No coal power for 24 hours?

[ARW]

I thought we had already done that.

[Andy Burns]

I thought we'd had "more solar than coal" one bright saturday?

[harry]

I don't see how that can be instantaneously measured.

[damduck-egg]

There was a subtle difference this time, no coal at all and it was classed as on a "working Day" by the BBC thereby giving added fuel to the argument that many 9 to 5 fivers in cushy jobs don't consider all those people providing,services , healthcare, and vast numbers of the self employed keeping their heads above water are actually working at weekends and are doing it for fun.

G.Harman

[The Natural Philosopher]

we had that some time ago, and there was a brief couple of hours in

2016 whene there was no coal, but this is a no coal *day*, and the greens are wetting their pants thinking its terribly wonderful.,

Wait till be get a 'no electricity day'. The sad part about that is that Gridwatch wont be able to record it.

[Chris Hogg]

But is it actually a 'no coal' day? Are there not coal-fired power stations still burning coal as part of the STOR/spinning reserve? Or is NG now relying solely on rapid start-up OCGT and banks of diesels to cope with spikes in demand?

[Andy Burns]

I was mis-remembering the BBC article from March when

"For the first time ever, the amount of electricity demanded by homes and businesses in the afternoon on Saturday was lower than it was in the night, because solar panels on rooftops and in fields cut demand so much"

What? Not running in a datacentre with n+1 UPS and standby generators?

[The Natural Philosopher]

No I think it genuinely was.

All the big coal plant is shut for the summer, as the running hours restrictions means they need to choose when to run. There seems to be a

360MW plant back up, which is all there was before yeterday. so my guess is it needed a bit of maintenance and announced it would shut down for a day.

STOR is not needed at this time of year - CCGT exists to fully cover any margin requirements and what hydro there is can meet unexpected shortfalls in demand for an hour or two. I would GUESS that a lot of CCGT plant runs at 90% or so, so that its nicely efficient, but there is a 10% margin there if needs be.

I can't remember how the heat rate varies with output power, but I am pretty sure that CCGT doesn't lose too much if throttled back a little

Diesel and STOR are last resorts. hydro, CCGT and OCGT outrank them in terms of cost effectiveness. So they are used wherever possible. The reality is the grid is powered by gas, with nuclear underpinning it, and coal coming in to baseload it in winter.

Short term peaks are net with hydro,

Renewable energy? pain in the arse. Increases the need for short term balancing and costs a ruddy fortune. Should be banned, not subsidised.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , ARW escribió:

We had. For 19 hours, not 24.

Notable that the link at the bottom is to Gridwatch.co.uk, not the swivel-eyed one's gridwatch.templar.

[AnthonyL]

So all four boilers at Ratclffe on Soar have been turned off? I'll have to have a look next time I'm passing the A453, though last time I did notice the coal heap looked low, but that in itself is not unusual.

Can you expand? Does this mean for instance ok during the day and not during the night or a limit to the number of hours per year?

They've spent an awful lot of money in the past years trying to keep it up to standards. Will Brexit change anything?

[charles]

at one point in the 1960s, there was new cleaners' contact at Television Centre. As a result the toilets were only cleaned on Monday to Friday. No matter that the studios were busiest at the weekend!

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am sure the server is, but whether it could do 24 hours without power is another matter, BUT if the grid at large goes down, can you guarantee all the meters in and around powers stations and the grid and the UK internet itself would stay up? I doubt it.

I hope someone somewhere at GCHQ or MI sioomething or other hgas run a detailed scenario of what actually would be left functional if we had a national power cut.

My guess is apart from a few MILSPEC comms links and a red telephone shoved um T Mays bottom, 'not much' is the answer.

All supermarket food spoilt. No transactions possible except cash. NO working petrol or diesel pumps. No road transport after a day or so No water No sewage. No central heating or hot water No lights No radio No TV No Internet No mobile phones. (Landlines would work for a bit, if you had a POTS to plug in)

Never mind the Greens, it only takes half a dozen shaped charges on a few major transmission line pylons to trip the lot I would think.

Done properly should take out 50% of all city dwellers in a few days

[The Natural Philosopher]

No that link was on the BBC business site

Of course gridwatch.co.uk is a complete carbon copy rip off.

designed to make money, not to collect fantastical data to help towards a better energy policy.

So naturally you would prefer it.

[Andy Burns]

A total of 20,000 hours per plant since 2007 for plants when the LCPD directive was introduced, but only for those plants which decided not to fit flue gas scrubbers (though Ratcliffe did fit scrubbers, so isn't affected).

[Bob Eager]

The one on the live commentary at 13:59 *is* to templar.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ssh. Don't tell him that, he so desperately wants me to be a failure.

[Bob Eager]

I did send a complaining tweet.

[Brian Gaff]

So did I. Is this some new broom stuck on watching a web site?

I do feel though we are still sailing close to the wind a little in this country power wise.

Its going to be bitterly cold next week. Brian

[newshound]

I often wondered why the IRA never had a go at this. (ISTR there might have been one sabotage/terrorism attempt a fair while ago).

I don't doubt that the SAS or the Royal Engineers or demolition specialists could do it, but I suspect it might not be quite as easy as you think. In any case it is a pretty obvious target, and we don't know what security there might be these days. Also I suspect that a single downed tower could be replaced in a day.

[charles]

most supermarkets have standby generators

except those at supermarkets?

Gravity will help

I have candles -= don't you.

Most radio transmitters have standby generators.