General > General Technical Chat
UK power grid situation!!
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 13, 2022, 01:58:03 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on December 13, 2022, 12:37:28 am ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on December 13, 2022, 12:25:02 am ---
--- Quote from: Gyro on December 12, 2022, 12:55:53 pm ---I see the French, Dutch and Norway ICTs are maxed out too. We also seem to be usng pumped storage early in the day, that's normally reserved for sudden peak loads (kettle breaks).
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Almost half (26 out of 56) of our nuclear plants were halted a few weeks ago. A few have been restarted since then, but there's still a significant fraction that is halted. You bet we are maxed out.
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Ouch. What was/is the common cause? Fractures?
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It's a combination of multiple factors, which, to be fair, would require a pretty long and detailed explanation. Otherwise the short version may look too much like a conspiracy theory.
One of the factors was that they were under maintenance, but how come that many plants could end up under maintenance at the same time, that's complicated (and sounds unbelievable.)
I have not heard of any particular incident. I think it's relatively standard maintenance, now sure some of our plants are getting a bit old, so maintenance is required and sometimes longish.
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All reasonable. ISTR our nukes have similar (non)operating characteristics.
Most of the year our nukes have been generating 4-4.5GW, but in the past few days it has been up to just under 6GW.
--- Quote ---The management of our energy company EDF has also been largely questionable for over a decade.
But all in all, we have been sabotaging our energy production capabilities in most of Europe. There's absolutely nothing unexpected here.
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Here too for various reasons, some commercial and some political doctrine :(
--- Quote ---Apparently all is well as we're going to build "green" hydrogen pipelines. Yes, really. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/h2med-hydrogen-pipeline-france-cost-25-bln-euros-spanish-pm-sanchez-says-2022-12-09/
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At a glance, hydrogen pipelines don't seem completely unreasonable.
OTOH, we are apparently building a housing estate that can be powered by hydrogen and natural gas. It will be a testbed. I wonder if success will be declared before the usual domestic and road-level maintenance has started being necessary. https://hydrogen-central.com/hydrogen-homes-uk-neighbourhood-green-energy-revolution/
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: G7PSK on December 13, 2022, 08:11:12 am ---Read yesterday in the Guardian I think it was that wind power was down to under 3.6% here in the UK, of course being the Guardian it was all down to global warming that there was no wind. Thing is here in the UK we have always had foggy days that go on for a few days or even a week and when there is fog there is no wind, guess these city idiots just don't realise this and think the wind is a steady state thing.
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The "global warming thing" is that extreme weather will become more frequent.
The "wind is always blowing somewhere" is a longstanding mantra od the idiot green fringe that also measures energy in GW. It is easily disprovable, courtesy of gridwatch. I took a year's wind production and plotted the CDF. As a rule of thumb in the UK, if the peak wind output is X GW, then the wind output will be below X% for X% of the time. Example: if the peak output is 10GW, then it will be 0.1GW or less for 1% of the year, i.e. 3 days.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: tggzzz on December 13, 2022, 09:26:04 am ---
--- Quote from: G7PSK on December 13, 2022, 08:11:12 am ---Read yesterday in the Guardian I think it was that wind power was down to under 3.6% here in the UK, of course being the Guardian it was all down to global warming that there was no wind. Thing is here in the UK we have always had foggy days that go on for a few days or even a week and when there is fog there is no wind, guess these city idiots just don't realise this and think the wind is a steady state thing.
--- End quote ---
The "global warming thing" is that extreme weather will become more frequent.
The "wind is always blowing somewhere" is a longstanding mantra od the idiot green fringe that also measures energy in GW. It is easily disprovable, courtesy of gridwatch. I took a year's wind production and plotted the CDF. As a rule of thumb in the UK, if the peak wind output is X GW, then the wind output will be below X% for X% of the time. Example: if the peak output is 10GW, then it will be 0.1GW or less for 1% of the year, i.e. 3 days.
--- End quote ---
One idea is to put a load of off shore wind turbines in the North Atlantic, from Southern Spain, all the way up to Norway and Iceland. The wind will always blow over some part of the ocean, depending on the weather pattern. I don't see how it's any more feasible than covering the Sahara in solar panels, which has already been shown to be impractical. The problem is distribution.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: Zero999 on December 13, 2022, 09:29:11 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on December 13, 2022, 09:26:04 am ---The "wind is always blowing somewhere" is a longstanding mantra od the idiot green fringe that also measures energy in GW. It is easily disprovable, courtesy of gridwatch. I took a year's wind production and plotted the CDF. As a rule of thumb in the UK, if the peak wind output is X GW, then the wind output will be below X% for X% of the time. Example: if the peak output is 10GW, then it will be 0.1GW or less for 1% of the year, i.e. 3 days.
--- End quote ---
One idea is to put a load of off shore wind turbines in the North Atlantic, from Southern Spain, all the way up to Norway and Iceland. The wind will always blow over some part of the ocean, depending on the weather pattern. I don't see how it's any more feasible than covering the Sahara in solar panels, which has already been shown to be impractical. The problem is distribution.
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Distribution is an issue; I haven't looked to see the fundamental significance of the issue.
As for increasing the geographic area when considering the reliability/dispatchability of wind, yes it will help. But...
* the UK is better than most places for wind, so adding areas won't be as beneficial as "expected"
* larger areas run into the same long-distance distribution problems
* show me the CDF. Until then it is merely all hot cold air.
G7PSK:
[quote author=tggzzz
The "global warming thing" is that extreme weather will become more frequent.
The "wind is always blowing somewhere" is a longstanding mantra od the idiot green fringe that also measures energy in GW. It is easily disprovable, courtesy of gridwatch. I took a year's wind production and plotted the CDF. As a rule of thumb in the UK, if the peak wind output is X GW, then the wind output will be below X% for X% of the time. Example: if the peak output is 10GW, then it will be 0.1GW or less for 1% of the year, i.e. 3 days.
[/quote]
The number of foggy days is fewer than it was in the 60's and 70's although over the past few years it is increasing again proving if anything that the weather is variable, if the weather is really going to get more extreme that means winds will be higher and wind turbines shut down in high wind. If we really want net zero carbon and have enough energy for modern life the money being put into wind and solar especialy ther subsidies should be diverted to fusion.
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