Oh look. No solar , sod all wind

Dunno, thought I'd read that getting wet increased the likelihood of self-combustion, they do keep busy turning the heap over at Ratcliffe-on-Soar all year round ...

Pembroke is the only site that fits that profile of 5 x 400MW gas units

Arse end of nowhere but with a legacy of very strong grid connections

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Permanent HV disconnections and removal of connection assets totgether with network reconfigurations have already been made at any coal plant withdrawn from the market

From next Autumn it's currently 5.25GW of declared coal

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Oh dear, still we'll be fine, they will cut off t'north first .. grin. Brian

The reason I mentioned it was that earlier today I couldn't get the 'nice' name to resolve. It does now.

Indeed it does degrade, I can't recall by how much and preventing degradation and ultimately fire in the heap was always top prority.

Most of the sites using coal pulverisation rather than chain grate boilers always had three separate heaps, with only one at a time having coal taken from it, one being full and the other being built with new deliveries. They normally entered the winter period with maximum coal stocks with the lowest level as they entered the summer main overhaul periods (except when a miners strike was predicted and then all three heaps were the size of a mountain)

There was a strict rotation of usage and regular compression of the heaps by driving huge dozers/scrapers over them to keep the airspace to a minimum.

Coal could also come straight off the trains and into the boiler hoppers such as overnight and in bad weather when driving up coal heaps is a bit unsafe.

The net weight of coal delivery is determined by weighbridge and was the basis of payment rather than the actual energy value, but with predicted coal sources and washing out of stone etc before delivery the quality would be relatively consistent.

Coal was randomly sampled every day off the conveyors on the way to the boiler hoppers and the labs on site did a calorific value test that formed the basis of the thermal efficiency figures that ultimately determined the order of despatch, at least within the specific regions, with National Control determining the energy contribution from each region and the transfer across the region boundaries.

All this is from a very rusty memory because it was many decades ago. Power stations, at least then, were mucky places, now they are clean but just as dangerous :)

They get paid to keep the wind turbines idle. It is making the companies a fortune which we are paying.

Correct. I knew someone would work it out. A few minutes later the mist had cleared somewhat and you could see the stacks more clearly. But I liked that photo. :-)

Even if they were paid a fortune for them not to be idle, there was effectively zero wind. The only way they might have been turning would have required a motor to turn them.

The stats look even worse today. No wind, not much sun right now and France importing. CCGT practically flat out

Thank f*ck we have some coal power

But to continue, as generation declarations remain until closures are confirmed and declarations withdrawn it's a bit worse than that, 1.5 GW is due to go from Aberthaw so it's going to be closer to 4GW, maybe a bit below.

Taking their actual Transmission Entry Capacity as of today for 'coal' is

Uskmouth, included in the 11304MW figure above is not running either and is undergoing biomass conversion for completion this year so that's another 230MW of coal capacity lost

So with Cottam (2000MW) along with West Burton (1987MW) and Fiddlers Ferry (1455MW) surrendering their TEC as of 1st April 2020, that brings the total to

Checking the live figures this morning Cottam has already stopped generation,

West Burton is currently running all four units in the 400-450MW range.

Aberthaw also isn't running at the moment and nor is Fiddlers Ferry

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I noticed this morning that it "went" with 2 days notice on 13th December.

No they don't get paid anything to keep them idle, they do not receive capacity market payments and, at least the moment, being undispatchable they are specifically excluded from the capacity market.

What they do get paid for is when their generation is constrained by transmission system limitations, when I say 'their generation' I mean what they 'declare' they could have generated, which in many cases severely warps the actual reality of their performance at all other times under similar weather conditions when they are not constrained.

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Missed that! Cconfirmed here along with the offloading of their capacity market obligations

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I'm currently looking at Drax running like a good un and all the visible wind turbines standing still doing a good imitation of chocolate fireguards.

:-) Bit of solar today tho for a few hours. nearly gone

OCGT firing up...gonna be tight this evening...

That sounds like quite a lot to me too. However I imagine that the coal containing more volatiles might well lose methane and perhaps other hydrocarbons by evaporation. It might also dry out a bit in spite of being left in a pile on the ground in the open: after all, underground there is nowhere for the water to drain to.

Point noted about spontaneous combustion (see "Titanic").