Any consequence dual line frequency

Hi,

I am following the news from Japan and i am sorry about the suffering of the people of Japan especially in the affected regions.
I understand that part of the country has 50Hz and part has 60Hz. See for a picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Power_Grid_of_Japan.PNG.

Also part of the country has blackouts and others not. The question I have is it possible to provide power from one area to the other and/or is this limited because of the needed conversion from one frequency to the other. Maybe this is too technical for this forum but I am just wondering and could not find this info on the internet (in English).

B. Slager

Yes, the frequency difference makes it difficult to "import" power from Western Japan to Eastern Japan.

Yes, it makes it difficult - they need to convert the power frequency if they want to "import" power from Western to Eastern Japan, and the capacity of the frequency converter station is not big at all... so definitely that limits how much power can be provided from west to east.

I do not want to be rude and as mentioned before i am sorry for the agony the Japanese people have to go through at the moment, but i guess this will be one of the lessons learned that Japan needs to standardize its power system.
I realize that it is too early to talk about this but has this ever been discussed in the past in Japan?
BTW i traveled a lot in Japan (coming from Europe) and i never realized or experienced effects that there was a difference in power frequency in Japan. I always thought that the non-common frequency was at some remote locations.
B. Slager