First blackout of the wind power heavy system

JKenH

And here is one from the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/12/three-blackout-near-misses-in-three-months-says-national-grid?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

And here is one from the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/12/three-blackout-near-misses-in-three-months-says-national-grid?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

All those frequency drops are going to play hell with our bedside clocks! Too many lie ins, or is it that we'll be getting up early, not sure.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I don't know, but I'll make an assumption based guess, that curtailment payments won't be on top of the CfD strike price.

I was assuming that to be the case as well. I understand why curtailment payments are necessary but making them will increase the average unit cost of what is produced above the strike price. Say 1 MWh is produced in any given period and over the same period curtailment payments are made of 10% for the supplier not to produce then the average cost per unit to the grid will be £174.6/MWh. Have I got that right?

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

All those frequency drops are going to play hell with our bedside clocks! Too many lie ins, or is it that we'll be getting up early, not sure.

Is this why my toast gets burnt some mornings?

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

I was assuming that to be the case as well. I understand why curtailment payments are necessary but making them will increase the average unit cost of what is produced above the strike price. Say 1 MWh is produced in any given period and over the same period curtailment payments are made of 10% for the supplier not to produce then the average cost per unit to the grid will be £174.6/MWh. Have I got that right?

I'm not sure I can follow that. CfD top ups don't impact the spot price as they are paid separately. The subsidies come from the subsidy pot, not the NG.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

Is this why my toast gets burnt some mornings?

Might be the other way around. Low frequency would suggest lower voltage (there's a shortage of supply), so a dumb resistive heater would provide less heat (less energy V x A) wouldn't it. :think:

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Might be the other way around. Low frequency would suggest lower voltage (there's a shortage of supply), so a dumb resistive heater would provide less heat (less energy V x A) wouldn't it. :think:

That depends if I set my toaster browning control on a low frequency or low voltage day. Some days I have to put it in twice.

JKenH

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I'm not sure I can follow that. CfD top ups don't impact the spot price as they are paid separately. The subsidies come from the subsidy pot, not the NG.

I wasn’t aware of that but, whoever pays the subsidy, it needs to be added in to get the average unit cost. That applies to whatever source, wind or gas.

Martyn1981

JKenH wrote: »

I wasn’t aware of that but, whoever pays the subsidy, it needs to be added in to get the average unit cost. That applies to whatever source, wind or gas.

Yes, and no, I think ..... is that clear? :rotfl:

[Quick edit - note that The National Grid is a company that provides the high voltage transmission of leccy. Not to be confused with 'the nation's grid' which we can picture as the cables from the power stations, all the way to our homes/businesses (including the Distribution Network).]

The curtailment payments are reflected in wholesale prices I assume, since they are a cost to the NG to maintain security of supply, by having a bit spare ticking away in the background ready for almost instant call, but vastly cheaper than the cost of peaker plants that step in when demand is simply too high for normal generation capacity to meet.

At this point I'm guessing, but presumably the element they pay will be at/around the spot price.

The CfD top up to the contracted strike price will be paid out of the subsidy pot so won't impact wholesale prices. But, and it's a big BUT it will impact retail bills, as it's funded through the green levy on our bills.

But (more buts!!!!) even there there is good news, the two biggest hits on the fund are off-shore wind and nuclear, but with the dramatic fall in off-shore wind prices, and the potential reduction in nuclear deployments down from 16GW to as low as 3.2GW (maybe), then things are looking brighter/cheaper than anyone expected.

Just for fun, before the government decided to kill off domestic PV subsidies of 4p/kWh this year, they had originally expected them to be 20.7p/kWh, and there's more, that's in 2011 monies, and we don't want to sell you just that, let's throw in the fact they were then 25 not 20 yrs, so roughly 4p v's an expected 32p (not exact, but I think a close guess).

Nobody, certainly not me, expected RE costs to fall so fast.

Hexane

mmmmikey wrote: »

Although the biggest reported impact was on rail transport, not much seemed to be made about what seemed to be inordinate delays in getting the rail network up and running again (although this was touched on). Most power-critical organisations have well developed plans to deal with power outtages, and although I can see that you can hardly have a backup generator to run a few dozen trains, it did seem that there were some big gaps in the contingency planning for the rail network. If it was me, I'd be shining the same spotlight on the rail network as I was shining on National Grid.

Indeed. It seems that at least some of the worse-than-expected impact on rail services was due to almost brand new German-manufactured electric trains that can't be restarted once they've had a power failure, meaning a technician has to drive out to them to fix them. The wonders of modern technology... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49302996