"This is because the two reservoirs are linked by one of Britain?s biggest post-war industrial projects: the Dinorwig pumped storage power station, hidden within this mountain. It is effectively a monster battery: power is stored by pumping water from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr at night, then generated by letting it flow back down at times of peak demand"
What's even more amazing is that with the press of a button marked "MAXGEN"[1], it can go from zero to full output in 15 seconds.
[1] At least when the control was at Bankside
ISTR the 0 to 360MW time was 10 seconds[A], according to the full-time tour guide at Dinorwig's "Electric Mountain" (and, iirc, this fact was also mentioned by the part time "Tour Guide"[B] at the Ffestiniog PSH facility on a prior visit when we were informed that the 0 to full output time there was 60 seconds).
[A] This only applied when one (possibly more) of the 360MW gensets were motoring the runners in dry air at a cost of a mere 4MW draw from the national grid for each genset. ISTR Dinorwig had a total of 6 gensets whilst Ffestiniog only had four[C]). [B] The "Tour Guides" at Ffestiniog were only part timers on account of their main job being plant maintenance engineers. Without a doubt, the quality of the information being imparted (both prepared spiel and answers to questions raised by their audiences) was far superior to that given by the full time tour guides at Dinorwig.Assuming Ffestiniog still operates guided tours these days, if you're planning on touring both facilities, I'd recommend saving the Ffestiniog tour for last just to save an anticlimactic disappointment unless you're a bit of a technophobe (in which case, only do the Dinorwig tour and forget the Ffestiniog one).
[C] I think, from memory alone, Ffestiniog's gensets were 180MW each. Easy enough to check with google but ICBA right now. :-)En el artículo , Tim Watts escribió:
Ah, that's why the two old ladies wet themselves.
"He adds that staff activate them without warning. Once, a group of more mature ladies were standing by unit one when this happened. Amazing how fast they went round the rest of the tour, he adds"
I think I quite fancy a trip there this summer.
I think that's from in sync spinning in air, rather than stationary. The switch round from fully pumping to full generation is the one that is really impressive. It's not that much longer than the in sync/spinning in air one but there is an awful lot of water that has to change direction of movement.
Never been there, but there used to be (perhaps still is) an interesting drive through big underground tunnels to get to the control rooms for RAF Fylingdales. I had the good fortune in the 1980s to have a tour including the inside of one of the original Golf-balls which contained big steerable parabolic dishes, in the days before phased array radar.
This was seriously impressive mechanical engineering (and had an amazingly good availability). I can't immediately spot any web links, but it's the sort of thing which should have been preserved, but hasn't been.
It was also a bit of a time warp, being manned by RAF officers with more than a passing resemblance to Peter Sellers' Wing Commander in Dr Strangelove.
We watched a video of a test made on an American site, but they also ran a test for us there, after talking to their opposite numbers in Wyoming.
In the American film, as the blips were confirmed on the screens to controller drawled slowly "We are entering a severe tactical situation". At the same point in the UK test, the two RAF officers were literally hopping up and down with excitement, saying "It's a raid, it's a raid, it's definitely a raid!".
Well worth it. Driving a 40 seat coach *into* a mountain is impressive enough, but they take into the turbine hall, which is even more so.
They keep one turbine spinning all the time in order to provide "instant" output. I think it's rather less that 15 seconds, too.
My source was a Nat Grid Engineer who's job involved maintaining the original control panel :)
Can there be anyone who did not already know about this?I remember when it was being built and all the hype surrounding it. Is it still the only one? Brian
No, and its not even the first, cos I went round one in wales in the 60s.
No, Brian. As I've already mentioned, there's a smaller version just up the road at Ffestiniog. Apart from the smaller scale (just four 180MW turbine motor/generators), Ffestiniog isn't buried inside a mountain.
BTW, according to wikipedia, Dinorwig's 6 turbine motor/generators are
300MW, not the 360MW I claimed (possibly a conflation of twice 180MW of a Ffestiniog turbine and the actual 300MW of the Dinorwig units).Both facilities are well worth the guided tours (assuming they're still being run at Ffestiniog - I visited the place about a decade back).
Dinorwig is very impressive for its sheer scale and the fact that it's completely self contained within the man made caverns of a mountain but is very light on technical detail (full time tour guides).
Ffestiniog doesn't have the grand scale of Dinorwig but you get to see a lot more of the machinery close up under the guidance of part time tour guides whose day job is maintaining and operating the station which means you get much higher quality information on the technicalities of operating a pumped storage hydro station, especially if you care to ask the "Tour Guide" supplemental questions (which, when tried on the Dinorwig tour guides, often got a blank stare or, at best, an oversimplified explanation that begged more questions than answers - luckily today, there's always wikipedia to help fill in the missing blanks although it falls short of 'hearing it from the horse's mouth' experience at Ffestiniog).
The Ffestiniog unit just down the road actually has a *total* capacity of 360MW. The turbine sets are only rated at 90MW each, not the 180MW I mentioned previously. My bad for not double checking the facts and relying on memory alone. :-(
There is also a similar scheme at Ben Cruachan in Scotland. It's knowna s the Hollow Mountain.
Went around in 2003 - very impressive. Would be even more impressive in solar/wind could be used to refill the top reservoir.
I think it was the world's biggest when it was being built, although now US and China have larger. The first one to be comparable in capacity to a contemporary power station.
What makes you think it isn't ATM? Electricity, once generated, becomes anonymous and untraceable, so it's reasonable to assume that a proportion of the night-time wind-generated electricity goes to refilling the top reservoir, when there's wind, that is. Of course, that reservoir is filled at night when demand is low and there's surplus on the grid, so no solar available for what you suggest.
marked
stationary.
The information about the various start times seems to have disappeared from the web. A turbine on line and using water I should imagine can go from "tickover" to full chat as fast as the inlet valve can open. As you say I'd expect rather less than 15 seconds.
I wonder how many tonnes of water per second each turbine uses at maxium output?
At maximum flow to the turbine hall is 60 cu.m/sec. There are 6 turbines, so 10 cu.m/sec. i.e. 10 tonnes/sec. each
I get the impression that they can keep them spinning with compressed air, which reduces the time to full output compared with a standing start. But whether all of them spin that way, all of the time, I don't know.
Solar could do some refilling during the day. Just cover most of Wales with panels. Out of curiosity, anyone calculate how many panels would be needed to lift one ton(ne) in say 6hrs of average light?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.