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UK power grid situation!!

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eti:

--- Quote from: Andy Watson on December 06, 2022, 02:39:21 am ---
--- Quote from: eti on December 06, 2022, 02:24:59 am ---
“Most of us want…”

Have you conducted a door to door survey of all 65M+ Brits, to quantify your “most of us”?

--- End quote ---

Anybody who didn't "want" such things would have to be stupid or wilfully ignorant. Take your pick.

--- End quote ---

Wow. Take care.

Someone:

--- Quote from: james_s on December 06, 2022, 01:21:05 am ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on December 05, 2022, 09:57:45 pm ---Storage is a big problem for renewables and there are currently no solutions for the UK.

Heat pumps aren't much of an issue, if they're firstly just uses to replace resistive heating, as that would result in a net reduction in power draw. It might be more of a problem, if everyone had one though.

EVs aren't a problem now, but the grid needs to be expanded for the time when everyone has them. It's true their batteries could be used as storage, but a lot of people wouldn't like the idea of their car's battery being used as a free grid buffer.
--- End quote ---
Is there a significant amount of electric resistance heating in the UK still? It's still common in apartmens in the US and there are still older houses around that have it but at least in this region natural gas is more common and heat pumps are rapidly gaining. Given the much higher cost of energy over there I'd have thought resistance heat was largely a thing of the past.
--- End quote ---
Electric heating is a minority in the UK (share dependent on dwelling type), with electric storage being somewhat blurry (do you include direct "brick" storage and hot water storage?).
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/insights_paper_on_households_with_electric_and_other_non-gas_heating_1.pdf
A salient quote:

--- Quote ---We expect to see more renewable electricity generators coming on to the system. Most of these renewables provide intermittent power, meaning they generate electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. They also tend to be more distributed than traditional generation technologies. These characteristics (alongside other trends such as the electrification of transport and heating) mean that we need to be more flexible with how and when we consume and produce electricity.
--- End quote ---
So to the usual complainers.... Times are changing, fossil fuels that used to be cheap are no-longer (UK like Australia sold it all off cheap) and that isn't coming back. So demand cheap and always available energy all you like, thats not something that exists any more. Either pay more for availability or accept that cheap energy will be a variable thing.

themadhippy:

--- Quote ---Most of these renewables provide intermittent power, meaning they generate electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining
--- End quote ---
so something which stores the energy when available would be ideal,like the box  of bricks currently heating this place.thankfully there not lot 20 compliant.

floobydust:
There are speculators and traders of electricity that really profit from all this. No homeowner here can purchase electricity months in the future, yet the leeches can.

We're getting an arctic blast tonight with temps below -30°C which causes grid demand to go to the max. The UK has a bit smaller one I see.
Electricity pricing can go from typical $0.11/kWh to almost $1.00/kWh just because of a "shortage". How much the shortfall is, it can take one power plant to trip and go offline, a loss of say 500MW to cause a crisis. Remember Enron did this on purpose.
Grid contingency is always pretty small, there is never that much excess generation available to handle bad weather.

I think governments need to punt the leeches - the traders, speculators who gouge consumers for a living.

themadhippy:


--- Quote ---I think governments need to punt the leeches - the traders, speculators who gouge consumers for a living.
--- End quote ---
no chance,it was the goverbent who flogged the  state owned power company off to there mates  highest bidder  here in the uk.and that moneys long gone to pay the same mp's second home energy bill

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