On 22/04/17 09:51, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sat, 22 Apr 2017 09:36:49 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 22/04/17 07:30, Andy Burns wrote:
ARW wrote:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39675418
I thought we had already done that.

I thought we'd had "more solar than coal" one bright saturday?

we had that some time ago, and there was a brief couple of hours in
2016 whene there was no coal, but this is a no coal *day*, and the
greens are wetting their pants thinking its terribly wonderful.,

Wait till be get a 'no electricity day'. The sad part about that is that
Gridwatch wont be able to record it.

But is it actually a 'no coal' day? Are there not coal-fired power
stations still burning coal as part of the STOR/spinning reserve? Or
is NG now relying solely on rapid start-up OCGT and banks of diesels
to cope with spikes in demand?

No I think it genuinely was.

All the big coal plant is shut for the summer, as the running hours
restrictions means they need to choose when to run. There seems to be a
360MW plant back up, which is all there was before yeterday. so my guess
is it needed a bit of maintenance and announced it would shut down for a
day.

STOR is not needed at this time of year - CCGT exists to fully cover any
margin requirements and what hydro there is can meet unexpected
shortfalls in demand for an hour or two. I would GUESS that a lot of
CCGT plant runs at 90% or so, so that its nicely efficient, but there is
a 10% margin there if needs be.

I can't remember how the heat rate varies with output power, but I am
pretty sure that CCGT doesn't lose too much if throttled back a little

Diesel and STOR are last resorts. hydro, CCGT and OCGT outrank them in
terms of cost effectiveness. So they are used wherever possible.
The reality is the grid is powered by gas, with nuclear underpinning it,
and coal coming in to baseload it in winter.

Short term peaks are net with hydro,

Renewable energy? pain in the arse. Increases the need for short term
balancing and costs a ruddy fortune. Should be banned, not subsidised.



--
"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."