. An exception would be the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the France-Swiss border. This monster of a machine is run only in the summer to avoid overloading the power grid during winter, when the local towns need power for heating.
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They don't need to communicate with the energy provider. Only few companies need to do this like some aluminum producers or steel companies and other heavy duty companies. But then we're talking about 100s of GWh to few TWh power consumption per year. A super computer needs 30MW, that is not that much for the power grid.
You can control the power in the grid fairly quickly and for the time until the local power plant increase the steam to the turbine, the generator slows down because of the increased magnetic field due the increased current for the computer. But the generator is very heavy and doesn't brake fast. The frequency will drop, but only insignificantly. In this case with 30MW, maybe 0.02Hz (roughly estimated) or so for few seconds until the additional steam accelerate the turbine and the generator to the nominal speed again (increased torque).
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3\$\begingroup\$ "But then we're talking about 100s of GWh to few TWh power consumption per year. A super computer needs 30MW, that is not that much for the power grid." - 30MW is 263GWh/year. How does that not fall in the "heavy duty company" category you specified? \$\endgroup\$– marcelmCommented Jul 21, 2019 at 9:23
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\$\begingroup\$ Industries that consume vast amounts of power such as aluminum and steel production have dedicated power feeds not shared with commercial and residential power. \$\endgroup\$– user105652Commented Jul 21, 2019 at 15:11
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\$\begingroup\$ Your estimated values for power and time need sources to validate them. \$\endgroup\$– user105652Commented Jul 21, 2019 at 15:21