National Grid warns of possible blackouts

[Bletchleyite]

I also can't understand why they would need to cut power between 00:30-03:30 considering power usage if very low at this time of the day?

It seems a very bizarre one to take out given that it'll cause storage heater users to run radiant heating in the daytime instead, making the problem worse - and even worse than that it's likely a partly-charged storage heater will start running out just when demand is at its very highest - from about 5pm. Yes, it'd have an effect on EV charging, but EVs are still a tiny minority of cars.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I just use my coal fire, it heats the whole house up, no need to use any gas. I rarely put the heating on.

Unless you live in a rural area if there's one thing we REALLY don't want is people switching en masse to using coal fires. They make the respiratory issues caused by diesel vehicles pale into insignificance, plus you have smog etc. And then if people start lighting them up for this when they haven't been used for years there's probably going to end up being an epidemic of chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisoning caused by bad flues...

 

[swt_passenger]

I’m seeing reports, albeit only on Twitter, that National Grid are projecting electricity generation and import shortfalls tomorrow between 5 and 7pm.

If grid frequency falls below tolerable levels, could we end up with another night like 9th August 2019 with electric traction shutting down and refusing to work?

But the subsidiary question, about the low frequency problem with the 700s, wasn’t that fixed immediately after it was diagnosed?

 

[brad465]

High depression over the UK means its windless so turbines don't work very well in those conditions. Oh any by the way they need power to keep them warm in the cold weather so they are ready to whirr into action when the wind comes back

Wind is forecast to pickup from Wednesday despite still being cold then, so it's just a case of holding out till then. The National Grid have put the 2 standby coal generators on high alert so I expect they'll be used before there's risk of grid frequency going too low.

How much of a power consumer is the rail network overall? Given the rail network is suffering from snow disruption and then strikes I assume power consumption there will be much lower, especially tomorrow.

 

[DelayRepay]

It seems a very bizarre one to take out given that it'll cause storage heater users to run radiant heating in the daytime instead, making the problem worse - and even worse than that it's likely a partly-charged storage heater will start running out just when demand is at its very highest - from about 5pm. Yes, it'd have an effect on EV charging, but EVs are still a tiny minority of cars.

I don't think the effect on EV charging would be desirable. People will still charge their EVs so it's just shifting overnight usage to daytime usage.

However I understand they'll only implement load blocking if they need to, so I imagine people whose disconnection slots are in the early hours of the morning will generally get off lightly.

 

[miami]

Too many kettles and ovens going on and electric heating in use (this could be reduced by educating people on how it is often cheaper to heat the whole house on gas than one room on electric!)

A string of LED Christmas lights draws next to nothing. You can run that for 3-4 days on two AAs.

Indeed. I have a lot of lights, about 10 sets. Total use is 40W.

Meanwhile a kettle will use 3000W. Hell even my microwave for a quick dinner pulls the best part of 900W, and my electric shower drains nearly 10KW.

40W of Xmas lights 24 hours a day uses the same usage as 5 minutes in the shower.

Unsurprisingly the biggest demand is when people get home and put the kettle, washing machine, and oven on, maybe having a shower too, pulling 5 or 6KW. Do home battery systems still attract VAT? I think they finally got rid of it on solar. A 40kWh battery on a new house would comprise 1/20th of the price, yet be capable of powering the house including the heatpump heating for a day or two, massively smoothing demand and increasing resilience, wouldn't affect the cost of the house (people will pay £x for the house, which means that while the construction costs would increase and profit of the company doing the building would remain the same, there would be less money to go to the land speculator as Bovis/Barrats/Wimpey would have less money to spend on the land)

Even better and connect the battery in a way it can feed back to the grid, institute the requirement now, and with 150k houses built a year built that would be 3GWh of battery storage available on the grid for next winter based on 50% draining.

 

[mike57]

Realistically if there is a shortfall that cannot be met by reducing demand there will be rolling power cuts, if you allow the grid frequency to wander too far from the nominal 50Hz you run the risk of grid instability, which can lead to grid separation/break down and a far worse outcome. Read about the USA NE blackouts of 2003 to see what could happen. The August 2019 event was not predictable 24hrs or more in advance, in that situation you have to react rather than plan.

Before you get to the situation of rolling power cuts you try and encourage the big (and small as well with the advent of smartmeters) users to reduce demand, using both the carrot and stick.

In this situation hopefully transport supplies would be protected.

It doesn't surprise me, a cold snap, worst time of year for solar (less than 2 weeks from winter solstice), and a period of low wind speeds, so renewables fail.

I serviced our small generator in October, we heat with wood, just using gas to heat tap water, so we will be less affected than a lot, but if it does happen it will show just how bad our energy security has become, but thats a different topic.

 

[snowball]

Unless you live in a rural area if there's one thing we REALLY don't want is people switching en masse to using coal fires. They make the respiratory issues caused by diesel vehicles pale into insignificance, plus you have smog etc. And then if people start lighting them up for this when they haven't been used for years there's probably going to end up being an epidemic of chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisoning caused by bad flues...

Wood burning is also bad.

‘Eco’ wood burners produce 450 times more pollution than gas heating – report

Report from chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty finds air pollution kills up to 36,000 people a year in England

www.theguardian.com

“Ecodesign” wood burning stoves produce 450 times more toxic air pollution than gas central heating, according to new data published in a report from Prof Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England.

Older stoves, now banned from sale, produce 3,700 times more, while electric heating produces none, the report said.

Air pollution was chosen by Whitty as the focus of his 2022 annual report. “It kills a lot of people [and] causes a lot of disease and disability throughout life,” he said. “Air pollution causes problems from the time before people are born all the way through till their last day on Earth.”

The report estimated 26,000 to 38,000 deaths a year from outdoor air pollution. No estimate was made for the impact of indoor pollution, which Whitty said urgently needed more research.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wood burning is also bad.

It is indeed. Burning anything at home (other than gas) is bad for "point of use" pollution unless you have a chimney scrubber installed, and these are rather expensive! (And even then not great).

A lot of people forget that there are two main types of pollution. These are particulates and NOx at the point of use, and carbon wherever.

That's why electric cars in cities are good even if they were exclusively charged from coal fired power stations, and why even though wood is sort-of-carbon-neutral-ish-maybe (depends how many trees you plant) it is not a good thing to be burning it in urban areas where lots of people live.

 

[AM9]

I am in the same block and while, I think we are very lucky it does appear to be unfair to people having more blocks between important times.

Apart from having to 'hit the pub' on a Wednesday afternoon if needed, this won't make any difference to us.

I also can't understand why they would need to cut power between 00:30-03:30 considering power usage if very low at this time of the day?

It's not just about available electric power. The UK relies on Gas for a significant proportion of winter electricity at the moment but also a lot for direct gas heating. However, gas is very expensive on intenational markets firstly because most of what was supplied from Russia is no longer available on the global market, and to supplant the lack of piped gas, countries are having to import Liquified Natural Gas(LNG) - or gas from LNG, which is compressed in its country of source and shipped into Europe.
It is not viable to have short term cuts to gas consumers, so apart from pre-arranged reductions by some large (industrial) users, the only practical way that economies can be made is to reduce the amount used for electricity generation. In times of high demand, this may lead to power cuts. Gas fired power stations are far more responsive to changes than older oil or coal installations so there is an opportunity to cut back further in times of lower demand there by saving more expenditure. The small hours are one of those periods, and given the normal lifestyle of the UK population, it is probably when the least disruption and inconvenience will occur, - but every hour an area is cut off, there is a saving of fuel.

 

[Robert Ambler]

Strangely, driving M6 northbound J13-J14 on Friday I noticed the two wind turbines in between the M6 and the WCML were stationary. although it was bright and clear it was about -1c and I thought they would be helping out with providing elleccy. More recently it has been foggy and overcast with no wind. Not the kind of weather for renewables

Most wind turbines have an auto shutdown feature in low temperatures. This is to avoid the ice that collects on the blades being thrown off. The ice builds up until its weight overcomes the adhesion onto the blade and is then thrown off the spinning blade. It can be thrown a considerable distance and cause significant damage to anything it hits and if that is a living creature possible death

 

[DarloRich]

The coal power plants have been stood down by National Grid so the risk of failure cant be any higher than normal.

BBC:
National Grid has stood down two coal plants that it had put on standby to generate electricity in case supplies were disrupted because of cold weather.

The company had asked Drax, which owns Britain's biggest power station, to prepare two coal-fired units on Monday.

It is still planning to run a test of its scheme that offers discounts on bills for households who cut peak-time electricity use on Monday evening.

National Grid: Coal plants stood down to supply electricity

National Grid stands down coal-fired units but will run a test to pay people to cut peak-time use.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[paul1609]

Understand that the issue was this morning when France couldn't make its scheduled exports to the UK between 8 and 9am and requested that IFA 1 was cut to 50% capacity.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Block P myself. Sundays look to be fun-filled!
It is stated that it may take an hour either side to fully disconnect each block and the same to reconnect after a shutdown. Worst case scenario therefore: 1130 to 1630 then 1730 to 2030 on a Sunday. I would hope that those who are disconnected first get reconnected first. And that is at the lowest level of interuptions.

Thursday	3:30 AM - 6:30 AM
Friday	12:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Sunday	12:30 PM - 3:30 PM 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

There will also be issues for people who have an overnight outage and run storage heaters which won't charge fully, the main bad effect of which will be them increasing demand by using convector heaters instead. Probably would make sense to extend the Economy 7 hours into other low-usage times of day to allow such heaters to still recharge.

That be my situation. But hey, think of all the money they can rake in whilst I heat my house using daytime rates at 3 times the night-time rate!

I think there will also be a real risk of people using things like disposable barbecues indoors for both cooking and heating, without ventilation.

 

[Mat17]

Unless you live in a rural area if there's one thing we REALLY don't want is people switching en masse to using coal fires. They make the respiratory issues caused by diesel vehicles pale into insignificance, plus you have smog etc. And then if people start lighting them up for this when they haven't been used for years there's probably going to end up being an epidemic of chimney fires and carbon monoxide poisoning caused by bad flues...

My fires are used every year and kept maintained and the chimneys swept. I burn wood mostly, but smokeless coal keeps the fires in for longer.

 

[67thave]

Block P myself. Sundays look to be fun-filled!
It is stated that it may take an hour either side to fully disconnect each block and the same to reconnect after a shutdown. Worst case scenario therefore: 1130 to 1630 then 1730 to 2030 on a Sunday. I would hope that those who are disconnected first get reconnected first. And that is at the lowest level of interruptions.

Thursday	3:30 AM - 6:30 AM
Friday	12:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Sunday	12:30 PM - 3:30 PM 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM

Looks like I'll be on block P as well when I get to England on New Year's based upon the postcode I'll be living in.
Nothing like losing half of Sunday for graduate school work. I'll have to make sure that my laptop is fully charged and that I save offline copies of any sources I'll need to write my papers so I can at least try to get stuff done.

 

[ainsworth74]

Block P myself.

A popular block! It's what I'm in as well! Should we all get identifying t-shirts? Or perhaps jumpers...

 

[Simon11]

A popular block! It's what I'm in as well! Should we all get identifying t-shirts? Or perhaps jumpers...

Considering it will be very cold at home on Sundays, you may need to get really thick coats instead.... haha

 

[Ken H]

The site to go to is https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
(Link goes to a graphic web page with dials and graphs showing current and historical usage and generation)

The data on Gridwatch shows we are using most of our capacity and topping up with inter-connectors. But that assumes that Europe has the capacity to sell us what we need. There are concerns about the ageing French generation assets. It also shows that today we are largely dependant on non-renewables(1), generated by expensive assets that are idle when the wind blows.

In the old days all our generation was done by large rotating machines. An alternator connected to a steam turbine. If a generation asset was lost the inertia in the remaining machines kept the frequency stable until more capacity was brought online or load was shed.

Later stuff (wind, solar etc) generated in a different way and the electric was converted to 3 phase AC by solid state inverters. These followed the frequency of the grid they were connected to. So if the grid frequency dripped a little then the solid state inverters would output at the lower frequency. That makes the grid frequency less stable in poor conditions.

(1) I dont regard biomass as renewable. It is created by extracting timber from forests using fossil fuelled machines. It is transported to the ports in diesel powered trains. The ships burn a fossil fuel that is known to be a bad pollutant. Then a further diesel powered train to drag the biomass over the pennines.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I'm in block K, it seems.

 

[Baxenden Bank]

Considering it will be very cold at home on Sundays, you may need to get really thick coats instead.... haha

The problem with all this wrapping up to keep warm business is that it becomes difficult to actually do anything other than just sit there. I've got enough fleece jackets, fleece throws and duvets to keep warm but have you tried jumping upstairs in a snug sleeping bag? Which I what I would need to do to go to the bathroom which, currently, is 8 degrees C along with the entire upstairs of my house!

 

[DelW]

It is not viable to have short term cuts to gas consumers, so apart from pre-arranged reductions by some large (industrial) users, the only practical way that economies can be made is to reduce the amount used for electricity generation. In times of high demand, this may lead to power cuts. Gas fired power stations are far more responsive to changes than older oil or coal installations so there is an opportunity to cut back further in times of lower demand there by saving more expenditure.

In addition to those effects, domestic electricity supply cuts must reduce domestic gas consumption too, since most gas-fired central heating systems will shut off for the duration. Some houses may have gas fires that they can light instead, but I suspect those are much less common than they used to be.

 

[Ianigsy]

My home is a Q but my workplace is an R, which perhaps means that I just take my time coming home on Friday evenings when the outage is due to be 6.30-9.30 in Q and 9.30-12.30 in R.

The implications for home and business security don't bear thinking about, though. Once you start getting full overnight blocks without power, it's pretty much a burglar's charter.

 

[WAB]

I am in the same block and while, I think we are very lucky it does appear to be unfair to people having more blocks between important times.

Apart from having to 'hit the pub' on a Wednesday afternoon if needed, this won't make any difference to us.

I also can't understand why they would need to cut power between 00:30-03:30 considering power usage if very low at this time of the day?

I think they would vary the level of load-shedding depending on demand - late at night might be level 0 (i.e. normal), but peak times might see level 2 (i.e. two load blocks off at once).

 

[Bletchleyite]

The implications for home and business security don't bear thinking about, though. Once you start getting full overnight blocks without power, it's pretty much a burglar's charter.

Offices yes, but do many homes still have mains-only burglar alarms these days? Mine is completely battery operated, it doesn't even plug in! Just takes a battery swap every 6 months or so. Plenty now are rechargeable.

 

[HSTEd]

I expect we will be back in lockdown if it ever gets that far down the disconnection chart.

 

[ChrisC]

The implications for home and business security don't bear thinking about, though. Once you start getting full overnight blocks without power, it's pretty much a burglar's charter.

It isn’t just a matter of some burglar alarms perhaps not working and houses and businesses being in darkness. Are the street lights still lit on the same mains electricity as the buildings? If so, whole areas will be in complete darkness. That’s one thing I remember from the blackouts in the 1970s how dark the the streets were. I still remember getting off a brightly lit bus in the the village where I lived and until my eyes got used to the dark I couldn’t see much at all.

 

[AM9]

In addition to those effects, domestic electricity supply cuts must reduce domestic gas consumption too, since most gas-fired central heating systems will shut off for the duration. Some houses may have gas fires that they can light instead, but I suspect those are much less common than they used to be.

It was the suggestion about installing a UPS to drive a central heating boiler that prompted my post.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It isn’t just a matter of some burglar alarms perhaps not working and houses and businesses being in darkness. Are the street lights still lit on the same mains electricity as the buildings? If so, whole areas will be in complete darkness. That’s one thing I remember from the blackouts in the 1970s how dark the the streets were. I still remember getting off a brightly lit bus in the the village where I lived and until my eyes got used to the dark I couldn’t see much at all.

Though the impact of it would actually be slightly less today, because almost everyone carries a torch round with them everywhere on their mobile phone.

 

[Yew]

Though the impact of it would actually be slightly less today, because almost everyone carries a torch round with them everywhere on their mobile phone.

On the other hand, how many rely on gas-powered electrically circulated central heating, as compared to a gas or coal fire?