Dungeness is now back online and coming up to full power on the second
reactor.

Only two reactors in the UK are down for statutory inspection, and one
operating on 75% of capacity due to a boiler issue on one if its 4 boilers.

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

So most of the UKs capacity is going to be in good shape for what looks
like being a pretty hard winter again.

Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/13 12:50, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

[snip useful report]

Thanks for that TNP - useful and reassuring.

Do we know - or can it be found out - how much the country has so far
paid for its 5 or as it might be 7 GW of wind?

well SOMEONE has paid around £15bn.

Its hard to say how much of that we have paid back in increased energy
bills however.

I tend to ignore wind at a technical level because it contributes
nothing to availability at all.

We know how much capacity is there we can RELY on. to a confidence level
of about 90%.

we cant rely on wind/solar at all.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/2013 13:20, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 19/11/13 12:50, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

[snip useful report]

Thanks for that TNP - useful and reassuring.

Do we know - or can it be found out - how much the country has so far
paid for its 5 or as it might be 7 GW of wind?

well SOMEONE has paid around £15bn.

What else could we have bought for that, in terms of generating
capacity?


I think the currently quoted figure for Hinkley Point C is £14bn. This
is two reactors, 3.2 GW. Around 5% of national capacity IIR.

On 19/11/13 13:20, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 19/11/13 12:50, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

[snip useful report]

Thanks for that TNP - useful and reassuring.

Do we know - or can it be found out - how much the country has so far
paid for its 5 or as it might be 7 GW of wind?

well SOMEONE has paid around £15bn.

What else could we have bought for that, in terms of generating
capacity?

3.6GW of overpriced french nuke?

which if it had been built by now, would be generating about twice what
the wind does, on average. Reliably. And would do so for the next 40
years, not 15..without requiring an equivalent amount of backup gas, and
being totally 'zero emissions' apart from a lot of warm sea-water
suitable for cultivation mmm - farmed langoustines in?

Or we could have built about 7GW of coal, or 20GW of CCGT.

Anything would be better, than windmills.




--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/13 13:27, newshound wrote:
On 19/11/2013 13:20, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 19/11/13 12:50, Tim Streater wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

[snip useful report]

Thanks for that TNP - useful and reassuring.

Do we know - or can it be found out - how much the country has so far
paid for its 5 or as it might be 7 GW of wind?

well SOMEONE has paid around £15bn.

What else could we have bought for that, in terms of generating
capacity?


I think the currently quoted figure for Hinkley Point C is £14bn. This
is two reactors, 3.2 GW. Around 5% of national capacity IIR.

Of course that is subject to the guv-mint not changing the rules halfway
through construction, meaning they have to redesign the whole plant,
from the ground up - or some contractor delivering the wrong sort of
concrete* or nuts for the bolts** halfway through.

*IIRC one of the chief reasons for delays at Okiluoto is that concrete
that could be subject to high neutron flux needs to have special ballast
in it that won't turn to rice pudding or some such. They had built half
the containment when someone noted that they hadn't inspected the
previous bit. So they tore it all down to make sure.

**an amusing anecdote told me by a man who used to drive robots inside
reactors. The nuts were falling off, and when they tried to tighten them
they fell to bits. The bolts were of the correct alloy that could handle
a high neutron flux but the nuts were not. So he spent a year on a robot
replacing every single one. I think this issue showed up after several
decades of operation. Neutron (accelarted) corrosion is the main reason
for limited reactor life. You can replace all the steam plant and
systems outside the reactor, and the fuel rods inside, but when the
steel and concrete pressure vessels and containment structures
transmute into something else and accelerate stress corrosion, that's
end of line time. He lamented that when the Magnox were finally
decommissioned 'we weren't allowed any of the scrap for analysis'

Its also part of the reason why the current crop are running beyond
their expected end of life, too. Statutory inspections consist
(partially) in seeing how far this process has gone, and if it hasn't
gone that far, trying to get an license extension to operate what is
still perfectly serviceable kit.

And finally its the reason why you can't march in with a bulldozer, jack
hammer and plasma torch to decommission. The concrete will have
radioactive elements in traces and so too will the steel pressure
vessel. I think that makes a fair amount of cobalt 60. If the steel has
cobalt in it, for example. Some of these elements get knocked into
radioactive isotopes - usually with half lives in decades - so the best
strategy is to simply leave the thing in place for 60 years plus, for
these to decay to something less- or in-active and THEN go in with the
kit without having to take precautions.

It helps to have an adjacent working reactor to finance the security and
box ticking that this entails.

Of course its wonderful ammunition for the 'we don't know how to
decommission a reactor' brigade...








--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

We need them now and in every month to come. 1GW of coal at Ferrybridge C is
just about to expire under the LCPD (there was less than a 1000 hours of running
left at the end of September) The crunch time could be in March 2014, declared
nuclear capacity is falling off to 5.6GW in week 10, add in a blocking high, gas
import restrictions, zero FR and NED interconnector import due to mainland
Europe demand and a shortfall is more possible then than at any time over the
2013/14 winter period.

Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this Friday including an
assumed 7GW of wind and 1.1GW of hydro. Just a bit too much wind for the white
elephants and the country is ****ed.

1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86 hours
left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July 2013. It
currently retains the previous levels of transmission entry capacity of around
1GW but legally it can't run.

The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising three
units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

19/11/2013 declarations for 'Large' Biomass (i.e. plant greater than 100MW)

Ironbridge Unit 1 330MW, Unit 2 200 - 340MW

These are converted 500MW coal units opted out of the LCPD and so must be closed
by the end of 2015, but with around 10000* hours remaining between them.

Drax Unit 2 570 MW

This is a converted 660MW coal unit, the first one of three, next one goes live
in 2014, all opted in to LCPD, at least 10 years operation remaining if the
lumberjacks can keep up.

Add in Stevens Croft at 44MW and the current 1200+MW looks correct

*
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/staticd...2013-11-01.xls

From that spreadsheet you'll also see that Fawley (Oil) only ran 837 hours
between January 2008 until closure in March 2013, or an average of around a week
of operation per annum at first glance but more recently it's actually worse
than that, see below

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

It's been on reduced transfer capability due to overhead line restringing in the
Kent area.

No decisions as yet on any recabling of the Moyle Interconnector. It's of far
more significance for those in NI than those elsewhere in the UK.

http://www.mutual-energy.com/Media/P..._on_repair.php


Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.

They probably can't afford to test it . It will have been shut down and
mothballed correctly. If plant needs to run then it will be made to run. With
the price of gas some older CCGT's may not run at all unless the **** really
hits the fan with a very large failure of coal or nuclear generation. There is
no doubt the recession aids this generation shortfall ****fest enormously, with
a functioning and growing economy the lights would be going out this winter.

I mentioned the total run hours of Fawley above since the start of the LCPD.
Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK. Last
winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at all, Fawley
ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous winter Fawley ran for
16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22

--

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Dungeness is now back online and coming up to full power on the second
reactor.

Only two reactors in the UK are down for statutory inspection, and one
operating on 75% of capacity due to a boiler issue on one if its 4 boilers.

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

So most of the UKs capacity is going to be in good shape for what looks
like being a pretty hard winter again.

Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.



Incidentally is it deliberate to have removed the orange and red
sections of the meter scales? They used to give added interest to dial
watching
Bob

On Tuesday 19 November 2013 16:54 The Other Mike wrote in uk.d-i-y:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

We need them now and in every month to come. 1GW of coal at Ferrybridge C
is just about to expire under the LCPD (there was less than a 1000 hours
of running
left at the end of September) The crunch time could be in March 2014,
declared nuclear capacity is falling off to 5.6GW in week 10, add in a
blocking high, gas import restrictions, zero FR and NED interconnector
import due to mainland Europe demand and a shortfall is more possible then
than at any time over the 2013/14 winter period.

If FR and NL ICs goe to zero import, that will be a very interesting time.

For an arab definition of "interesting".

--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

On 19/11/13 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

Hi Mike. Knew I could rely on you for detail!

I might have to get you to do a blog on gridwatch.


We need them now and in every month to come. 1GW of coal at Ferrybridge C is
just about to expire under the LCPD (there was less than a 1000 hours of running
left at the end of September)

Oh ****.

The crunch time could be in March 2014, declared
nuclear capacity is falling off to 5.6GW in week 10, add in a blocking high, gas
import restrictions, zero FR and NED interconnector import due to mainland
Europe demand and a shortfall is more possible then than at any time over the
2013/14 winter period.


yerrs. a lot of statutory outages then

Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this Friday including an
assumed 7GW of wind and 1.1GW of hydro. Just a bit too much wind for the white
elephants and the country is ****ed.

Its gonna get cold too.


1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86 hours
left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July 2013. It
currently retains the previous levels of transmission entry capacity of around
1GW but legally it can't run.

well something is, and its the only thing under 'other' on the BM
reports database.

Unless Drax have 'moved' their rbiomass burner over to it and BMreports
hasnt caught up yet.


The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising three
units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

19/11/2013 declarations for 'Large' Biomass (i.e. plant greater than 100MW)

Ironbridge Unit 1 330MW, Unit 2 200 - 340MW

These are converted 500MW coal units opted out of the LCPD and so must be closed
by the end of 2015, but with around 10000* hours remaining between them.

Drax Unit 2 570 MW

This is a converted 660MW coal unit, the first one of three, next one goes live
in 2014, all opted in to LCPD, at least 10 years operation remaining if the
lumberjacks can keep up.

Add in Stevens Croft at 44MW and the current 1200+MW looks correct

*
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/staticd...2013-11-01.xls


Ok that accounts for it. So a lot of 'coal' has become 'biomass'

From that spreadsheet you'll also see that Fawley (Oil) only ran 837 hours
between January 2008 until closure in March 2013, or an average of around a week
of operation per annum at first glance but more recently it's actually worse
than that, see below


is that permanently down now?

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

It's been on reduced transfer capability due to overhead line restringing in the
Kent area.

No decisions as yet on any recabling of the Moyle Interconnector. It's of far
more significance for those in NI than those elsewhere in the UK.

http://www.mutual-energy.com/Media/P..._on_repair.php


Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.

They probably can't afford to test it . It will have been shut down and
mothballed correctly. If plant needs to run then it will be made to run. With
the price of gas some older CCGT's may not run at all unless the **** really
hits the fan with a very large failure of coal or nuclear generation. There is
no doubt the recession aids this generation shortfall ****fest enormously, with
a functioning and growing economy the lights would be going out this winter.

I mentioned the total run hours of Fawley above since the start of the LCPD.
Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK. Last
winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at all, Fawley
ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous winter Fawley ran for
16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22


But they are possible emergency sources right?


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/13 16:56, Bob Minchin wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Dungeness is now back online and coming up to full power on the second
reactor.

Only two reactors in the UK are down for statutory inspection, and one
operating on 75% of capacity due to a boiler issue on one if its 4
boilers.

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

So most of the UKs capacity is going to be in good shape for what looks
like being a pretty hard winter again.

Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.



Incidentally is it deliberate to have removed the orange and red
sections of the meter scales? They used to give added interest to dial
watching
Bob

People kept asking what they meant and I had to admit they didnt mean
very much at all.

Apparently teachers are using the site to teach kids about electricity
or something ...

--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/13 17:47, Tim Watts wrote:
On Tuesday 19 November 2013 16:54 The Other Mike wrote in uk.d-i-y:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

We need them now and in every month to come. 1GW of coal at Ferrybridge C
is just about to expire under the LCPD (there was less than a 1000 hours
of running
left at the end of September) The crunch time could be in March 2014,
declared nuclear capacity is falling off to 5.6GW in week 10, add in a
blocking high, gas import restrictions, zero FR and NED interconnector
import due to mainland Europe demand and a shortfall is more possible then
than at any time over the 2013/14 winter period.

If FR and NL ICs goe to zero import, that will be a very interesting time.

For an arab definition of "interesting".

The other year we supplied a gig or two to France to keep the wine chilled.

I suppose we still might.

All a matter of price.. if they pay us 20c a unit...



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Tuesday 19 November 2013 20:25 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Apparently teachers are using the site to teach kids about electricity
or something ...


I told a couple of kids about your site at some secondary open day (one of
the grammar schools in Tonbridge IIRC).

Glad to hear it! Perhaps the next generation will be a tiny bit less thick
than the current one!

--
Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/

http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage

On 19/11/13 20:24, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/11/13 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:


Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this Friday
including an assumed 7GW of wind and 1.1GW of hydro. Just a bit
too much wind for the white elephants and the country is ****ed.

Its gonna get cold too.

Mike: I've looked into this and they are assuming 7GW of wind in that.
According to the weather forecast there is going to be bugger all wind
and it will be very cold indeed.

So watch those dials on Friday.

Assuming we still HAVE electricity of course ;-)

I've updated the biomass dial to cope with the sudden appearance of all
the wood-burners and edited the tooltips to reflect the new reality.
Moyle is half power now for years it seems and the E-W is out for a few
days altogether.






--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:25:56 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

People kept asking what they meant and I had to admit they didnt mean
very much at all.

The old ones were a bit "strange". For the dispatchable sources it
would be nice to have a red line that marked the "known" maximum
capacity of that source and an orange section below that. So when you
look and all the dispatchable needles are in the orange and it's only
1600 you know it's time to dust off the standby kit ...

Apparently teachers are using the site to teach kids about electricity
or something ...

Well that's OK provided they are using the information that is there
in a proper and balanced way. Not just pointing at the windmills
producing 12% of the demand (as they are now) but coal is 40%, nuke
19% and CCGT 17% ...

Teachers must also point at the weekly/monthly/yearly graphs to show
that wind is unpredictable and really very "peaky". Then ask the
question where does the energy come from when the wind isn't blowing,
ie about 2/3rds of the time?

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 21:19:44 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this
Friday
including an assumed 7GW of wind and 1.1GW of hydro. Just a bit
too much wind for the white elephants and the country is ****ed.

Its gonna get cold too.

Cold tonight (we have light dusting of snow but air temp has risen to
0.4 C from about -3 C at 1700), I'd expect us to be above freezing
during the day maybe even as warm as 5 C max towards the end of the
week. Nights may well be cold if it stays clear under the high
pressure, -3.8 C at 0800 this morning, ground frost didn't clear in
sheltered spots.

Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this
Friday

Mike: I've looked into this and they are assuming 7GW of wind in that.
According to the weather forecast there is going to be bugger all wind
...

Yep, maybe 1 to 2 GW. So that leaves us with 8.2 - 7 + 2 = 3.2 GW
surplus with a peak demand of 50 GW 6% margin at best, maybe down to
4%. Tight but not unduly but shift that to a 55 GW peak, oops!

... and it will be very cold indeed.

At night, there is still a bit of warmth in the sun around midday. It
isn't going to be "end of February" cold, with ice days etc.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:54:42 +0000, The Other Mike wrote:

We need them now and in every month to come.

snip

Thanks for the insight Mike.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86
hours left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July
2013.

Tilbury does appear to be closed due to lack of hours even though it
is converted to burn biomass. But looking at the Tilbury pages on the
RWE site maybe the current conversion from coal to biomass isn't
clean or effcient enough to enable it to run as a biomass station.

The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising
three units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

Donno about Ironbridge but I thought Drax was mixed fueling rather
than pure Biomass, but that could be refering to the site overall
rather than individual units... It's damn difficult for the average
punter to sort the wood from the trees as far as what unit at what
station is burning what.

Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK.
Last winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at
all, Fawley ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous
winter Fawley ran for 16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22

Well the oil burners at Fawley and Grain are closed according to
their owners websites.

That leaves Littlebrook as the only(?) operational oil burner in the
UK and it is also one of the black start stations. Trouble is it is
opted out of the LCPD so will close at the end of 2015. The OCGT's
used to black start the main station also auto start (off to
synchronised and on load in 5 mins) if the grid frequency drops too
low. So not only do we lose another GW+ of capacity we also lose a
black start facility and possibly frequency stabilisation as well.

Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 20/11/13 00:15, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:54:42 +0000, The Other Mike wrote:

We need them now and in every month to come.

snip

Thanks for the insight Mike.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86
hours left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July
2013.

Tilbury does appear to be closed due to lack of hours even though it
is converted to burn biomass. But looking at the Tilbury pages on the
RWE site maybe the current conversion from coal to biomass isn't
clean or effcient enough to enable it to run as a biomass station.

The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising
three units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

Donno about Ironbridge but I thought Drax was mixed fueling rather
than pure Biomass, but that could be refering to the site overall
rather than individual units... It's damn difficult for the average
punter to sort the wood from the trees as far as what unit at what
station is burning what.

Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK.
Last winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at
all, Fawley ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous
winter Fawley ran for 16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22

Well the oil burners at Fawley and Grain are closed according to
their owners websites.

That leaves Littlebrook as the only(?) operational oil burner in the
UK and it is also one of the black start stations. Trouble is it is
opted out of the LCPD so will close at the end of 2015. The OCGT's
used to black start the main station also auto start (off to
synchronised and on load in 5 mins) if the grid frequency drops too
low. So not only do we lose another GW+ of capacity we also lose a
black start facility and possibly frequency stabilisation as well.

Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

Spectacular research guys:

we should work up a 'state of the nations grid'...


I have to say I am a leetle bit nervous if we will in fact make it
through the winter..


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Dave Liquorice wrote:
For the dispatchable sources it
would be nice to have a red line that marked the "known" maximum
capacity of that source and an orange section below that. So when you
look and all the dispatchable needles are in the orange and it's only
1600 you know it's time to dust off the standby kit ...

+1 That is sort of the way I used to interpret the old dials.

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:31:34 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

Spectacular research guys:

Wonkypedia... wouldn't like to vouch for it's accuracy. Mind you I'm
not sure I trust the RWE or E.ON sites either!

we should work up a 'state of the nations grid'...

I was half think that as well. I guess a good starting point would be
that BM Reports spreadsheet mentioned earlier

I have to say I am a leetle bit nervous if we will in fact make it
through the winter..

But Cameroon (or at least HMG) has said "the lights will not go out".

I bet that has started a bit background scrabbling by the civil
servants to negociate the price for relatively short notice removal
of mothballs without the firing up of some stations dependant on how
the winter pans out. They'll risk a couple of close calls but if we
have a week or more of severe cold (think 2009/10 and 10/11), they
will start to throw money at the problem, lights going out will cost
votes...

Of course the statement "the lights will not go out" shouldn't be
taken at face value as it has been spoken by a politician. If the
lights go out because we have another Dungeness incident at peak
demand that won't count as it's "exceptional weather" not "lack of
margin". The fact that Dungeness fell off line last month without
causing any major problems will be ignored.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Dave Liquorice wrote:

Of course the statement "the lights will not go out" shouldn't be
taken at face value as it has been spoken by a politician.

OTOH, the press will be up in arms if any of those industrial
customers who have signed up, as a commercial choice, for an
interruptible supply, actually have their supply interrupted. The
clue is in the name. ;-)

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.

In article ,
"The Natural Philosopher", said
On 19/11/13 20:24, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/11/13 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:


I've updated the biomass dial to cope with the sudden appearance of all
the wood-burners and edited the tooltips to reflect the new reality.
Moyle is half power now for years it seems and the E-W is out for a few
days altogether.

Just a minor point - in the biomass tooltips it gives the impression
that Steven's Croft is an ex-coal plant. It's not, it was purpose built
for biomass (timber processing plant right next door and the waste from
that goes to the power station).

Thanks again for the effort you've put into providing this site. I can
confirm it gets used in at least two schools locally.

Ken.

On 20/11/13 09:53, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:31:34 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

Spectacular research guys:

Wonkypedia... wouldn't like to vouch for it's accuracy. Mind you I'm
not sure I trust the RWE or E.ON sites either!

we should work up a 'state of the nations grid'...

I was half think that as well. I guess a good starting point would be
that BM Reports spreadsheet mentioned earlier

I have to say I am a leetle bit nervous if we will in fact make it
through the winter..

But Cameroon (or at least HMG) has said "the lights will not go out".

I bet that has started a bit background scrabbling by the civil
servants to negociate the price for relatively short notice removal
of mothballs without the firing up of some stations dependant on how
the winter pans out. They'll risk a couple of close calls but if we
have a week or more of severe cold (think 2009/10 and 10/11), they
will start to throw money at the problem, lights going out will cost
votes...

Of course the statement "the lights will not go out" shouldn't be
taken at face value as it has been spoken by a politician. If the
lights go out because we have another Dungeness incident at peak
demand that won't count as it's "exceptional weather" not "lack of
margin". The fact that Dungeness fell off line last month without
causing any major problems will be ignored.

it wont be. There are a lot of people in the MSM picking up on this story.

I got a call from a bloke at the Sun.

Never paid me for what I sent him though. Be warned ;-)

I think there is a 'who turned of the lights' story sitting at news
international waiting to be dusted off and printed by candlelight,..


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 20/11/13 10:42, Ken wrote:
In article ,
"The Natural Philosopher", said
On 19/11/13 20:24, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/11/13 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:


I've updated the biomass dial to cope with the sudden appearance of all
the wood-burners and edited the tooltips to reflect the new reality.
Moyle is half power now for years it seems and the E-W is out for a few
days altogether.

Just a minor point - in the biomass tooltips it gives the impression
that Steven's Croft is an ex-coal plant. It's not, it was purpose built
for biomass (timber processing plant right next door and the waste from
that goes to the power station).

Ok will fix that.

Thanks again for the effort you've put into providing this site. I can
confirm it gets used in at least two schools locally.

Ken.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

Spectacular research guys:

we should work up a 'state of the nations grid'...


I have to say I am a leetle bit nervous if we will in fact make it
through the winter..



Bit hypothetical but..

Mike might know the answer to this one.

Suppose a large coal gen station goes tits up, its one of those nice
winter highs so no windmills are being stirred across the UK and its
bloody cold in Europe to. Theres a bit of a problem with the Gas supply
somewhere over the other side of the channel. And of course one of our
Nuke stations has a problem .. its getting the be the perfect storm for
UK power supply..

The UK power supply can no longer meet demand and rolling power cuts are
on the go and are causing large disquiet.

Now theres a coal station that "could" be bought back into use in a few
days thats just time expired under some EU plan. Would the government do
that to keep the UK on the go or not?. If they did I suppose the EU
might say shut it down but then we say No, what are you going to do
about it?.

So what happens do we just get fined a lot of money or what?....
--
Tony Sayer

On 19/11/2013 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

We need them now and in every month to come. 1GW of coal at Ferrybridge C is
just about to expire under the LCPD (there was less than a 1000 hours of running
left at the end of September) The crunch time could be in March 2014, declared
nuclear capacity is falling off to 5.6GW in week 10, add in a blocking high, gas
import restrictions, zero FR and NED interconnector import due to mainland
Europe demand and a shortfall is more possible then than at any time over the
2013/14 winter period.

Even sooner there is currently just 8.2GW plant surplus this Friday including an
assumed 7GW of wind and 1.1GW of hydro. Just a bit too much wind for the white
elephants and the country is ****ed.

1GW plus of 'biomass' power has appeared on the grid.

BM reports lists only two power stations to which this category applies
- the 40MW wood burner - EONs Stevenscroft - and Tilbury. Tilbury was
supposed to have been closed, but that appears not to be the case, as
its running flat out, having been brought up early this morning.

I've emailed RWE for clarification on Tilbury's status.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86 hours
left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July 2013. It
currently retains the previous levels of transmission entry capacity of around
1GW but legally it can't run.

The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising three
units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

19/11/2013 declarations for 'Large' Biomass (i.e. plant greater than 100MW)

Ironbridge Unit 1 330MW, Unit 2 200 - 340MW

These are converted 500MW coal units opted out of the LCPD and so must be closed
by the end of 2015, but with around 10000* hours remaining between them.

Drax Unit 2 570 MW

This is a converted 660MW coal unit, the first one of three, next one goes live
in 2014, all opted in to LCPD, at least 10 years operation remaining if the
lumberjacks can keep up.

Add in Stevens Croft at 44MW and the current 1200+MW looks correct

*
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/staticd...2013-11-01.xls

From that spreadsheet you'll also see that Fawley (Oil) only ran 837 hours
between January 2008 until closure in March 2013, or an average of around a week
of operation per annum at first glance but more recently it's actually worse
than that, see below

The French interconnector appears to be up to full power again - a rare
event - but the full 2GW is for now, available and in use. Likewise
Moyle is running at only half power - I think they are replacing the
whole cable after several attempts to repair the old one didn't last.

It's been on reduced transfer capability due to overhead line restringing in the
Kent area.

No decisions as yet on any recabling of the Moyle Interconnector. It's of far
more significance for those in NI than those elsewhere in the UK.

http://www.mutual-energy.com/Media/P..._on_repair.php


Its usual to see a bit of OCGT and oil burner being run up at this time
of year - to make sure it still works - but no sign yet on the dials.

They probably can't afford to test it . It will have been shut down and
mothballed correctly. If plant needs to run then it will be made to run. With
the price of gas some older CCGT's may not run at all unless the **** really
hits the fan with a very large failure of coal or nuclear generation. There is
no doubt the recession aids this generation shortfall ****fest enormously, with
a functioning and growing economy the lights would be going out this winter.

I mentioned the total run hours of Fawley above since the start of the LCPD.
Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK. Last
winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at all, Fawley
ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous winter Fawley ran for
16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22


Fascinating. Presumably the mothballed sites retain minimum staff to
keep the plant healthy; do they then bring in operations staff from
other stations when they want to run them, or perhaps retired staff?
Sounds like a massive waste of relatively scarce manpower. And we used
to think the CEGB was inefficient......

On 20/11/13 13:53, tony sayer wrote:
Isn't wonkypedia wonderful B-)

Spectacular research guys:

we should work up a 'state of the nations grid'...


I have to say I am a leetle bit nervous if we will in fact make it
through the winter..



Bit hypothetical but..

Mike might know the answer to this one.

Suppose a large coal gen station goes tits up, its one of those nice
winter highs so no windmills are being stirred across the UK and its
bloody cold in Europe to. Theres a bit of a problem with the Gas supply
somewhere over the other side of the channel. And of course one of our
Nuke stations has a problem .. its getting the be the perfect storm for
UK power supply..

The UK power supply can no longer meet demand and rolling power cuts are
on the go and are causing large disquiet.

Now theres a coal station that "could" be bought back into use in a few
days thats just time expired under some EU plan. Would the government do
that to keep the UK on the go or not?. If they did I suppose the EU
might say shut it down but then we say No, what are you going to do
about it?.

So what happens do we just get fined a lot of money or what?....

Coal plants that have been even partially decommissioned cant ve brought
back online. Mothballed mensass that. Full of oil, cleaned , in good
working order,ALLPARTS STILL THERE and probably unmanned except for
routine maintenance and able to be fired up if not a moments notice at
least in a day or two.

The grid does forward capacity planning and would know in advance when
demand would be very tight and issue instructions BUT what it cant do is
predict a broken pipe in a steam turbine etc. The loss of one power
station can be covered by turning hydro and pumped up flat out , opening
the steam valves on the coal and nuclear, and dropping frequency and
voltage,. That's step 1. Using what energy is in boilers and water to
postpone the real issue. then normally extra CCGT capacity is brought up.

IF that CCGT capacity were not there though, then we are in trouble, and
we have to bring STOR online and start cutting off discretionary users.
Like Ireland :-) and begging watts from the French, if they have any
left spare.

that might not be enough though if the ICTs are already maxed out.

What is most worrisome however is that apart from a footnote explaining
that their calculations are nonsense, because renewable energy cant be
relied upon to provide any capacity whatsoever in an emergency, is the
fact that DECC DOES assume so.

Its a thread that runs through their calculations. Use of average wind
power to represent something solid dependable and meaningful, when they
simply are none of the above.

Better is this OFGEM document

http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/e...sment-2012.pdf

its worth a read because it explains how they arrive at risks and what
the contingency plans are.

realistically what we might be in for is short duration cuts at around
the evening peak for selected UK areas. Not a total show stopper, but
deeply embarrassing nonetheless.


--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 19/11/2013 20:25, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

People kept asking what they meant and I had to admit they didnt mean
very much at all.

Apparently teachers are using the site to teach kids about electricity
or something ...


I did hear from leisure center staff last year that they weren't allowed
to adjust the heating controls in the swimming pool because the owning
company [of the leisure center] had hacked into the nuclear
powerstations and would know about it. The staff were utterly convinced
this was true.

Turns out, the head office guy was blagging them with gridwatch :/

Thanks for the site by the way. It's dead good.

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:24:19 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

On 19/11/13 16:54, The Other Mike wrote:
On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:14:31 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Barring unexpected outages all reactors should be operational at full
capacity for January & February, when we need them most.

Hi Mike. Knew I could rely on you for detail!

I might have to get you to do a blog on gridwatch.

Both I and my source need to keep a relatively low profile

Ok that accounts for it. So a lot of 'coal' has become 'biomass'

Depends on your definition of 'a lot'

600MW at Drax now running with very similar loading profiles to the coal fired
plant, 2 x 350MW maybe eventually increasing to 2 x 450MW at Ironbridge with
limited running hours. Should be about 1350MW of Biomass on the bars for 8am
Tuesday although there are rumours that Ironbridge has continuing plant problems
and that their fuel supply chain is a bit 'broken'

There is another 600MW conversion at Drax around Q3/4 next year with another
600MW conversion sometime in 2015. Aberthaw B (3 x 500MW) has been partial dual
firing (10% ish) for a few years now but has always been declared as coal. In
addition Nothing else 'big' planned as far as I know, all remaining coal fired
sites are either LCPD opted in or opted out and unconverted and about to close
with no incentive for conversion, so replanting or more likely demolition is to
be expected. Didcot being a case in point. There have been a handful of
biomass proposals announced in recent years for opted in coal sites and at least
one cancellation in the past month or so, (1GW owned by GdF at Rugeley that is
now remaining coal fired)

From that spreadsheet you'll also see that Fawley (Oil) only ran 837 hours
between January 2008 until closure in March 2013, or an average of around a week
of operation per annum at first glance but more recently it's actually worse
than that, see below


is that permanently down now?

Yes.



But they are possible emergency sources right?

Yes, but none that should be discussed in polite company.

There are a number of people who would gladly bury an ice pick in the heads of
the slimy *******s that are royally taking the **** with STOR. The scheme was
only ever intended for demand reduction, an extension of what happened before
1990. It got hijacked by a group of spivs on both sides of the table to line
certain pockets. It would have been cheaper and more sensible to simply let the
lights go out.

--

On Wed, 20 Nov 2013 00:15:44 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Tue, 19 Nov 2013 16:54:42 +0000, The Other Mike wrote:

We need them now and in every month to come.

snip

Thanks for the insight Mike.

There is nothing running at Tilbury as it's run out of hours (it had 86
hours left at the end of September 2013*) and stopped generating in July
2013.

Tilbury does appear to be closed due to lack of hours even though it
is converted to burn biomass. But looking at the Tilbury pages on the
RWE site maybe the current conversion from coal to biomass isn't
clean or effcient enough to enable it to run as a biomass station.

'Clean' is a problem and a simple conversion to biomass doesn't reset the hours
clock. 'opting in' now is not an option. A full replanting could be a
possibility.

It'll be interesting to see what the future plans are for Ferrybridge when half
of the 1960's built plant runs out of hours this winter. The other half is opted
in and appears to have a future with dirt cheap imported coal, albeit with
massively reduced NOx emissions from 2016 onwards. In the interim there is one
current 'multifuel' aka biomass plant being built alongside and another one
planned. 68MW for the first one, costing 300 million and half their golf
course, the second one just 50MW and the other half of the golf course.

http://multifuelenergy.com/ferrybridge-multifuel/



The BM reports spreadsheet is incorrect as it's incorrectly categorising
three units, Ironbridge 1 & 2 and Drax 2 as coal rather than Biomass.

Donno about Ironbridge but I thought Drax was mixed fueling rather
than pure Biomass, but that could be refering to the site overall
rather than individual units... It's damn difficult for the average
punter to sort the wood from the trees as far as what unit at what
station is burning what.

Drax Units 1,2 and 3, from the oldest half of the site dating from the mid 70's
are being converted to 100% biomass over the next two years. Unit 2 is the
first of the three and is already up and running at around 600MW net (the coal
fired units are 660MW generated, 645 MW net)

Economics dictate that we may not see any oil plant run again in the UK.
Last winter with three oil fired stations available, Grain didn't run at
all, Fawley ran for 19 hours and Littlebrook for 13. In the previous
winter Fawley ran for 16 hours, Grain for 4 and Littlebrook for 22

Well the oil burners at Fawley and Grain are closed according to
their owners websites.

Yep, they are both closed.

That leaves Littlebrook as the only(?) operational oil burner in the
UK and it is also one of the black start stations. Trouble is it is
opted out of the LCPD so will close at the end of 2015. The OCGT's
used to black start the main station also auto start (off to
synchronised and on load in 5 mins) if the grid frequency drops too
low. So not only do we lose another GW+ of capacity we also lose a
black start facility and possibly frequency stabilisation as well.

Yes it's the last supergrid connected oil burner in mainland UK.

A number of black start sites have retained that status despite the closure of
the main generation. Fawley for example. 1GW of oil lost about 15 years ago,
the remaining 1GW lost earlier this year but with 70MW of black start
(distillate fuelled OCGT's) retained at least for a couple of years, maybe more.
There are enough black start sites around for it not to be too much of an issue.

--