Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms National Grid Staus Lunchtime 1 March

If you look at the National Grid status page now around lunchtime 1st March. We are in the orange area as far as electricity production is concerned we are generating 48GW of Electricity at the moment the majority of February has been nearer say a peak of 44 to 45 GW.



http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/



Many homes and Industry are using more gas than usual, therefore the backbone of the electricity generation system, combined cycle gas turbines that is gas turbines with heat recovery has been paired back. Wind and Nuclear are holding up well and even solar is around 0.75 GW.

For the first time in a good while we are seeing non heat recovery gas turbines started which goes against the paired back combined cycle gas turbines which are more efficient.

The nominal 50HZ electricity frequency is a touch lower than usual.

Have a look at the site linked to above.

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Going to visit Pembrokeshire CCGT in a few weeks.

I had never appreciated that wind is now 21% of our source.

There was a statistic put out last year that solar and wind power generated 25% of power requirement in the UK . If we were allowed to put more energy into the grid due to limits on solar panels on roofs etc it would be much higher .

On a windy day yes wind power can be very useful but not on a calm day which annoys those who have built Gas turbine stations and cannot run them on windy days!

You cannot please all the people all the time.

On the mid day news they clarified that domestic gas supply would not be affected but industrial supplies were the first to be affected with heavy users being asked to scale back demand/use.
South Hook terminal in Milford Haven has capacity to inport 30% of uk needs via a cross country pipeline.
Current supplies from Norway and others are slightly down due to problems of various kinds.
Coal is imported.
Wind inconsistent ( behave yourselves)
Nuclear suffering political delays.
I have never been comfortable with high import reliance. I remember the effects of the coal strikes causing a 3 day working week etc.
So....scale up nuclear?
Reopen coal mining?
Use wind as a topping up?
Dinorwig in N Wales offers a quick top up at high demand but the water only runs for a short time.
I find the whole national energy management strategy confusing and not joined up. Yes we are making slow strides to energy efficiency in the end user part but back away from critical decisions on generating power due to for example, eco lobbying, safety fears etc.
I wonder where we will end up?

Nor I, it seems insane to me - but then privatising the energy supply and distribution networks never made any sense to me, the consumer hasn't particularly benefited.



That's because there isn't one any more. The old CEGB strategy (reliability at any cost) had some pretty major flaws, but the current arrangements are deeply flawed



In the dermot...

I believe all sorts of plans are afoot, including the running of private generators and battery parks. We have a 40mw Battery Park nearly completed locally, see www.lowcarbon.com/our-portfolio/portfolio-overview/our-projects/Glassenbury-storage-park/
I have been in contact with them and will be arranging a visit this March or April

Indeed there are. One scheme that I find interesting is the idea of using old mineshafts. Basically you dangle an enormously heavy weight (20 Kilotons) down a mineshaft. When the wind is blowing in the middle of the night and no-one needs the power, you crank the weight up to the top of the mineshaft. When the wind drops and everyone wants to cook their breakfast, you let the weight drop and spin the motors the other way to generate power. It doesn't even matter if the mineshaft is flooded, which is handy.

That seems similar to the Dinorwig hydro system. Water in a hilltop lake drains down through turbines inside the mountain to generate. A quick on/off facility. Need more power? Open anotherturbine pipe up. Water is then pumped back up overnight when demand is low.
If in the area a visit to see the “electric mountain” is worth it.