European grid very tight...

[Dave Liquorice]

The French were buying briefly about 1400/1500. 1600 the Dutch weren't selling neither were the French

Coal does look to be flat out at 15 GW 24/7 again. Bio can run over 1 GW, as it was last week, seems to be only 0.75 GW this week. The Nukes are coming back over 7 GW now. CCGT 22 GW for the peak this evening, isn't there a GW or two spare there?

We didn't lean as hard on pumped has we have recently. Only 1.5 GW it's been over 2 fairly frequently in the last month. Hydro 0.75 GW but that's been very close to 1 GW for the peak demand recently.

No comment. Probably just as well it wasn't windy as well as cold(ish) as demand rises quite a bit when it's windy and cold by more than wind produces.

Is STOR a blanket name that also covers the two new balancing mechanisms Demand Side Balancing Reserve (DSBR) and Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR)?

It looks like DSBR and SBR are in addition to the existing STOR arrangements.

Yep additional.

[Johny B Good]

That's the more pertinent question, not just in this thread but in the whole news group.

[Nightjar]

...

and still don't get what you need.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 04/12/14 09:07, "Nightjar

[philipuk]

Sizewell B is just coming out of it's statutory/refueling outage. It's the most modern nuclear power station in the UK and should provide an awful lot of base load leccy for a long time. It clearly shows what could have been achieved if someone in government had a bit more of a backbone.

Philip

[The Natural Philosopher]

What killed new nukes in the 80s was interest rates

it favoured (then cheap) gas massively over nukes.

[Tim Streater]

[OG]

Summing the latter source's figures for installed and under construction gives the same result as the former source's figure.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And gas was also cheap. After all, we had an unlimited supply from the North Sea. In politician's time scales. Ie, to the next election only.

[Dave Liquorice]

Do the BMreports figures include STOR, DSBR and SBR?

Fairly sure coal has been above 15 GW but not by much maybe 16 GW. Must have missed the 25 GW of CCGT, seen 22 or 23 fairly often.

[The Natural Philosopher]

[The Natural Philosopher]

I'd expect STOR and SBR to be either ion 'oil' or 'other' (which I represent as biomass)

DSBR wont show because it is managing the demand side.

[Dave Liquorice]

Yeah, I guess they need to be fairly quick to come on line or at least ramp up. The only news I can find about SBR contracts is for

780 MW from gas at Peterhead at £250/MWhr.

I also found this:

-back-up-test/1074342

Which also tells us that there are three SBR contracts, the other two being RWE's Littlebrook (oil) and Scottish Power's Rye House (gas) plants.

This has more info about the Peterhead tests:

Can't find definative SBR amounts for Littlebrook, Utility Week gives

570 MW for its contracted monthly SBR test. The stories also say that Littlebrook has run *in the market* to meet demand in the last couple of months. What does the Gridwatch database say?

Rye House looks to be contracted to supply up to 675 MW under SBR.

Good point. B-) Seems that there is 319 MW from 431 users available as DSBR.

This is an industry that really loves messing with numbers. NG say that the combined DSBR and SBR is 1.1 GW raising the margin from 4.1 to over 6% but 780 + 570 + 675 + 319 = 2.3 GW...

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is CCGT "The three 277 MWe V94.3A (now called SGT5-4000F) Siemens gas turbines provide a CCGT-type system of power generation, with three Doosan Babcock heat recovery steam generators providing steam to one (older) steam turbine."

yep three periods when oil has been >0 this year. Peaked at 360MW.

"Rye House has three single-shaft Siemens V94.2 gas turbines (generating

150MW each) rotating at 3000rpm and three Babcock Energy steam generators (receiving exhaust gas at 540C) connected to one 250MW steam turbine. The plant was built by Siemens. The gas turbines have a terminal voltage of 11kV and the steam turbine 15.75kV, connecting to the National Grid at 400kV"

So more CCGT capacity.

DECC claim that the operational margin includes renewable energy and the interconnectors: Yesterday showed that in hard times the interconnectors are not actually usable since Europe needs teh power more than we do. And wind blos when it will.

Next Monday is crunch point too,.

BUT the nukes are nearly all up and running full power. half of Sizewell B down and half of Heysham, and sizewell will be up in a few days.

[Dave Liquorice]

Timing comes into it though, Europe is an hour ahead of us so even if the interconnects are at zero or exporting late afternoon they reverse to full whack import as our peak arrives.

The unit running at sizewell was only 71 MW so idling, presumably to power the station itself whilst waiting for the other unit to come back from Statutary Outage.

Trouble is the EDF station status page appears to be stuck on 3rd Dec, this is how it was:

Torness Reactor 1 TG 1 is at about 50% for refuelling. Heysham 1 Reactor 1 TG 1 is offline. Heysham 1 Reactor 2 TG 2 is at about 80% after recently coming back. Hartlepool both Reactors/TGs are also at reduced ouput after coming back. Dungeness B Reactor 22 TG 22 is at around 50% "to maintain fuel within operating limits". It's been like that for a long time, presumably it will stay like that until its statutary outage due May

15.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its on 5th Dec. now from here

Torness fully onstream

Styill offline

somewehat, but at leats 80%

[Tim Streater]

What, the one flying past the window you mean?

[bert]

In message , Tim Streater writes

That's the one

[Bob Eager]

Pigs and electricity generation always bring up the same image for me. That's what comes of being around in the '70s.

[damduck-egg]

A few years later

is what many will associate with.

G.Harman