'We' had one at Thames TV Teddington, in a container type structure in the car park. Volvo V12 engine, IIRC.
Installed 'just in case' after power problems in the 80s, and never once used in anger, although test run regularly. Got sold for scrap some years ago.
Was told it cost a lot more in fuel than buying the electricity in the normal way.
Seems that the NG are casting around for anything that will add to the STOR and lop peaks in demand. Looks like they're getting seriously worried. Unexpected consequences again, although TNP sees only a conspiracy. Lots here
LOok, either people are incredibly unbelievably stupid, or some group of people found it advantageous to lie through their back teeth about renewable energy.
It probably is a combinbati9on of both: Cera5tinly David Mackay emailed a contact of mine asking if there was 'anyone who could explain the concept of intermittency to the ministers at DECC.
Huhne was incredibly unbelievably stupid, but people who run the power companies are not.
Well I suppose his successor is Greg Clark, who is not stupid (I've met him) - but whether *he* understands intermittency I know not. At least DECC doesn't exist any longer.
I used to be a hospital engineer. They will be diesel engines. On power failure, they start and connect automatically. Though usually only to essential services. They are too small to be of much use forpublic supply. In any event if the public supply failed, they would be covering the hospital anyway.
and, with all these private genrators, there is the question of fuel.
Prior to the leadership battle, I did see Andrea Leadsom on BBC parliament explaining to some select committee about nuclear power.
Most impressive was that she used the word 'dispatch' and appeared to actually understand what it meant.
As they should, however the public supply hasn't failed they are just load shedding by using their own power. I would have thought an engineer as green as you would understand load shedding to allow green energy to work.
So, they use up all their fuel to help others - then how do they supply themselves?
The fuel arrives in trucks.
Exactly. And there would be room to park a few tankers too.
But I guess in urban settings a few MW isn't much to reinforce the grid locally, and in a blackout they would be maintaining hospital essential services. Still, I don't have much feel for how much spare capacity they might have, and the peak prices now are very high. But they are probably not configured for feeding the grid.
There's another interesting unintended consequence of the green movement. Nukes have always had to keep diesel supplies for 7 days continuous running, but (because of the fuel price) they normally only run briefly for testing, so never cycle their stores. But if you have any biodiesel in the stocks, this is much more likely to degrade by growth of bacteria and funghi, so they now have to be managed much more carefully.
Electric, I hope.
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