Energy news in general

Scot_39

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82082253#Comment_82082253

8 houses for a year - really.

Did that analysis come from a grid control engineer (rhetorical) ?

Grid stability - live day in day out operational stability - depends largely on power balance real and reactive - not long term energy flow over a year.

Think about that analogy for a second - even without any engineering background - put 8 homes in context of say over 4m homes and businesses in the Greater London area alone. Do you really think its a meaningful comment ?

The significance of it happening then is we still had 4.1GW → 5.3 GW (if Drax coal was under CMS type standby contract - it was by one report later in year from Oct 22- Mar 23 iirc) - but as to whether Drax or Nottingham close enough regional grid link bottleneck wise ??). With those we may not have needed as Telegraph "begging" headline - bit extreme given buying GW of power day in day out on interconnects - 4 years ago - or for that matter last month - on interconnects.

Real energy security - if allowed to use British coal - as the Germans are doing with their coal and coal stations.

To put that sort of year analogy to death once and for all

Take the recent Spain / Portugal grid failure case - the final analysis concentrates on around a 1 min 30 sec window - when grid voltage rose - then spiked from 400kV over the 435kV limit and beyond as grid lost sync and collapsed. See e.g. pdf at

https://www.entsoe.eu/publications/blackout/28-april-2025-iberian-blackout/

On the last 27 seconds when another 400MW - (conincidentally yet another - mixed renewables - to add to the 208MW in previous 57 seconds) feed transformer pulled even more generation adding further to imbalances - tripping on primary side overvoltage (chicken or egg given secondary voltages drifting to 418kV - still within 435 max though - by then ?).

Although you can see the impact of that 400MW feed trip on Frequency it was small - maybe 0.05Hz ripple and still stayed clearly always above 49.9x Hz chart line.

Again another indication of the potential imbalances dragging last months UK grid frequency down.

it wasnt until grid went overvoltage that the frequency really collapsed below that level in about last 8 seconds.

By comparison the UK grid reportedly dropped to 49.66 Hz in June incident - almost 0.3Hz below the Spanish grid for most of that blackout analysis period.

One site suggests a range up to nearly 8% to induce a 0.34Hz shift in real power demand at low reactive powers - or about 2.3 GW around yesterdays 30-31GW at teatime.

The lesson of the report charts - as any grid transmission or regulation engineer will tell you is they are very dynamic - grid dynamics working in seconds, mins, not hours, not days not weeks and certainly not ("8 homes for a") years.

In old days we built Dinorwig with a fast 12 sec spin up to sync its 1.7GW - a surge response capacity - for a reason. Other more normal PSH worldwide can take 1.5-2 minutes.

Today I suspect we might have access to a fraction of the c7 GW of new battery farms that can respond in 0.1- 0.5 seconds.

[Battery farms replaced some diesel grid farms - could be iirc upto 2 minutes from cold to full power - more demand / grid bottleneck top up on at least one Scottish island ) than surge - in context of grid dynamics.]

And if so - well that just makes the June incident (or is it or was it as bad during the othef 2 NESO demand warning incidents) report arguably potentialky more worrying.

And to be fair - it doesnt help thatt Hinkley isnt on stream yet, and other plant undergoing largely statutory scheduled refueling - no doubt presumably scheduled for summers lower peak demands and higher at least daytime solar delivery. So c1.5-2 GW down on more normal 4.5-5GW. Which takes me back to the folly of the premature closure of UK coal generation. That could have been spun up in its place.

gpman

@Scot_39

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. It does not mean they purchased electricity to power 8 houses for a year, it means they purchased electricity equivalent to running 8 average houses for a year.

I think Bloomberg (the source of the BBC article) referred to importing electricity for about 60 mins, not all of which was at the peak price.

debitcardmayhem

The other side of buying that of course is they had to stop exporting too, which would not have been welcomed at the other side of the interconnectors.

QrizB

There are operational constraints on two nuclear reactors in Hungary and Romania due to low water levels in the Danube. Hungary's only plant is operating at less than half power, while the Romanian navy has been blasting the channel of the Danube to increase flow to their one (of two) remaining operational units.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/romania-blasts-divert-danube-water-nuclear-reactor-energy-crisis-hungary

Video of the blasting at the link.

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82090501#Comment_82090501

And France had to shut 3 reactors down in early July due to low water levels and high water discharge temps, and another a few days ago. Plus 7 or 8 more operating at reduced power. Fingers crossed that future years won't get hotter. ;-)

molerat

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rn42jp7d6o

Approximately 80p a year will be added to all energy bills to fund the discount scheme.

And in my dreams the reduction in restraint payments will offset that !

Chrysalis

Thats opened a can of worms, its almost twice the size of the WHD, mostly paid to people living in nice areas, and so I can start a campaign to get a rebate on my council tax added to all council bills because I am on a emergency vehicles route. Which is a far bigger inconvenience than a pylon on the horizon.

QrizB

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82090501#Comment_82090501

Romania is shutting down its second (and final) unit at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant as Danube water levels continue to fall.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/08/13/romania-to-shut-down-nuclear-plant-due-to-low-river-levels_6756461_4.html

Romania began on Thursday, August 13, the complete shutdown of its only nuclear plant after water levels in the Danube, used to cool the site, fell to a record low, the national nuclear energy company said. Nuclearelectrica already shut down last month one of the two reactors at the Cernavoda power plant, which usually generates a fifth of the Eastern European country's total electricity.

The second needed to shut, as well, "due to the significant and ongoing drop in the water level of the River Danube," it said in a statement. "Nuclearelectrica SA announces that, on the morning of 13 August 2026, it began the procedures for the controlled shutdown of Unit 2 at the Cernavoda Nuclear Power Plant," it said.

Romania has been trying for days to avert a complete shutdown of the plant's two 700MW reactors. These attempts included blowing up a rock and sinking four barges filled with rocks into the river to try to divert its flows, with total costs budgeted at more than €2 million ($2.3 million).

It is the plant's first shutdown since a 2003 drought, when it had to close for several weeks. Alternative sources, including from wind power generation, as well as imports, are expected to cover electricity supply, the energy ministry said on Wednesday. It also reiterated an appeal for "responsible consumption."

Scot_39

Cornwall Insights latest cap prediction, issued just hrs ago

up 4%

https://www.cornwall-insight.com/press-releases/energy-bills-forecast-to-hit-three-year-high/

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82107788#Comment_82107788

Isn’t it about time that OFGEM ditched the price cap? The TDCV used has progressively fallen as prices have risen but isn’t the fall in consumption a direct impact of rising prices. It’s like calculating supermarket price inflation based on the cost of a typical shopping basket when people are putting less in their basket because prices have gone up. Or claiming that the annual cost of eating out has fallen when in reality people are eating out less because prices have risen. It is no coincidence that OFGEM cut the TDCVs in October 2023 and July 2026. The gas TDCV was slashed by 17% in July 2026 as a reaction to customers drastically cutting their gas consumption as a result of price rises caused by the Iran war. Gas TDCV fell from 11500 to 9500 KWh in July 2026. The gas unit rate actually rose by 27.7% but because of the 17% reduction in TDCV the gas element of the price cap rose by much less.

The only fair indicator the price of domestic energy is to quote the price per kWh but it doesn’t take a genius to work out why OFGEM doesn’t use this measure.