Did the UK come closer than regulation proscribes to a black out?

[tggzzz]

Yea.  It does give the anti-renewable people ammunition though.

In more down to earth practical applications however it's quite ... dangerous.  In that there is not a lot of awareness about it.

Let me example.  Last year we got a "mandatory" objective on "Environmentally consensus software" training.  Their proposal, most of it anyway, centred around dynamically moving your data-centre loads to times where "curtailment" was likely.  So run your AI models during peak wind and peak solar.  TO use up the power that might otherwise be "Curtailed" for stability.

Obviously implementing this in the City of London would have the exactl opposite effect entirely.

However, when I raised this within our company people didn't know what I was talking about.

The problems facing more widespread use of renewables are well understood by competent authorities. That won't stop disreputable scaremongering by shills, and won't stop incompetent people being scared.

The principal issues facing renewables are - to use the industry jargon - dispatchability and storage and inertia. No surprises there, and many people are working on many solutions. Plural, because there can be no single solution.

As for people in your company not knowing what you are talking about, so what. Why should they?

[tggzzz]

Is there anyone wants to try and run numbers on the "momentum" issue under either load shedding or... "World Cup Half Time Cuppa" effects?

The bigger problem is what happens when a large source of energy trips. That can lose you a gigawatt of capacity in an instant. If the rest of the sources lacks sufficient slack to instantly cover for the loss you are in deep trouble. If it does, something like DInorwig should be up in under a minute, and the other sources can back off a little.

Yup.

IIRC Dinorwig takes c20s to spin up.

There was recently a nasty blackout in the east midlands caused by such tripping. There was insufficient inertia to prevent the frequency becoming dangerously low, so other sources disconnected themselves to protect themself and other parts of the system. I.e. a cascading failure; they have happened elsewhere too.

[coppice]

The problems facing more widespread use of renewables are well understood by competent authorities.

The problem is they are not the ones making decision. The decisions being made in the UK, Germany and other places are based almost entirely on feelings. We see so much stuff being closed down before replacements are in place. Nick Clegg wouldn't support nuclear, because it would take 10 years to build a station, and we needed a solution tomorrow. 10 years later we still don't have either a nice fresh nuclear fleet or a really effective alternative to them.

[tggzzz]

The problems facing more widespread use of renewables are well understood by competent authorities.

The problem is they are not the ones making decision. The decisions being made in the UK, Germany and other places are based almost entirely on feelings. We see so much stuff being closed down before replacements are in place. Nick Clegg wouldn't support nuclear, because it would take 10 years to build a station, and we needed a solution tomorrow. 10 years later we still don't have either a nice fresh nuclear fleet or a really effective alternative to them.

There's some validity there, but I don't think Clegg (may he rot in hell for farcebook) could be the sole cause.

Neither does that affect the points about not bothering to do trivial research, and ignorant scaremongering by shills.

[fourtytwo42]

IIRC Dinorwig takes c20s to spin up.

Less than that, I have been down there near  the intake valves when it goes from synchronous standby to full generating, the valves are ball valves held closed by hydraulic rams and opened by ~20 ton weights, full closed to full open is ~1-2 seconds, the turbine case and outflow pipe is full of air and the set is spinning synchronously already with a small lag, to go from that to a small lead is very fast indeed. The concrete platform I was standing on that I thought  was firmly embedded in the mountain was moving and vibrating quite spectacularly in response! a very impressive and amazing piece of engineering.

[.RC.]

The principal issues facing renewables are - to use the industry jargon - dispatchability and storage and inertia. No surprises there, and many people are working on many solutions. Plural, because there can be no single solution.

Irony being wasting energy looking for solutions, when there is already a solution.  Nuclear.

There is a lot of things people do not think about as to why having a consistent 24 hour supply is handy.

Farmers for example, can irrigate crops at night using cheaper power.  Here in Australia speaking to some, they now due to electricity prices irrigate in the day and lose 10% of their water to evaporation.

AI Data centres if there is adequate electricity available at night, then they can run at night.

I do not believe intermittent energy supplies are suitable at this point in time as for most of the world adequate storage is just "one year from commercial release".  Like flying cars are always "2 years away".

[paulca]

The principal issues facing renewables are - to use the industry jargon - dispatchability and storage and inertia. No surprises there, and many people are working on many solutions. Plural, because there can be no single solution.

Irony being wasting energy looking for solutions, when there is already a solution.  Nuclear.

Yes.  However in the UK the nuclear industry was basically paused for several decades.

According to wikipedia there are 5 active reactors.  2 are 1960s Advanced Gas Reactors. 2 are 1970s AGRs and 1 in a PWR.

2 are scheduled to go off line in 2027, another 2 in 2030 and the PWR in 2035.  The only new reactor being built was supposed to be online already I don't think we will see it before 2030.

The previous government did complete an energy security review just before ending in office.  They did support ramping up nuclear to generating up to 40% load.  But... governments change and I wonder if this will actually be picked back up or thrown down the back of the cabinet.

If they funded new reactors to meet that 40% right now, we still wouldn't see the first one until 2035-2040.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#United_Kingdom
*https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/operational-power-stations/

It should be noted that nuclear presents it's own "balancing" and "momentum" problems, although I believe newer reactors can shed and bypass steam.

They tend to need gas plants to balance out the higher frequency load variations.

Nucs would "prefer" to run at 100% flat.  They are expensive to build, have a finite life time so the more energy they generate in their sweet spot 30-50ys the better!  However the same can be said for all plants.  The difference is that a nuclear is not exactly responsive.  It takes hours to ramp power up and down safely. 

So the forward planning aspect of the "day by day" energy contracts market would decide how much the nucs are providing and where the rest is coming from, the "adaptive" portion. 

In short.  You can't run on Nuclear alone.  Not without the ability to decouple the gens at the nuclear plants and bleed the energy off somewhere.  That, with a little forward and joined up thinking wouldn't be that hard to do.  I'm 100% certain if you asked industry, "Do you guys want some free high pressure steam to do work with", they would have a queue instantly.

[Marco]

The problem is they are not the ones making decision. The decisions being made in the UK, Germany and other places are based almost entirely on feelings. We see so much stuff being closed down before replacements are in place. Nick Clegg wouldn't support nuclear, because it would take 10 years to build a station, and we needed a solution tomorrow. 10 years later we still don't have either a nice fresh nuclear fleet or a really effective alternative to them.

There was no EPR-2 at the time, EPR seems to have been most suited as a not very succesful prototype.

[Siwastaja]

Irony being wasting energy looking for solutions, when there is already a solution.  Nuclear.

Nuclear has many upsides, but too much is too much. Finland is now an excellent case study of a country which is on the upper range of "makes sense" amount of nuclear. Good that we have it; but no sensible person with any understanding on energy markets would suggest building any more; that is exactly why we now hear ideas from politicians to build a communist system of state-controlled energy pricing, where energy price is artificially increased by the government so that nuclear energy makes financial sense, so that we can build more, not because it makes any technological or financial sense or is needed, but because nuclear power feels good to some people.

The problem with nuclear is that energy is only cheap when it runs full blast most of the time, and on the other hand, is prone to random outages at unexpected times (sometimes expected, but uncontrollable; we have seen that in Scandinavia scheduled maintenance and refueling cannot be done during summer time, because it is a process requiring so much specialized personnel and equipment that it has to run year-around, going from plant to plant).

Therefore it shares all the problems of wind energy (energy being produced when it is produced, not when it is needed), with added problems of its own (slow build time, hard to predict budgets, expensive, waste solutions still non-existent and adding to the expense, good target during war, and so on). Sure it makes a great 20-40% baseline supply, especially if plants already exist and can be modernized/maintained, but too much of it and it requires storage to cope with load variations, just like wind power does. Combined with wind power, you have then two "unique snowflake" production methods which do not offer any kind of synergy. (Wind is uncontrollable; and nuclear is going full blast all the time anyway, you can't turn it up to 150% when the wind goes still.)

Pumped hydro (and also, "normal" hydro production which can be stopped and "charged up", even if not reversed) makes a great load balancer for nuclear, that's one of the most prominent initial uses. Now the same hydro is used as load balancer for wind power.

Successful (green, near-zero CO2, reliable and relatively low energy cost) grids, such as in Finland, seem to be now combination of not excessively fearing nuclear, and using a lot of wind power. For example Germany is exemplary with wind, but they rushed too much with shutdown of nuclear, making them increasingly dependent on fossil fuels. We have enough nuclear for a baseline and then enough wind to drive average cost of electricity down without having to resort to burning fossil fuels except for very short periods of times. Enough variation in energy pricing to motivate doing distributed load balancing, but average is not too expensive for those who don't want to balance (e.g., data center or factory investments which need to run 24/7). Works really well, can recommend.

Then again, I don't think there are any examples of having way too much nuclear - because it really is so freaking expensive and difficult decision that despite insane "near-100% nuclear" ideas, they don't realize into actions when there is a realization how freaking much that costs; therefore, they remain as ideas and get mostly buried. But it's important not to forget that ideas like these do exist, and how stupid and insane they are.

[Marco]

Farmers for example, can irrigate crops at night using cheaper power.  Here in Australia speaking to some, they now due to electricity prices irrigate in the day and lose 10% of their water to evaporation.

The power from the solar panels on their barns is cheap during the day regardless.

[mikerj]

Neither does that affect the points about not bothering to do trivial research, and ignorant scaremongering by shills.

You have continuously blamed the "shills" throughout this thread, yet transparency by the NG (i.e. providing the figures that show a suitable reserve was in place) would have shut this down immediately.  Why do you suppose they are so coy to provide this?

[tggzzz]

Neither does that affect the points about not bothering to do trivial research, and ignorant scaremongering by shills.

You have continuously blamed the "shills" throughout this thread, yet transparency by the NG (i.e. providing the figures that show a suitable reserve was in place) would have shut this down immediately.  Why do you suppose they are so coy to provide this?

What is "NG"? It is not up to me (or other people on this thread or "NG") to disprove somebody's argument. It is up to them to prove it.

Shills are fond of selective reporting and cherry-picking. It is their standard operating procedure.

[paulca]

There are a lot of smart people here,  the data is public.  We "could" work it out.

(Sorry I'm busy, dog ate my home work)
https://bofh.d00t.org/

[paulca]

In response the original title and premise/title of the video.

The answer to "Did the UK come close to a total black out".

No.

Where renewables at fault.

No.

Are renewables relevant at that time.

No.

Is there a potential "fiddling" of the books as to whether "code of conduct" on reserves was breached or not and if it is or is not being "covered up" or "obstructed" I think is the only real meat and question.

Is this a valid summary?

EDIT:  Even if we did go into those reserves and they admitted it, it would still be a non-story.  It just shows we have reserves and that they worked.  The only point of principle in violation would be them not informing the public that had occurred.  By this stage nobody would care or should they.  Stuff for the committees and civil money wasting machine to.. burn some tax quid on...  look it creates jobs for the otherwise unproductive. 

[tggzzz]

There are a lot of smart people here,  the data is public.  We "could" work it out.

Having worked with some "very smart people", there aren't many smart people here.

Whether we could work it out depends entirely on what "it" is.

Fundamentally ideas are ten-a-penny; what matters is whether they can be implemented within all the real-world constraints.

As MacKay put it, "I don't care which answer is chosen, provided the numbers add up".

[tggzzz]

In response the original title and premise/title of the video.

The answer to "Did the UK come close to a total black out".

No.

Where renewables at fault.

No.

Are renewables relevant at that time.

No.

Is there a potential "fiddling" of the books as to whether "code of conduct" on reserves was breached or not and if it is or is not being "covered up" or "obstructed" I think is the only real meat and question.

Is this a valid summary?

Probably.

In which case why did you think it was worth encouraging other people to spend their time on it?

Much better to spend time on valid possibilities.

[paulca]

If we limited all discussions to only fully researched, imperative and non-duplicate discussions....

We would not need a forum.  Go use IEEE.

It's an awkward term, you don't need to tell me that, but it's a thing they call "Socialising".  I'm still learning myself.  ... and yes, the vast majority of it is in many ways, completely and utterly pointless.  ... but not in all ways. 

EDIT:  Sorry to elaborate to bring that into context.

Watching that video on my own, I had many questions.  I also learnt somethings.  I wanted to discuss this with other like minded people, to have people like you warn me about the reputation of the source and highlight the deliberate "off topicing" to bash renewables.  I wanted those opinions and feedback.

I don't think I am alone in this.  Sometimes you are 50/50 on something and have apparenty equal arguments.  Saying that to an audience, like this one, can sometimes very quickly address such apparently equalities with imperically informed discussions from others who DO KNOW.

[tggzzz]

If we limited all discussions to only fully researched, imperative and non-duplicate discussions....

We would not need a forum.  Go use IEEE.

It's an awkward term, you don't need to tell me that, but it's a thing they call "Socialising".  I'm still learning myself.  ... and yes, the vast majority of it is in many ways, completely and utterly pointless.  ... but not in all ways. 

EDIT:  Sorry to elaborate to bring that into context.

Watching that video on my own, I had many questions.  I also learnt somethings.  I wanted to discuss this with other like minded people, to have people like you warn me about the reputation of the source and highlight the deliberate "off topicing" to bash renewables.  I wanted those opinions and feedback.

I don't think I am alone in this.  Sometimes you are 50/50 on something and have apparenty equal arguments.  Saying that to an audience, like this one, can sometimes very quickly address such apparently equalities with imperically informed discussions from others who DO KNOW.

Very little of that background was visible in your OP.

For anything to do with energy in the UK (and elsewhere), the place to start is Prof David Mackay's "Without Hot Air".

That is lauded by all responsible parties, from "Big Energy" to "Rabid Greens" and "Politicians", and including scientists, engineers, economists, industry leaders, politicians, environmentalists, historians and more.

OTOH shills and other climate deniers will ignore it and/or irresponsibly cherry pick partial arguments.

Find it here, including a downloadable PDF: http://www.withouthotair.com/
Do look at the endorsements here http://www.withouthotair.com/endorsements.html and on the linked pages.

[.RC.]

In short.  You can't run on Nuclear alone. 

For centuries now countries have run on spinning generators alone powered by steam or water.

[coppice]

For anything to do with energy in the UK (and elsewhere), the place to start is Prof David Mackay's "Without Hot Air".

There isn't much in there which is UK specific. Some things are only relevant to certain geographies, like tidal power isn't usually relevant without a continental shelf. Some things are only significant in particular climates. Its really just the tallies where it gets specific to UK needs and implications.

Thomas Murphy's https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/ blog also has some good discussions about what we genuinely understand of the limits to growth. Over the years he seems to have swung between optimistic and gloomy, but he sticks to real numbers, and explains what he is doing with them.

[tggzzz]

For anything to do with energy in the UK (and elsewhere), the place to start is Prof David Mackay's "Without Hot Air".

There isn't much in there which is UK specific. Some things are only relevant to certain geographies, like tidal power isn't usually relevant without a continental shelf. Some things are only significant in particular climates. Its really just the tallies where it gets specific to UK needs and implications.

Agreed for the physics, chemistry and biology. But the geography, geophysics, and excellent normalisation to population and land area is obviously very UK specific.

Thomas Murphy's https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/ blog also has some good discussions about what we genuinely understand of the limits to growth. Over the years he seems to have swung between optimistic and gloomy, but he sticks to real numbers, and explains what he is doing with them.

Some of his stuff is excellent, e.g. demonstrating the  consequences of economist's presumption that economies can continue to grow at 2%pa indefinitely. OTOH some of his more recent stuff is less simply understood and justified.

[coppice]

Some of his stuff is excellent, e.g. demonstrating the  consequences of economist's presumption that economies can continue to grow at 2%pa indefinitely. OTOH some of his more recent stuff is less simply understood and justified.

Interestingly most economists treat cheap and plentiful energy as a minor factor in growth, even through they all know GDP is pretty much proportional to energy consumption.

[tggzzz]

Some of his stuff is excellent, e.g. demonstrating the  consequences of economist's presumption that economies can continue to grow at 2%pa indefinitely. OTOH some of his more recent stuff is less simply understood and justified.

Interestingly most economists treat cheap and plentiful energy as a minor factor in growth, even through they all know GDP is pretty much proportional to energy consumption.

In their world, cause and effect are interchangeable.

[mzzj]

Is there anyone wants to try and run numbers on the "momentum" issue under either load shedding or... "World Cup Half Time Cuppa" effects?

I assume it is calculatable if you have a known amount of mass at a given RPM providing 50Hz.

I leave some homework for you but for Nordic countries the grid inertia is 120 GWs to 280 GWs depending on what type generation and loads are running.

[tggzzz]

In this context, "inertia" is the literally correct term. When a generator is suddenly disconnected the other generators struggle to take up the load, the conventional rotating generators slow down, and the frequency drops. There is a lot of energy stored in the heavy rotating lumps of metal, and that is used to supply energy for a critical few seconds until other sources take up the load.

There is far less energy stored in the rotation of renewables generators, so the frequency drops more and faster. In bad cases it drops so far that other generators disconnect themselves for protection. A classic cascading failure.

Batteries can come online more or less instantly; they don't need much capacity, merely sufficient for the few seconds mentioned above. The batteries supply the equivalent of inertia to the system.

And that is why batteries can be economic: they can charge astronomically high prices for the critical few seconds.