On 14/01/2021 13:04, The Other Mike wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 16:43:27 +0000, newshound
wrote:

On 13/01/2021 14:30, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 13/01/2021 13:14, David wrote:
Looking at Gridwatch, coal is fired up but Biomass which has been running
flat out is now throttled back.

A cynical thought is that Biomass generation is by converted coal plant
(IIRC) at the same site, so has someone decided to get their money's
worth
by firing up the coal plant and easing back on Biomass?

They could get more by doing both - and its Drax, not 'someone'

My guess is that a boiler is down for maintenance. IIRC they had 4 1.2GW
coal boilers feeding 8 600MW generators (industry standard size) .
3 of those now burn wood and other biomass exclusively, theyÂ* other one
may still burn coal, I am not sure. If one of them is down that's 3GW
down to 2GW.


Agreed (could be the "handling" plant, assuming they have not actually
run out. Coal stacks and plant have problems with ice and freezing in
the winter.)

Can't just switch a boiler between coal and wood. Coal plants are "lit"
using oil, ISTR that some can be "duel fuelled" with oil or coal.

You can use oil up to about 30MW for a short while on some 500/660MW units if
the boiler is already hot enough, otherwise you destroy the turbine blades with
the wet steam. It's bloody expensive though and only really intended for flame
stabilisation before getting a coal mill in service. Ignition of the oil is
with piped propane.

In the very early days of trialling biomass (2005 ish?) Drax dual fired coal and
wood with one or two modified coal mills being fed with wood pellets

The original Didcot (4x500MW) could operate on natural gas or coal

I couldn't remember the details. I was offered a job at Marchwood Labs
to look at oil burner design, but nuclear seemed to be the future.