Ping TNP re: gridwatch

[Tim Streater]

This a.m. Andrew Neil (yes, BrilloPad himself) tweeted:

"This hot, hot morning we're currently consuming 27,000 MW of electricity. And wind is generating 0.7% of it."

I wonder if he got that from gridwatch, which I have tweeted to him about after a previous comment he made.

Now, while doing some lawn-mowing just now it struck me that what would be useful on gridwatch would be to have another dial/chart, showing what percentage of UK demand is being met by wind at any given instant. And perhaps the charts could show also the *rated* percentage that wind has of UK generating capacity (not including the import/export numbers, and which would therefore show steps as more wind came online).

But I do see that the page is already full :-)

[Davey]

You can download a huge amount of past data and just send it into a spreadsheet. Then you can do what you want with the numbers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

more pages are possible.

As I said. one of the things that the site as originally supposed to do, was to collect data,graph it and see if there was anything to say about it. The dials came later.

But people liked it so that's where it stayed.I think it has been very useful in showing in a more accessible way than BMreports, how ,much we depend on coal and nuclear, how little use wind is and how massively variable it is.

It has blown the lie of 'the wind is always blowing somewhere as more or less pure weaselling. It may be, but not enough to make it a useful statement.

IT has shown we have little prospect of exporting renewable energy, and certainly not at a profit.

There is a new page you can play with..

(remove the trailing digits - they are to fool search engines)

I am still concerned about people abusing that, so will be monitoring the server load.

[polygonum]

The missing 't' would have done that... :-)

[Tim Streater]

The thing is, it's not people who can download data to spreadsheets who need persuading. It's the journos and politicians, those who influence or make or implement policy, who need the real data presented in a simple way.

So far the info on wind farms is along the lines of: "The London Array came on stream today, that'll provide enough power for half of Kent". Statements like that remind me of the novel 1984, where one of the stupid protagonists swallowed similar twaddle from the Ministry of Plenty about shoe production. As Winston Smith said to himself, if what MiniPlenty said was true, how come two-thirds of the inhabitants went bare foot?

The same applies here. We get lots of statements like "will provide enough power for 200,000 homes" - lots of them - but if there's a single site with reliable charts/dials that consistently shows wind at a few % of demand, they'll hopefully start to wonder why.

Hence my request.

Meanwhile I'll try downloading some data from your new site and see if I can work up a chart.

[Brian Gaff]

A friend who has solar on his roof was complaining at lunch time that according to his system with all that hot sun less than 1 KW was being sent back down the line even though he was not using anything in his house.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

Talking of power generation, surely the biggest most reliable renewable should be tidal power, its regular and driven by the moon. Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

another myth. regularity is not what you want. Unless you can turn the tides on and off at will, its as useless as any other renewable

[John Williamson]

Predictable is *not* the same as reliable. At best, tidal power is about

60% available.

The number of sites where it is practicable is low, as well.

[Andy Burns]

They're less efficient when they're hot

[Vir Campestris]

Oh no, you just have to match your sites. The Severn and Morecambe Bay are nicely out of phase, and between them will give continuous power

Ah yes. There aren't any other similar sites in the UK are there. And you'd need an awful lot of copper to link them both to a shared load :) And IIRC they're worth about one fission reactor between them...

Andy

[harryagain]

I can report however that my PV panels are doing very well. Maxing out these last few days. Perfect bell curves every day. And into the next week at least It should be a bumper quarter.

BTW. They don't get dirty. I wiped a clean tissue over them the other day, not a sign of dirt after more than two years.. Strangely there are people out there want to wash my solar panels (for money). World is full of crooks.

[harryagain]

You are quite right. High tide occurs at different times round the country too. There is a plan afoot to replace the Thames barrage with a bigger one further East that also generates power. Global warming/sea rises will make the existing one obsolete in a few decades

[harryagain]

Every river estuary?

[harryagain]

What drivel. Mine is near to maxing out this weather. I would get a bit more if the weather was cold, maybe about 5%. But in cold weather you don't get the day length. Also during high pressure the sky is hazy.

The shoulder periods have potential for the greatest daily output. May and September. ie potential for cold and reasonable day length. Rarely happens.

[Vir Campestris]

I thought of you earlier saying this, when I saw a panel on a roof under a TV aerial. There were no birds on the aerial at the time, but it was pretty obvious that there often are.

I don't have a decent camera with me though, so no photos.

Andy

[dennis]

If he only has a 1 kw array that's good going.

[Tim Streater]

Ah, so you pay for two barrages to get the output of one. That's a clever trick.

[harryagain]

Birdshit washes off too when it rains.

[charles]

not normally. Certainly not from my car.