Gridwatch - a lot of nukes down or reduced load ATM

Nothing to do with the oil price war?

Reply to
Jimk
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I noted that nuclear output was lower than usual and wondered if reactors were being taken off line for maintenance during reduced demand.

Most of those off line seem to be down for planned maintenance, although there are a couple at reduced load because of problems. Hinkley Point B Reactor 3 seems to be unplanned.

8 working and 8 down at the moment.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David

Maybe they are harvesting the plutonium. grin. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)

The AGRs are getting old. I think with the reduced demand some of the outages may be getting extended, also to help with staff management. Daughter who sells energy says she's never seen gas prices so low.

Reply to
newshound

I'm surprised to see coal up, when there's plenty of capacity available from CCGT.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

The AGRs are all suffering from expected cracks in the graphite All are as expected and none are any sort of risk, but the dear old greenwashed regulators insist on them being shut down long enough to make it safe enough to stick a camera inside, to tell them what they knew already.

They are getting old. But have a few more years left in em.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I suspect - and I don't know te ins and outs - the other mike is the man there - that they have some hours to use up.

Coal is still far and away the cheapest way to make electricity were it allowed to do so.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

The sun is shining. Free primary energy.

Reply to
harry

We are on lockdown so hardly surprising.

Reply to
harry

I daresay any work required to keep nukes steaming would be considered "essential" ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

The regulators that I was talking to about this, three weeks ago, seemed pretty pragmatic and laid back. That said, in the industry we are all very conscious of Fukushima, where a beyond design basis event took out old plant that was almost at the point of shutdown. Modern plant would of course have been fine.

Before you say it, I know that Fukushima had very few nuclear consequences, but it was a *commercial* disaster for the Japanese economy and the knock-on effects on public opinion are global.

So, the regulators are, quite properly in my opinion, looking at the vulnerabilities of AGRs.

If we took public health as seriously as we do nuclear power, we might be in the position of South Korea with COVID-19, rather than where we are now.

Reply to
newshound

There tends to be a lot of works starting around now in terms of scheduled maintenance...the hope is to get as much up before next winter as possible.

The current lockdown looks to have knocked a bout 10% off the demand although its hard to be sure.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Errr. The point is that with all the shutdowns, electricity demand is reduced.

Reply to
harry

I gather they are shutting down or throttling back some nukes in Scandanavia, mainly because they are overflowing with hydroelectricity following the wet winter. Although the article headline attributed it to wind.

Reply to
newshound

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