Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

I wonder how much the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) contracts
announced yesterday
costing?

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-to-contract-for-new-balancing-services/

http://tinyurl.com/o6waeqa

"Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) is targeted at contracting for
reserves from generating plant that would otherwise be closed or
mothballed."

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-tenders-for-balancing-reserve-services-to-meet-market-changes
/

http://tinyurl.com/oqufvcg

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 29/10/14 23:58, Dave Liquorice wrote:
Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

I wonder how much the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) contracts
announced yesterday
costing?

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-to-contract-for-new-balancing-services/

http://tinyurl.com/o6waeqa

"Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) is targeted at contracting for
reserves from generating plant that would otherwise be closed or
mothballed."

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-tenders-for-balancing-reserve-services-to-meet-market-changes
/

http://tinyurl.com/oqufvcg

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...


Well spotted - and it's not even "cold" yet.

I shall be watching today with interest....

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 07:17:55 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:

Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the
peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is
still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

Well spotted - and it's not even "cold" yet.

Quite, I just happened to have a look, and went wow at the gas then
WOW at the pumped.

I think the Grid is getting rather nervous that the nukes aren't
going to be back, that 4GW (ish) would make all the difference.
Presumably lack of the nukes is why they are bringing in SBR a year
early. I wonder what assumptions on capacity have been made for the
quoted 4.1% margin (2.25 GW for a 55 GW demand).

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 30/10/2014 09:53, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 07:17:55 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:

Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the
peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is
still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

Well spotted - and it's not even "cold" yet.

Quite, I just happened to have a look, and went wow at the gas then
WOW at the pumped.

I think the Grid is getting rather nervous that the nukes aren't
going to be back, that 4GW (ish) would make all the difference.
Presumably lack of the nukes is why they are bringing in SBR a year
early. I wonder what assumptions on capacity have been made for the
quoted 4.1% margin (2.25 GW for a 55 GW demand).

Don't forget, Didcot has just lost part of its capacity for an
indefinite period, as has Ferrybridge, so we're a gigawatt down just
with those two missing.

If they hadn't been so keen to demolish Dodcot A, it could have been
fired up as a stopgap and hang the EU rules for now

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:50:03 +0000, John Williamson wrote:

Don't forget, Didcot has just lost part of its capacity for an
indefinite period,

The "lights won't go out" coverage the day before yesterday said that
the unit at Didcot was back.
Yep:

http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/121766.../united-kingdo
m/generation-market-messages/

... as has Ferrybridge, so we're a gigawatt down just with those two
missing.

Thought Ferrybridge (coal) had opted out and was also fairly close to
being out of hours.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 29/10/2014 23:58, Dave Liquorice wrote:
Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...

I'd have a lot more time to listen to politician's "won't go out"
remarks if they put something in place that meant they suffer if they
are wrong. (More than losing the next election.)

There appears to be some sort of assumption that our remaining
generating capacity is somehow less likely to burst into flames, leak,
or whatever else could befall a power station. A bit like assuming that
because you have rolled a few sizes, the next roll definitely won't be a
six...

--
Rod

Dave Liquorice wrote:

we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak demand this evening.

With pumped hydro giving a good thump too, and the french+dutch
connectors importing all they can ...

Where is TNP anyway?

I do think though that the most likely problems are still severe weather
related in sofar that if the grid is damaged or major resources are isolated
due to weather.
We see this on quite a few occasions.

You can only do so much to prepare for peak demand, the weather is always
the master.
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

I wonder how much the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) contracts
announced yesterday
costing?

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-to-contract-for-new-balancing-services/

http://tinyurl.com/o6waeqa

"Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) is targeted at contracting for
reserves from generating plant that would otherwise be closed or
mothballed."

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-tenders-for-balancing-reserve-services-to-meet-market-changes
/

http://tinyurl.com/oqufvcg

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 30/10/2014 10:11, Brian Gaff wrote:

I do think though that the most likely problems are still severe weather
related in sofar that if the grid is damaged or major resources are isolated
due to weather.
We see this on quite a few occasions.

You can only do so much to prepare for peak demand, the weather is always
the master.
Brian

But the weather isn't particularly bad at the moment and they have
pegged a couple of his meters past the end stop already. I'd say it was
better than evens that they have to drop chunks of heavy use business
off grid this winter given that a slightly cooler day in a mild spell in
one of the hottest Autumns ever can push CCGT past 20GW.

It wouldn't take much to trigger accidental grid dropouts with the
margins already so tight this early into the winter season.

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
But the weather isn't particularly bad at the moment and they have
pegged a couple of his meters past the end stop already. I'd say it was
better than evens that they have to drop chunks of heavy use business
off grid this winter given that a slightly cooler day in a mild spell in
one of the hottest Autumns ever can push CCGT past 20GW.

It wouldn't take much to trigger accidental grid dropouts with the
margins already so tight this early into the winter season.

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:05:19 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

France 2 GW, Dutch 1 GW. I think the two Irish ones are 1 GW but the
Irish don't have the capcity to export...

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

If it's that windy wind will have shut down...

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 30/10/2014 20:20, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:05:19 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

France 2 GW, Dutch 1 GW. I think the two Irish ones are 1 GW but the
Irish don't have the capcity to export...

The France one seems to be running at 2+ GW. He'll have to tweak fsd.

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

If it's that windy wind will have shut down...



--
Regards,
Martin Brown

En el artículo o.uk,
Dave Liquorice escribió:

I think the two Irish ones are 1 GW but the
Irish don't have the capcity to export...

One of them is faulty, I think, and running at vastly reduced capacity,

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

On 30/10/14 12:21, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:05:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
But the weather isn't particularly bad at the moment and they have
pegged a couple of his meters past the end stop already. I'd say it was
better than evens that they have to drop chunks of heavy use business
off grid this winter given that a slightly cooler day in a mild spell in
one of the hottest Autumns ever can push CCGT past 20GW.

It wouldn't take much to trigger accidental grid dropouts with the
margins already so tight this early into the winter season.

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

The Sun is predicting a big freeze this winter
http://tinyurl.com/q6gt9v5


The only thing the Sun can predict is big knockers on Page 3.

The Met forecast is predicting a warm weekend in Sussex with overnight
lows of +12, not -15C.

So what are they babbling about?

On Thursday, October 30, 2014 12:40:42 PM UTC, Tim Watts wrote:
On 30/10/14 12:21, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:05:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
But the weather isn't particularly bad at the moment and they have
pegged a couple of his meters past the end stop already. I'd say it was
better than evens that they have to drop chunks of heavy use business
off grid this winter given that a slightly cooler day in a mild spell in
one of the hottest Autumns ever can push CCGT past 20GW.

It wouldn't take much to trigger accidental grid dropouts with the
margins already so tight this early into the winter season.

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

The Sun is predicting a big freeze this winter
http://tinyurl.com/q6gt9v5


The only thing the Sun can predict is big knockers on Page 3.

The Met forecast is predicting a warm weekend in Sussex with overnight
lows of +12, not -15C.

So what are they babbling about?

All the papers print a it will be cold this winter story about now.... It sells papers.

Philip

On 30/10/2014 15:44, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 12:21:29 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:05:19 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Martin Brown writes:
But the weather isn't particularly bad at the moment and they have
pegged a couple of his meters past the end stop already. I'd say it
was better than evens that they have to drop chunks of heavy use
business off grid this winter given that a slightly cooler day in a
mild spell in one of the hottest Autumns ever can push CCGT past 20GW.

It wouldn't take much to trigger accidental grid dropouts with the
margins already so tight this early into the winter season.

What is the maximum peak capacity of the various interconnects?

Pray that it is windy in the next cold snap!

One of the papers is predicting 80MPH on Sunday/Monday.

The Sun is predicting a big freeze this winter
http://tinyurl.com/q6gt9v5

Not the Express ?

"big freeze" is meaningless. There's a world of difference between a
quick week of -10 with SNT or SNT+ either side, compared to 3 months of
SNT-.

If anyone remembers the winter of 1986/87, it was on paper, quite mild.
However it had an artic fortnight (ever seen Baker Street with
undisturbed snow ? I did !) which made it seem "bad". I know, because I
had to prepare graphs and so some sort of area calculation for British
Gas.


That wasn't bad, I was plotting weather as part of my geography at
school and that winter we had below zero all the time for about two months.

In the seventies we had tempretures so cold none condensing boiler flues
froze.

I have had 5 foot of snow outside.

That is in west bromwich not scotland.

On 29/10/2014 23:58, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...

They've been switching our street lights off at night (01:00 hrs) for a
few years now.

On 30/10/2014 11:38, www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
On 29/10/2014 23:58, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...

They've been switching our street lights off at night (01:00 hrs) for a
few years now.

If had my way lots more would be switched off, then maybe, just maybe
would could see the stars. Why they nee them here in the country is
beyond me, certainly nobody walks at night, also very little traffic..

On 30/10/2014 15:47, Broadback wrote:

If had my way lots more would be switched off, then maybe, just maybe
would could see the stars. Why they nee them here in the country is
beyond me, certainly nobody walks at night, also very little traffic..

Yes we do get a cracking view of the night sky.

Occasionally I'm out with the dog when the lights go off.
It's really quite pleasant though I feel a bit like a security guard
patrolling the dark streets with a bullmastiff by my side.

On 30/10/14 16:39, www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
On 30/10/2014 15:47, Broadback wrote:

If had my way lots more would be switched off, then maybe, just maybe
would could see the stars. Why they nee them here in the country is
beyond me, certainly nobody walks at night, also very little traffic..

Yes we do get a cracking view of the night sky.

Occasionally I'm out with the dog when the lights go off.
It's really quite pleasant though I feel a bit like a security guard
patrolling the dark streets with a bullmastiff by my side.




We did one of those Forestry Commission guided night tours in the
Forest of Dean last summer. As we were going to be using low-light
monoculars (not photomultipliers as they cost too much and break) the
bloke made us walk down forest tracks with no torched to get teh night
vision going. It was actually amazing how well you could see on a no
moon night after about 10-15 minutes.

Apparently this was also why pirates (and presumably other sailors) wore
eye patches - to keep one eye in night mode for below decks.

I thin in retrospect thermal cameras would have been better for spotting
animals. But it was an informative experience.

On 30/10/2014 20:44, Tim Watts wrote:

We did one of those Forestry Commission guided night tours in the
Forest of Dean last summer. As we were going to be using low-light
monoculars (not photomultipliers as they cost too much and break) the
bloke made us walk down forest tracks with no torched to get teh night
vision going. It was actually amazing how well you could see on a no
moon night after about 10-15 minutes.

I'll try going torchless next moon-free night as I walk along the coast
path (If the Bristol channel is classed as "coast")

Apparently this was also why pirates (and presumably other sailors) wore
eye patches - to keep one eye in night mode for below decks.

Now there's a great bit of trivia for a Friday

I thin in retrospect thermal cameras would have been better for spotting
animals. But it was an informative experience.

As a lad I'm sure I was told that using a red light at night didn't
scare off the animals, didn't ever try it though.

On 30/10/2014 20:44, Tim Watts wrote:
On 30/10/14 16:39, www.GymRatZ.co.uk wrote:
On 30/10/2014 15:47, Broadback wrote:

If had my way lots more would be switched off, then maybe, just maybe
would could see the stars. Why they nee them here in the country is
beyond me, certainly nobody walks at night, also very little traffic..

Yes we do get a cracking view of the night sky.

The energy saving lights off policy has been implemente din North
Yorkshire too. Against some local opposition it seems many people view
light pollution as a sign of civilisation and are afraid of the dark!

Occasionally I'm out with the dog when the lights go off.
It's really quite pleasant though I feel a bit like a security guard
patrolling the dark streets with a bullmastiff by my side.




We did one of those Forestry Commission guided night tours in the
Forest of Dean last summer. As we were going to be using low-light
monoculars (not photomultipliers as they cost too much and break) the
bloke made us walk down forest tracks with no torched to get teh night
vision going. It was actually amazing how well you could see on a no
moon night after about 10-15 minutes.

Yes. Your eyesight continues to improve for the first half hour in total
darkness. You do have to be careful moving about in the first quarter
hour though since you can't really see your feet. The clear sky is
actually surprisingly bright in the UK mostly light pollution unless you
go to Scotland, Kielder or Brecon Beacons.

http://www.darkskyscotland.org.uk/pr.../darksky01.jpg

I have had a deer and its calf walk into me once whilst observing at a
forest edge in Zion canyon where it was really really dark. Against the
trees you couldn't see at all. The sky was bright and milkyway stunning.

Apparently this was also why pirates (and presumably other sailors) wore
eye patches - to keep one eye in night mode for below decks.

I thin in retrospect thermal cameras would have been better for spotting
animals. But it was an informative experience.

They are pretty expensive toys although there is a crowdfunding addon
for an iPhone under development that might bring the price down. The
FLIR thermal IR sensor array is an expensive component.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 15:47:42 +0000, Broadback wrote:

They've been switching our street lights off at night (01:00 hrs)
for a
few years now.

If had my way lots more would be switched off, then maybe, just maybe
would could see the stars.

Aye, townies really don't know what they are missing. Clear moonless
night here and even before your night vision has properly developed
the milky way is "just there". Once you have night vision I find that
there are just so many stars I can't pick out the constelations.

Why they nee them here in the country is beyond me, certainly nobody
walks at night, also very little traffic..

Towns probably need some lighting but not to the level they are
currently lit to and any external lights should only shine down.

--
Cheers
Dave.

2On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 20:16:00 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:


Aye, townies really don't know what they are missing. Clear moonless
night here and even before your night vision has properly developed
the milky way is "just there".

Towns probably need some lighting but not to the level they are
currently lit to and any external lights should only shine down.

Though to hear some of the protests when proposals to curtail the
hours of lighting are made you would think that darkness makes the air
evaporate and anybody caught outside will die.
Given development of the LED has given us lightweight powerful torches
and lamps whose battery life leans towards days rather than hours and
that clothing with good reflective properties or even its own lights
is reasonably easy to come by then I don't see the need for some
places to have street lighting at all for the odd half dozen people
who may be about on foot.
There must be many places that 50 years ago had a couple of pubs and
people who walked between them and each others home and possibly a bus
stop bringing people back from a cinema trip from town.
Now the pubs and bus have gone and people travel in a car with lights
yet you have a load of street lamps burning for the those who take
their dog out for a late night dump.
Fortunately here there has never been any,but there was a time
following the spread of rural electrification from the 1920's that by
having a couple of street lamps installed a parish council felt that
it increased the "status" of the place and they weren't being left
behind. 90 years on that doesn't apply any more.

G.Harman

Dave Liquorice wrote:
Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

and in the warmest end-of-October on record (according to Look North).
What's going to happen when it gets cold?

jgh

On 31/10/14 14:12, wrote:
Dave Liquorice wrote:
Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

and in the warmest end-of-October on record (according to Look North).
What's going to happen when it gets cold?

Yep - just been out with the youngest and his friend going around the
village (I made half an effort this year and green-ed up

Wore a t-shirt - and was still warm.

"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 29 Oct 2014 23:58:51 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

Looking at Gridwatch we didn't half lean on the gas to meet the peak
demand this evening.

Off the scale for the graph at about 22GW, coal looks to have been
flat out since midday at maybe 14 GW. Hydro nearly a GW all day,
normal would 0.5 GW, pumped nearly 2 GW for the peak, Nuke is still
down at 4.5 GW, 3 GW from the continent, 1 GW biomass, wind 1GW.

And we didn't even break 50 GW of demand...

I wonder how much the Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) contracts
announced yesterday
costing?

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-to-contract-for-new-balancing-services/

http://tinyurl.com/o6waeqa

"Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) is targeted at contracting for
reserves from generating plant that would otherwise be closed or
mothballed."

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/mediace...ses/2014/natio
nal-grid-tenders-for-balancing-reserve-services-to-meet-market-changes
/

http://tinyurl.com/oqufvcg

Reading between the lines they are crapping themselves particularly
as HMG has said "the lights will not go out". Note the first document
only mentions 380 MW of DSBR for this winter, they have just signed
up Peterhead for 780 MW of SBR...


The trouble is, in HMG's efforts to 'keep the lights on', industries
that use a lot of electricity will be expected to cut back, so
production will suffer, and we'll be back in recession before you know
it.

Bet that doesn't happen, essentially because
there **** all industry like that anymore.

Rod Speed wrote:

"Chris Hogg" wrote:

industries that use a lot of electricity will be expected to cut
back

there **** all industry like that anymore.

Alcan have one UK smelter left, but they also have their own hydro
electric scheme to power it, besides there's plenty of chilled
distribution centres that can take losing power for an hour or so
without too much hassle.

Andy Burns wrote:
Rod Speed wrote:

"Chris Hogg" wrote:

industries that use a lot of electricity will be expected to cut
back

there **** all industry like that anymore.

Alcan have one UK smelter left, but they also have their own hydro
electric scheme to power it, besides there's plenty of chilled
distribution centres that can take losing power for an hour or so without too much hassle.

But after losing the power (and warming up a bit) they'll then have to draw
more power to bring the temperature back down again, and presumably that
would need doing very soon after the power saving measure was implemented.
Might be difficult timing this so it doesn't go wrong :-)

On 30 Oct 2014 16:36:13 GMT, Simon Finnigan wrote:

besides there's plenty of chilled distribution centres that can
take
losing power for an hour or so without too much hassle.

But after losing the power (and warming up a bit) they'll then have to
draw more power to bring the temperature back down again, and presumably
that would need doing very soon after the power saving measure was
implemented. Might be difficult timing this so it doesn't go wrong :-)

I would also expect a big chilled distribution center to have it's
own backup generators. I wouldn't be surprised if they get cheaper
mains electricity for allowing the grid to disconnect them at minimal
notice and get paid if they are diconnected. Pays for the diesel...

Also bear in mind that barring another Sizewell B/Longannet incident
we are only talking about reducing demand during the hour or two of
the evening peak, not reducing the overall demand.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In article ,
Jethro_uk writes:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:44:48 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:

Rod Speed wrote:

"Chris Hogg" wrote:

industries that use a lot of electricity will be expected to cut back

there **** all industry like that anymore.

Alcan have one UK smelter left, but they also have their own hydro
electric scheme to power it, besides there's plenty of chilled
distribution centres that can take losing power for an hour or so
without too much hassle.

Unless they are *already* doing it ? With the price of energy being what
it is, I would be amazed if some firms hadn't investigated the economics
of reducing the power to their freezers/chillers by a factor.

Was listening to one of the UK managers of a hotel chain on the
radio (can't recall which one - might have been the Marriot).
They've modified thirty-something of their hotels to turn off the
aircon for an hour when the grid is straining. There's sufficient
inertia in their buildings for that not to be very noticable.

If there was a networked API I could access to indicate how deep in
the **** we are, I could integrate it into my home automation. For
example, if we know that we'll be in the **** around 5pm, I could
lower the temperature of my freezer a couple of hours before, and
raise it during the overload, so that the compressor won't cut in
during that period.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:

If there was a networked API I could access to indicate how deep in
the **** we are, I could integrate it into my home automation. For
example, if we know that we'll be in the **** around 5pm, I could
lower the temperature of my freezer a couple of hours before, and
raise it during the overload, so that the compressor won't cut in
during that period.

I worked for a small company back in the 1970s (1977 to 1980 to be
exact) that developed microprocessor based systems for doing something
a bit like this.

It wasn't predictive but tried to minimise a business' maximum demand
but turning off a few things for a while when there was a peak. I
wrote the software (8080 and Z80). Most systems just displayed what
was happening but we did actually directly turn things off in some
places, the ones I can remember were Pilkington Glass annealing ovens
and electric arc furnaces at British Rail - quite fun that last one!

--
Chris Green
·

On 30/10/14 11:02, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

If there was a networked API I could access to indicate how deep in
the **** we are, I could integrate it into my home automation. For
example, if we know that we'll be in the **** around 5pm, I could
lower the temperature of my freezer a couple of hours before, and
raise it during the overload, so that the compressor won't cut in
during that period.


There's very simple way - look at the system frequency. If it's getting
low (near the lower bound) the system *is* straining.

I'm not sure where TNP's site pulls it from but I assume it is available
somewhere via an API???

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
radio (can't recall which one - might have been the Marriot).
They've modified thirty-something of their hotels to turn off the
aircon for an hour when the grid is straining. There's sufficient
inertia in their buildings for that not to be very noticable.

I heard that, and wondered why on earth the aircons were previously
being run continuously when they not needed anyway. There's this
wonderous invention called a "thermostat", it's only been around
about 500 years or so, maybe they haven't heard of them yet...

jgh

On 31/10/2014 14:16, wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
radio (can't recall which one - might have been the Marriot).
They've modified thirty-something of their hotels to turn off the
aircon for an hour when the grid is straining. There's sufficient
inertia in their buildings for that not to be very noticable.

I heard that, and wondered why on earth the aircons were previously
being run continuously when they not needed anyway. There's this
wonderous invention called a "thermostat", it's only been around
about 500 years or so, maybe they haven't heard of them yet...

They are American. You can't have anything like natural ventilation or
air that hasn't been triple filtered and heated to 25C in a room.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014 07:16:00 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

They've modified thirty-something of their hotels to turn off the
aircon for an hour when the grid is straining. There's sufficient
inertia in their buildings for that not to be very noticable.

I heard that, and wondered why on earth the aircons were previously
being run continuously when they not needed anyway. There's this
wonderous invention called a "thermostat", it's only been around
about 500 years or so, maybe they haven't heard of them yet...

I suspect these will be large central coolers, with a fair amount of
thermal inertia and probably able to modulate how much cooling they
do. The rooms may look as if they individual air con units, fans and
thermostats yes but the cooling is done centrally and cold water(?)
circulated.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 30/10/14 11:53, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:25:00 +0000, Huge wrote:

According to an item on the Beeb news the other night, they are.

In that case we're ****ed.


In a perverse way, I'll be glad if we do have a few emergency
demand-control load shedding involving lights going out.

Because that will finally remove ALL doubt in the minds of the damn fool
politicians and public that we need a full scale nuke building programme
starting yesterday.

Sadly, we've had a number of close calls and the writing's been on the
wall over this for quite a time, but the politicians don't think long
term, the general public by and large are too ignorant[1] to care and
the only people make a lot of noise are the anti-nuke green lobby.

[1] And I don't mean "retarded" I mean most people I know are simply not
informed about such things, even though anyone watching TNP's Gridwatch
could work it out for themselves. Whether it's due to laziness or lack
of media coverage, I don't know.

I'm just sorry that lots of people are going to suffer if they don't
have contingency like at least a gas fire or open fireplace.

In article ,
Tim Watts writes:
On 30/10/14 11:53, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:25:00 +0000, Huge wrote:

According to an item on the Beeb news the other night, they are.

In that case we're ****ed.


In a perverse way, I'll be glad if we do have a few emergency
demand-control load shedding involving lights going out.

Because that will finally remove ALL doubt in the minds of the damn fool
politicians and public that we need a full scale nuke building programme
starting yesterday.

Sadly, we've had a number of close calls and the writing's been on the
wall over this for quite a time, but the politicians don't think long
term, the general public by and large are too ignorant[1] to care and
the only people make a lot of noise are the anti-nuke green lobby.

[1] And I don't mean "retarded" I mean most people I know are simply not
informed about such things, even though anyone watching TNP's Gridwatch
could work it out for themselves. Whether it's due to laziness or lack
of media coverage, I don't know.

Perhaps TNP can produce an alternative dumbed down page.
It just needs a graphic of a fan and some **** heading in
its direction. Fan speed and **** quantity represent the
position we're currently in.

I'm just sorry that lots of people are going to suffer if they don't
have contingency like at least a gas fire or open fireplace.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

On 30/10/14 12:45, Andrew Gabriel wrote:

Perhaps TNP can produce an alternative dumbed down page.
It just needs a graphic of a fan and some **** heading in
its direction. Fan speed and **** quantity represent the
position we're currently in.

That would be good

You could replace the wind-o-meter with a wilting wind turbine that only
becomes fully erect if it's over 80% of max capacity.

The interconnector meters could be replaces by a little line of
frenchmen and dutchmen passing lightbulbs along, bucket brigade style.
Lightbulb direction and speed shows power.

Biomass could be shown as a little lumberjack guy hacking a canadian
forest down.

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 30/10/14 11:53, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:25:00 +0000, Huge wrote:

According to an item on the Beeb news the other night, they are.

In that case we're ****ed.


In a perverse way, I'll be glad if we do have a few emergency
demand-control load shedding involving lights going out.

Because that will finally remove ALL doubt in the minds of the damn fool
politicians and public that we need a full scale nuke building programme
starting yesterday.

Sadly, we've had a number of close calls and the writing's been on the
wall over this for quite a time, but the politicians don't think long
term, the general public by and large are too ignorant[1] to care and the
only people make a lot of noise are the anti-nuke green lobby.

[1] And I don't mean "retarded" I mean most people I know are simply not
informed about such things, even though anyone watching TNP's Gridwatch
could work it out for themselves. Whether it's due to laziness or lack of
media coverage, I don't know.

I'm just sorry that lots of people are going to suffer if they don't have
contingency like at least a gas fire or open fireplace.

I dont see there will be any real 'suffering' even if the
**** does hit the fan and the lights are turned off for
a bit. Hardly the end of civilisation as we know it.

It happens with weather events at times.