OT Britain to face 11 weeks of power shortages next winter

[Chris Hogg]

David Howell (former Energy Secretary under Thatcher) interviewed on BBC Radio 4 'Today' 29/2/16, says that a National Grid forecast for next winter suggests that demand will exceed supply for 11 weeks.

and move forward 1 hr 17 mins. He lays into both UK and European energy policies, and especially that of Germany whose closing of nuclear power plants has resulted in them burning more coal and dirty lignite. He also criticises Hinkley C, describing it as a dinosaur, the last of the battleships, and looks forward to new nuclear designs, smaller, safer and cheaper.

Also pushed his book 'Empires in Collision'

See also

and

On a slightly different note, Scottish Power have announced plans to double the capacity of their Cruachan pumped storage plant in Scotland, from ~400MW to ~800MW

. Will still only be half the size of Dinorwig, but a step in the right direction, I guess.

[newshound]

The prologue is quite worth reading; as an example of the most lurid prose I've read since accidentally chancing on Barbara Cartland.

[Dave Liquorice]

That depends. Wonkypedia says that Cruachan can operate for 22 hours with the upper reservior full. That's 22 hours at 400 MW. How long will it sustain 800 MW, 11 hours or 22? If 22 that's a doubling in the variable water capacity top and bottom I don't think that is a likely scenario. With no change in the water capacity there is no extra energy being stored, you can just get at and use what you have quicker.

Half caught a TV News item about it, some mention of wind turbines so I guess they are looking at storing their energy when the price is wrong. And possibly stabilising the local grid as the wind output varies.

[Andy Burns]

... sell more of it before the spot price falls again.

[Chris Hogg]

I saw somewhere that the intention was to build a second dam to increase the storage capacity, in addition to doubling the size of the generator hall. Can't find where I originally saw it, and not many articles seem to mention it, although there's something about it here

and scroll down a bit.

Although even if they don't do that, doubling the power output but for half the time to 11 hours would still be beneficial, I guess. Dinorwig can only run at full blast for 6 hours before the drain starts to gurgle. If they quadrupled the generator size at Cruachan, even without increasing the reservoir, they'd have a Dinorwig equivalent.

That's what all pumped storage systems were about, even before the problem of variability of renewables needed a solution.

[Mike Tomlinson]

I would have said "... hang onto it until we have Nat Grid by the short and curlies for 11 weeks next winter then charge a fortune for it"

[Chris Hogg]

Found it: BBC Red Button Text service, Science "It [Scottish Power] says it can add 400 megawatts (MW) of on-demand electricity by building a new dam in front of the existing dam"