Renewables: "talking 'bout my generation"

John_Pierpoint

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63597091#Comment_63597091

Equivalent power cut in 1987 was a week.

Though I think there are questions to be answered about the resulting power cuts.
At the start it seemed that it was just lack of chain saw action' though I have to admit that the poplar growing up next to "my" transformer disappeared last winter.
At 07:00 there were announcements of 40k cut off meters South of the Thames and by 07:45 the count had jumped by the addition of another 100k in the less resilient Eastern region.

However by about 09:00 the figure had jumped to 250,000 "households", not meters.
Something had knocked out Dungeness, supposedly a most durable atomic power station but cut off as easily as my inverter?

http://www.edfenergy.com/about-us/energy-generation/nuclear-generation/nuclear-power-stations/station-reports/nuclear-plant-status/nuclear-plant-status.pdf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24700611

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/powerful-storm-in-northern-europe-kills-at-least-8-20131028-00843

Plus ca change........
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/may/28/britishenergygroupbusiness

I wonder how the arsenal of nuclear power stations on the French coast of the Channel survived the storm?

EricMears

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Storm? Almost a non event - just showed up the lack of maintenance?.

Equivalent power cut in 1987 was a week.

Though I think there are questions to be answered about the resulting power cuts.

At the start it seemed that it was just lack of chain saw action' . .

Quite so !

It wasn't all that windy around here but if it had been, no trees would have fallen on our overhead power line because WPD spent a day in August pruning anything that might have hit wires if it fell. That's something they hadn't done for five years and I hate to think what might have happened if we'd had a similar event last winter :eek:

All the really high voltage cables are carried on pylons much taller than surrounding trees. It's only the local, lower-voltage cables (like our 11KV one) that might be at risk and a bit more regular pruning would protect most of them. Or of course our earthquake risk is probably low enough to consider underground cabling.

John_Pierpoint

Underground cables are inherently expensive as they have to be insulated and cooled.

Hard to say if the cables are safer underground, my personal experience is
A. "Intermittent fault caused by damage from a careless idiot on a tractor. (took me weeks to work out that one).
B. 1987 hurricane = overhead wires down for a week somewhere - I am not a priority.
C. Crashing vehicle took out "my" roadside transformer - cut off for 3 days.
D. My transformer tail, detached by the wind, wrapped itself round the other high voltage feed and blacked out the area from here to Tilbury docks. (10 miles away)
E. Some Tilbury teenage scrote got his own back by hammering a 6" nail into an interesting cable running along the railway bridge parapet.

I see the grand total of power cut homes is now claimed to be 600,000.

Note to self, must pop out next weekend when neighbours are not looking and butcher the branches of their oak tree that are interfering with my telephone wire.

legoman62

1.41 O's yesterday.

7.30 am today, sun was shining.....lovely day I thought:D
Within 1/2 hour it turned cold and windy with a light shower:(

11.00am and the sun has reappeared.
Maybe I was right 1st time;)

EricMears

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Note to self, must pop out next weekend when neighbours are not looking and butcher the branches of their oak tree that are interfering with my telephone wire.

Or just ring your telephone service provider and ask them to remind BTopenreach that they haven't done their 'routine pruning lately' (apparently there are problems contacting BTopenreach directly but I guess you could always stop and talk to one of their guys next time you see one parked up)

InVestor_2

£6.40 (13.2 kWh) today


Still 10% or so below PVGIs for the month

John_Pierpoint

EricMears wrote: »

Or just ring your telephone service provider and ask them to remind BTopenreach that they haven't done their 'routine pruning lately' (apparently there are problems contacting BTopenreach directly but I guess you could always stop and talk to one of their guys next time you see one parked up)

That will be the BT open reach that took half my dial up bandwidth and gave it to a new neighbour.
What was worse that neighbour eventually got a line of his own BUT BT did not think to cut their dial up profits in half by giving it back to me.
The final straw was when I tried to upgrade to broadband only to be told that I had a device on my line.
No actually the final final straw was when some bloke turned up in a van and asked me where it was.

If you want a job done do it yourself; if the neighbour notices I will blame BT Open reach.

My daughter had the same problem, as did a couple of her neighbours, and nothing was done until the wire snapped..

KevinG

Well I was wondering why my generation had been such rubbish over the past couple of weeks, compared to others reported here. Today I noticed that one of the trees in our front garden had got rather high and was casting a shadow in the morning. This is it now!



Might have a go at the other tree tomorrow as the top branches are just scraping the bottom edge of the panels.

Edit: obviously (I think) I meant the shadow, not the actual branches!

Oscargrouch

2.6000000000000 O's today not too bad.....:rotfl:

legoman62

1.71 O's yesterday:D

Slowly closing in on Oct PVGIS...just need another couple of weeks:rotfl: