Ratcliffe coal

The coal stockpile is significantly reduced, last I heard, they were getting plans in place for more deliveries.

Cold winter mornings, wind and solar are near to useless on still days, which is when it is usually at its coldest.

Maybe it is getting maximum use out of the plant. If anything serious breaks down, they decommission early. If not, better to wear this plant out rather than one with a few more years left.

What limits coal burning us usually either cost of coal versus price of electricity OR the number of 'burnable hours' left in the year.

Right now the grid is very marginal. I am not sure whether its 'burnable hours' have been waived - post brexit it should be possible to do that - but its most certainly needed. My guess is it will still be on the grid next winter too...

..and until 2027 when Hinkley point C is scheduled to open. I wouldnt be surprised if Drax didn't revert to burning coal too

That's another view that is perfectly valid.

- The gummint needs that plant to keep the grid up as renewables wont.

- The electricity price is a lot higher at the moment due to continental shortages.

- Coal is cheap at the moment

Why not use up the hours to make money? Or if the working hours directive is not being enforced, why nor run the plant anyway?

I am not sure what the current legislative regulations actually are.

I don't think it has a "use by" date, they fitted it with sulphur scrubbers, so it was/is exempt from the LCPD maximum hours?

Isn't it the only one left?

You said decommissioned next year, somewhere else said decommissioned 2025.

Yes, apologies. I made the mistake of looking at t'other gridwatch, operating power stations page, which listed: West Burton, Kilroot, and Drax as coal.

I think Drax has a coal burner left

September 2024 is what Uniper say now, they also said 2022 until Putin, but they don't *have* to close it.

Uniper were spun-off as the "dirty fossil" parts of e.on, to make e.on looker greener, later the German state bought out the Finish state's half and now it's all green unicorns and shiny hydrogen plants on their website.

I though the first half of West Burton's towers were demolished last week, but I misremembered, it was Fiddler's Ferry.

Yes fiddlers is for the birds now.

Not sure what the definitive list is

Yesterday Octopus gave us free electricity 3-5pm, the same today. The reasoning being there's too much generation locally for the grid to accept. Somebody in town gets different free electricity times to us outside - they get it at the weekend when we never have.

At about 15.30 they announced a national 'saving session' starting at 5pm, so it goes from free to paying not to use.

I'm not sure what to make of this, but suggests the grid connections are a big problem: if there's a surplus on winter's afternoon and then a drought, it seems there are big problems with the grid distributing it.

We have lots of farm solar, a 16MW wind farm, and a 700MW CCGT plant in the local area. It could be due to the CCGT ramping up, but Octopus claim their free electricity is only from renewables.

Anyone know if there's finer grained demand/supply data available than the 'London/East Midlands/NW/SW/S. Scotland/etc' regions from NG ESO?

Theo

Wiki says West Burton and Kilroot coal has ended. Wiki also said Drax coal was only allowed to March this year. So I have lost confidence in t'other Gridwatch, I'm not sure their supporting text is being actively updated.

Um, still and *cloudy* days. Solar still works if there’s sun.

Tim

To me, it indicates a lack of suitable storage.

And today from about 11.30 to about 14.30, we got about 1GW from solar. Sod all, really, considering the investment.

And your solution to the storage problem is what, precisely?

I meant you wont get anything until ~9am on a frosty winter morning, it's frosty as there's no wind,and it's not light until 8am onward. In Southern Scotland, it is 8 am before you don't need a light to see around now, up North it'll be 8.30ish. But here, the hydros will be working all the time, so they'll make a dent in what the solar and wind cannot do.

Been wet, rather than cold for quite a few days, hasn't it?

The bits of solar that clock-up on gridwatch seem to manage 2% for about

I remember hearing something on the radio a few days back, that ESO had battery storage available* but were not making use of it.

I'm not sure about that, the free electricity is local (postcode level), the 'saving session' is national. It may be the surplus is local and there isn't actually so much local tightness, but there is enough capacity to transmit to where it is tight. Or the granularity of the messaging about the 'saving session' is too coarse.

Encourage people to time shift consumption to times when supply isn't tight, which is what they're doing. I bumped up the heating by one degree at 3pm when it was free, and dropped it back two degrees at 5pm when I get paid not to use. If I write a Home Assistant rule I can do that automatically.

Theo