Energy rationing

[Deleted User]

NoobSolar said:

Power walls I believe (stress believe, not certain) will operate in a black out

Powerwalls will continue to operate in a Grid outage but only if the incoming Grid supply is routed through a Tesla Gateway which adds to the cost of the installation.

The Gateway not only deals with Grid outages but it also monitors Grid frequency and voltage. If either are outside limits, the Gateway will step in and disconnect the property from the Grid supply. It happened to me three times last Winter because of high voltages. The Grid voltage to my home has now been reduced by the DNO based initially on voltage information from my smart meter.

A passing comment on rotational Grid outages. These will be planned at a regional level to ensure that voltage and frequency limits are maintained. 

Smart meters do have build in remote disconnection switches; however, the amount of effort required by suppliers to use these switches for rotational power outages would be disproportionate. It’s a bit like a consumer deciding to get his/her import to zero by turning off every switch; socket in the house. Why would anyone do that when there is one large switch in the meter box or an incoming RCD in the consumer box? Grid operators and DNOs will manage rotational outages.

TheBanker

[Deleted User] said:

NoobSolar said:

Power walls I believe (stress believe, not certain) will operate in a black out

Powerwalls will continue to operate in a Grid outage but only if the incoming Grid supply is routed through a Tesla Gateway which adds to the cost of the installation.

The Gateway not only deals with Grid outages but it also monitors Grid frequency and voltage. If either are outside limits, the Gateway will step in and disconnect the property from the Grid supply. It happened to me three times last Winter because of high voltages. The Grid voltage to my home has now been reduced by the DNO based initially on voltage information from my smart meter.

A passing comment on rotational Grid outages. These will be planned at a regional level to ensure that voltage and frequency limits are maintained. 

Smart meters do have build in remote disconnection switches; however, the amount of effort required by suppliers to use these switches for rotational power outages would be disproportionate. It’s a bit like a consumer deciding to get his/her import to zero by turning off every switch; socket in the house. Why would anyone do that when there is one large switch in the meter box or an incoming RCD in the consumer box? Grid operators and DNOs will manage rotational outages.

It's not just the effort required. Current government policy is to encourage installation of smart meters. If they started using these meters to disconnect people to manage demand (while people with old fashioned meters were still connected), then it would kill the installation campaign dead. 

We have already seen potential plans to use smart meters to manage demand, by offering financial incentives for reducing consumption during peak periods. This is probably the only role smart meters will play in managing demand this winter. 

MattMattMattUK

Malkytheheed said:

Nope, still doesn't make any sense. 

I'll ask again. 

Why do you keep asking the same questions again and again and ignoring the answers?

Malkytheheed said:

Why, in the one winter when we are pretty much ALL cutting back in some form or another is it suggested we might have balckouts or rationing? 

Firstly because "ALL" are not cutting back, some are cutting back a lot, some a bit, others not at all. Also domestic only makes up around 30% of total energy consumption, industry is not really cutting back because big users are not are not able to without reducing production.

Malkytheheed said:

Why this winter over all other previous "high usage" winters.

We will likely use more this winter compared to last winter as last winter was exceptionally mild. 

Malkytheheed said:

This just doesn't make sense.

It makes perfect sense if you take the time to understand it.

Malkytheheed said:

If I use an analogy. It's like Tesco selling snickers bars no problem every year. Then the one year people actually are making an effort to eat less Snickers bars are we suddenly told "Yeah there might be no Snickers bars at points". It defies logic. 

It does not defy logic, the problem is your "logic" is flawed/broken. To try to adapt your analogy it would be like in a year when there is a global Snickers shortage with supply failing to meet demand, someone being surprised that Tesco runs out of Snickers even if they decided to eat one or two less a year.

GingerTim

The thing about load shedding/blackouts is that if/when they happen, they will happen whether you understand the reasons for them or not.

pensionpawn

[Deleted User] said:

pensionpawn said:

TheBanker said:

Malkytheheed said:

Deleted_User said:

This winter is likely to be colder than last winter - so more demand not less.

Power stations aren’t going to make less, but the ones we’ve closed are going to make nothing.

If we can’t buy enough gas for the country, it’s more likely to be reserved for the gas grid than burnt in power stations.

With all due respect. Noone has any idea of what type of winter we will have this year. Also this still doesn't answer my question as to why we would face blackouts or rationing when we haven't in the last 30 years. Why would demand be UP this winter of all winters? I don't recall rationing in 2009/2010 when it was incredibly cold. 

The problem isn't demand, it's supply. Our electricity generation capacity is heavily dependent on gas (right now 46% of our electricity is being generated by gas power stations). If there are shortages of gas, then these power stations will be out of action. Shortage of gas is a possibility due to the situation with Russia, leading to other countries chasing the same non-Russian supplies. 

I agree that demand is likely to drop due to the high prices - the question is whether the reduction in demand is enough to off-set any reduction in supply. And this needs to happen at a point in time - it is no use having surplus energy during the daytime if peak demand is in the evenings. 

You may see that our European neighbours are already taking more drastic measures, e.g. Spain has introduced laws limiting the temperature of air conditioning/heating of buildings to reduce power demand. Contrast to the UK where the government's approach seems to be to put their collective fingers in their ears!

However if Spain is anything like Greece, where I spent a week on holiday in June, there isn't a domestic solar panel in sight (to produce electricity rather than just heat water), which is at least something we seemed to have got right (although we could still do better) in this country. It's absolutely bonkers that countries that have so much reliable sunshine, and associate heat, don't have the means to locally convert that into green energy to cool down their buildings! 

Spain are quite good at concentrated solar power though, and their wind farm control network is better than ours.

So if their central solar generation capacity is so good why the need to reduce power demand when it's dawn to dusk sunshine? Wind, as we know, is also quite variable and can't be relied on. From what I've read it hasn't been that windy through the summer across a lot of Europe this summer? Chatting with taxi drivers no EVs either and quite a lot of resentment about the cost of fuel.

[Deleted User]

TheBanker said:

[Deleted User] said:

NoobSolar said:

Power walls I believe (stress believe, not certain) will operate in a black out

Powerwalls will continue to operate in a Grid outage but only if the incoming Grid supply is routed through a Tesla Gateway which adds to the cost of the installation.

The Gateway not only deals with Grid outages but it also monitors Grid frequency and voltage. If either are outside limits, the Gateway will step in and disconnect the property from the Grid supply. It happened to me three times last Winter because of high voltages. The Grid voltage to my home has now been reduced by the DNO based initially on voltage information from my smart meter.

A passing comment on rotational Grid outages. These will be planned at a regional level to ensure that voltage and frequency limits are maintained. 

Smart meters do have build in remote disconnection switches; however, the amount of effort required by suppliers to use these switches for rotational power outages would be disproportionate. It’s a bit like a consumer deciding to get his/her import to zero by turning off every switch; socket in the house. Why would anyone do that when there is one large switch in the meter box or an incoming RCD in the consumer box? Grid operators and DNOs will manage rotational outages.

It's not just the effort required. Current government policy is to encourage installation of smart meters. If they started using these meters to disconnect people to manage demand (while people with old fashioned meters were still connected), then it would kill the installation campaign dead. 

We have already seen potential plans to use smart meters to manage demand, by offering financial incentives for reducing consumption during peak periods. This is probably the only role smart meters will play in managing demand this winter. 

I agree: an analogue meter offers no protection from rotational power cuts.

Demand limits for smart-metered homes will be introduced via pricing. Suppliers will begin to offer tariffs with an instant power limit of, say, 4kW at certain times of the day. A consumer on a 4kW limited tariff will pay less for his/her energy than a consumer on, say, a 7kW tariff. Breaches of the agreed power limit will result in warnings via IHD; text etc. If no action is taken, then remote disconnection will be activated. The consumer then calls a dedicated number to get power restored. Frequent disconnections will be deemed a breach of contract, and the consumer will be moved to a tariff with a higher instant power limit.

RobM99

       The power cuts in the 70's were indeed sheduled and grids were printed in the local paper. Black squares meant "definite", grey squares were "Possible" and white were "no cuts". I recall they were 4 hourly.

        Why fuel power stations with gas? Before the "gas crisis" they were the cheapest, cleanest option because, with gas, you get more "bang for your buck". If you burn coal or wood, the energy comes from the heat (obviously). Plus you have ash to dispose of. The power station I worked at burnt wood and was ~40% efficient. (i.e. 100 watts of heat produced 40 watts of power).
        Now,with gas, you get the heat plus bonus of volume expansion. When gas burns, the volume expands (obviously) so that expansion can also be used to produce electricity. Think of a steam train - water expands to steam to drive the piston. With a gas explosion (God forbid) we get heat and expansion. Burning  gas is controlled combustion, an explosion is not.

       I hope that was easy to understand!

MattMattMattUK

pensionpawn said:

[Deleted User] said:

pensionpawn said:

TheBanker said:

Malkytheheed said:

Deleted_User said:

This winter is likely to be colder than last winter - so more demand not less.

Power stations aren’t going to make less, but the ones we’ve closed are going to make nothing.

If we can’t buy enough gas for the country, it’s more likely to be reserved for the gas grid than burnt in power stations.

With all due respect. Noone has any idea of what type of winter we will have this year. Also this still doesn't answer my question as to why we would face blackouts or rationing when we haven't in the last 30 years. Why would demand be UP this winter of all winters? I don't recall rationing in 2009/2010 when it was incredibly cold. 

The problem isn't demand, it's supply. Our electricity generation capacity is heavily dependent on gas (right now 46% of our electricity is being generated by gas power stations). If there are shortages of gas, then these power stations will be out of action. Shortage of gas is a possibility due to the situation with Russia, leading to other countries chasing the same non-Russian supplies. 

I agree that demand is likely to drop due to the high prices - the question is whether the reduction in demand is enough to off-set any reduction in supply. And this needs to happen at a point in time - it is no use having surplus energy during the daytime if peak demand is in the evenings. 

You may see that our European neighbours are already taking more drastic measures, e.g. Spain has introduced laws limiting the temperature of air conditioning/heating of buildings to reduce power demand. Contrast to the UK where the government's approach seems to be to put their collective fingers in their ears!

However if Spain is anything like Greece, where I spent a week on holiday in June, there isn't a domestic solar panel in sight (to produce electricity rather than just heat water), which is at least something we seemed to have got right (although we could still do better) in this country. It's absolutely bonkers that countries that have so much reliable sunshine, and associate heat, don't have the means to locally convert that into green energy to cool down their buildings! 

Spain are quite good at concentrated solar power though, and their wind farm control network is better than ours.

So if their central solar generation capacity is so good why the need to reduce power demand when it's dawn to dusk sunshine? 

Production varies throughout the day so even at 6-7 in the evening in summer generation will be considerably less than at midday, how much depends on the setup.

pensionpawn said:
Wind, as we know, is also quite variable and can't be relied on. From what I've read it hasn't been that windy through the summer across a lot of Europe this summer? Chatting with taxi drivers no EVs either and quite a lot of resentment about the cost of fuel.

When Iast looked wind generation was down on previous years so that would make sense. EVs don't always work in taxi applications, though they seem to have got them right with black cabs in London. Taxi drivers always resent the cost of furl, they would probably resent it if it was free.

doodling

Hi,

There are two separate issues which people confuse in the discussions about energy. One is security of supply - whether the lights will stay on, the other is cost of supply - how much our bills will be.

There is a relationship between the two but it is helpful to think of them separately.

With respect to gas, security of supply is not a big problem. We produce a lot of gas, have agreements with Norway (who are unlikely to break those agreements) for a lot more and finally have the money necessary to outbid poorer (non-European) countries for deliveries of liquefied gas in ships.  It is extremely unlikely that we will run out of gas but the "outbidding poorer countries" bit might make that gas expensive.

With respect to electricity, things are less clear.  In theory we will have enough electricity but one of the assumptions that has been made is that we will buy a lot of electricity from Europe and Norway this winter.

Normally we buy a lot of electricity from France as they have a lot of cheap (to run) nuclear generation so if the French don't need it they sell it to others. This has historically worked well because the UK and France peaks don't coincide. Unfortunately, at the moment France is having a lot of problems with its nuclear power stations so they may not have much to sell.

Norway also has problems - they decided to start selling their electricity to others in recent years and that has (in conjunction with dry weather) caused them two problems, firstly the price of electricity in Norway has gone through the roof as it was massively cheaper then the rest of Europe and now it isn't. Secondly they have sold a lot of electricity and not had much rain and all the hydro dams they rely on are a lot emptier than they should be at this time of year.

Germany is suffering from problems because they are closing all their nuclear power stations following Fukushima and they are in a much worse position for gas than we are.

In the UK, we are slowly closing nuclear power stations as they get too old and we have closed most of our coal power stations (of the two remaining, the output of one appears to be being sold to France most of the time due to their nuclear problems).

Given all the above, you can see why people are very unsure that we will be able to import much electricity this winter. To do so there will need to be electricity available in Europe and we will need to be able to outbid rich countries like France and Germany (unlike gas where we might need to outbid Pakistan or Vietnam for example). That is before politicians get involved - no politician is going to be able to convince their population that it is OK to sit in the cold and dark whilst they sell power to the UK so there is a real risk that market forces (where you can buy your way out of trouble) will be superseded by political ones (where money doesn't count for so much and where the UK is currently the class idiot).

Note that the issue with electricity will be at times of peak demand (e.g. 16:00 to 20:00) - we almost certainly have enough domestic generation to cope at most other times. What this means in practise, if there is a shortage, is that there might be pre-planned power cuts at that time on a rotating basis (e.g. one evening in five (weekends are not normally a problem) different areas don't get power at that time).

This scenario is somewhat different to those considered by existing industry plans which are based around a continuous demand reduction by power cuts in different areas around the clock. I'm sure that that it wouldn't take long to produce an updated disconnection rota if required...

[Deleted User]

pensionpawn said:

[Deleted User] said:

pensionpawn said:

TheBanker said:

Malkytheheed said:

Deleted_User said:

This winter is likely to be colder than last winter - so more demand not less.

Power stations aren’t going to make less, but the ones we’ve closed are going to make nothing.

If we can’t buy enough gas for the country, it’s more likely to be reserved for the gas grid than burnt in power stations.

With all due respect. Noone has any idea of what type of winter we will have this year. Also this still doesn't answer my question as to why we would face blackouts or rationing when we haven't in the last 30 years. Why would demand be UP this winter of all winters? I don't recall rationing in 2009/2010 when it was incredibly cold. 

The problem isn't demand, it's supply. Our electricity generation capacity is heavily dependent on gas (right now 46% of our electricity is being generated by gas power stations). If there are shortages of gas, then these power stations will be out of action. Shortage of gas is a possibility due to the situation with Russia, leading to other countries chasing the same non-Russian supplies. 

I agree that demand is likely to drop due to the high prices - the question is whether the reduction in demand is enough to off-set any reduction in supply. And this needs to happen at a point in time - it is no use having surplus energy during the daytime if peak demand is in the evenings. 

You may see that our European neighbours are already taking more drastic measures, e.g. Spain has introduced laws limiting the temperature of air conditioning/heating of buildings to reduce power demand. Contrast to the UK where the government's approach seems to be to put their collective fingers in their ears!

However if Spain is anything like Greece, where I spent a week on holiday in June, there isn't a domestic solar panel in sight (to produce electricity rather than just heat water), which is at least something we seemed to have got right (although we could still do better) in this country. It's absolutely bonkers that countries that have so much reliable sunshine, and associate heat, don't have the means to locally convert that into green energy to cool down their buildings! 

Spain are quite good at concentrated solar power though, and their wind farm control network is better than ours.

So if their central solar generation capacity is so good why the need to reduce power demand when it's dawn to dusk sunshine? Wind, as we know, is also quite variable and can't be relied on. From what I've read it hasn't been that windy through the summer across a lot of Europe this summer? Chatting with taxi drivers no EVs either and quite a lot of resentment about the cost of fuel.

Oh, it’s nowhere near good enough yet - just pointing out that that’s the technology they chose to focus on rather than pv