Arthur Ritus Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I don't know how much actual capacity of gas generation there is, it's claimed to be 28gw which i would think is like my car has 100bhp ..🤥.. At 10:10 on 11/1/24 we are generating 26.2gw with 1,3gw from coal, 0.8 gw transfers and at this point pumped hydro down to 0, the highest gas use I have ever seen and a surprise we have that much. It looks to me like things are a bit tight at the mo, and peek demand still to come. https://grid.iamkate.com/ Constantly changes, worth keeping a check now and then. I doubt we will be honestly informed of the real situation as it's too political, just turn out some spin and hope for the best, with a bit of warning hospitals and other critical users could fire up their generators in advance. Australia when it was struggling, the government put out an announcement asking their folks to try to cut back a bit to get through the current crisis. In this country it seems to be all about money, "yeah i'll run the washer later - if they pay me". Big question is what's going to happen if supply falls short of demand, what gets switched off, we won't really know unless it happens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pyrotequila Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 3 minutes ago, Arthur Ritus said: Big question is what's going to happen if supply falls short of demand, what gets switched off, we won't really know unless it happens Isn't it usually the industrial users that get asked to stop working? Then commercial, finally residential users. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollingJ Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I may be wrong, but doesn't this type of question appear on a regular basis, and does not the doomsday scenario never materialise? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ads36 Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 (edited) Should we be worried? Yes and No. No : the lights won't go out. Alongside the other numbers you mention, we're also producing 7GW of wind power, and around 2GW of solar - yes, even on a cloudy day, with light wind, in January. These numbers from renewables will only go up, every year we will have more wind turbines, and more solar panels. Yes : our infrastructure is aging., how on earth have got into a position where we're only producing 3GW of Nuclear Power?! - this is hugely embarrassing. We're great at building things, but terrible at getting started. We have great engineers, and terrible government. By the time Hinkley comes on line it will only *replace* the old stations that need to be shut down. in summary : no, don't worry, the lights won't go out. but we have been dragging our feet (to put it mildly) on the road to doing things better. Edited January 11 by ads36 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie Bynnol Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 13 minutes ago, RollingJ said: I may be wrong, but doesn't this type of question appear on a regular basis, and does not the doomsday scenario never materialise? There are market forces, environmental and economics at work which Governments do not want to get involved in which are unpopular with voters. Over capacity is very expensive and too much for shareholders around the world to put up with and so come cap in hand to UK Gov and customers. They bank(!) on mild winters to make massive profits and generous customers to maintain to take the risk for them in cold weather or times of disruption. There are issues which the Government are avoiding: Closure of nuclear capacity before replacements are in service. Final closure of last Coal generator this summer. Ageing National Grid. Increasing dependency on vulnerable imports. Grid unable to deal with domestic production. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollingJ Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 @Annie Bynnol- doesn't really answer the quoted post, does it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeHasRisen Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 I've seen gas higher than 60% generation tbh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Ritus Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 43 minutes ago, ads36 said: Should we be worried? Yes and No. No : the lights won't go out. Alongside the other numbers you mention, we're also producing 7GW of wind power, and around 2GW of solar - yes, even on a cloudy day, with light wind, in January. These numbers from renewables will only go up, every year we will have more wind turbines, and more solar panels. Yes : our infrastructure is aging., how on earth have got into a position where we're only producing 3GW of Nuclear Power?! - this is hugely embarrassing. We're great at building things, but terrible at getting started. We have great engineers, and terrible government. By the time Hinkley comes on line it will only *replace* the old stations that need to be shut down. in summary : no, don't worry, the lights won't go out. but we have been dragging our feet (to put it mildly) on the road to doing things better. We cannot make the sun shine anymore or turn up the wind, a measure of how close we are to scotty saying "I'm givin yer all I got, I cannae give yer anymore " is the generators that pick up the slack ie, gas, coal, hydro and pumped hydro. To me coal and gas must be pretty much flat out, the question of pumped is how much water is in the pond to use as well as the 1.5 (whatever it is) gW it can supply as needed. 5 minutes ago, HeHasRisen said: I've seen gas higher than 60% generation tbh It's not so much the percentage as that depended on what ever the demand was at that time it's the amount available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Ritus Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 1 hour ago, RollingJ said: I may be wrong, but doesn't this type of question appear on a regular basis, and does not the doomsday scenario never materialise? A grid crash or selected blackout - not really 'doomsday scenario', bloody inconvenient to say the least. An inconvenience that can be eased with some warning, unfortunately not private all ex government organisations have proved to be competent and honest. If it does go bad then we will have to wait for the tv series about it to find out why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollingJ Posted January 11 Share Posted January 11 1 minute ago, Arthur Ritus said: A grid crash or selected blackout - not really 'doomsday scenario', bloody inconvenient to say the least. An inconvenience that can be eased with some warning, unfortunately not private all ex government organisations have proved to be competent and honest. If it does go bad then we will have to wait for the tv series about it to find out why. But will it happen? As I said, this (or very similar) crop up on a regular basis, but never actually happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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