Winter blackout contingency planning

Planeteer

With the UK's energy dependencies and the reluctance of a PM - increasingly seeming on daily wages - to inform the people of sensible planning or preparations for winter blackouts, are there any other sources of steps to take for household energy management in the winter? How does one minimise impact? Wouldn't be bad for MSE/ML to take a stance for consumers again, just as he did for pricing?

victor2

Planeteer said:

With the UK's energy dependencies and the reluctance of a PM - increasingly seeming on daily wages - to inform the people of sensible planning or preparations for winter blackouts, are there any other sources of steps to take for household energy management in the winter? How does one minimise impact? Wouldn't be bad for MSE/ML to take a stance for consumers again, just as he did for pricing?

Very unlikely, just the media looking for headlines. But talk to anyone who was around in the 1970's when power cuts were a part of life, for ideas on how to survive power outages. Domestic gas will not get cut off, in the worst case electricity might, but even then it will be on a pre-announced schedule and for a few hours at a time.

Consumers can look at ways to reduce their usage, which many are doing already. It saves money and reduces the load on the grid.

brewerdave

victor2 said:

Planeteer said:

With the UK's energy dependencies and the reluctance of a PM - increasingly seeming on daily wages - to inform the people of sensible planning or preparations for winter blackouts, are there any other sources of steps to take for household energy management in the winter? How does one minimise impact? Wouldn't be bad for MSE/ML to take a stance for consumers again, just as he did for pricing?

Very unlikely, just the media looking for headlines. But talk to anyone who was around in the 1970's when power cuts were a part of life, for ideas on how to survive power outages. Domestic gas will not get cut off, in the worst case electricity might, but even then it will be on a pre-announced schedule and for a few hours at a time.

Consumers can look at ways to reduce their usage, which many are doing already. It saves money and reduces the load on the grid.

But unfortunately C/Heating systems won't run without leccy and not many people have still got gas fires.

. As someone who also was round for the power cuts of the 70s, torches and a plentiful supply of batteries is key -nothing worse than falling over in the dark!  And a thick jumper in case it is really cold at the time.

 As students , we plotted our evenings dependent on which areas had power when  - ie night 1 in the pub, night 2 at the University students Union, night 3 in the digs etc etc

EssexHebridean

I think we have to assume following the announcement yesterday that there is now a distinct chance that there may be planned outages this winter. Ultimately, if they happen as seems likely - for a roughly three hour period during waking hours - then they are possible to plan for. The power outages that are problematic are those which happen without warning, and which you have no idea how long they will last for. Large areas of the U.K. experience fairly regular unplanned outages - speak to anyone in the Scottish Islands as a starting point - ultimately if you spend any amount of time in those locations then you make sure you know where your torches and candles are, you make sure that you have at least some “emergency rations” in the house - foods that can be eaten “as is” without any additional cooking required, or that need just the addition for example of boiling water - and then you make sure you have a camping stove, pan or kettle to suit, and a safe preferably undercover and partially sheltered outside area to use it. You have blankets to hand in the winter, for warmth when just sitting, and for extra layers on the beds overnight, in case the outage continues longer than expected. 

The planned aspect of what is being discussed as possible means people will have time to fill a flask with water for drinks, have a meal cooked ahead of time, charge up USB lamps and torches in advance to make sure there is plenty of light available for regular tasks, or simply light candles. The biggest impact for a lot of households these days will be the lack of a TV or games system to stare at - good grief, they might actually have to talk to each other! 😱 😉 Bear in mind that GSH radiators will retain heat for a while, but won’t continue to heat up, and those relying on electric heating systems other than storage heaters will be without heating.

It’s not the first time this has happened - and I can confirm that we coped ok with it when it occurred before! 

tacpot12

My contingency planning is limited to making sure I have a number of long burning candles and some very low watt USB lights in the house. I also have a large USB power bank that keeps it charge for a number of months, and will keep an eye on it to check it is always more than half charged. With these, I can have light. 

The biggest issue most people will have is that their gas-fired central heating system will not function without electricty. You can install a generator changeover switch (and appropriate earthing for this) and connect any source of AC power to the switch to allow you to operate your heating, and anything else that the source can provide enough power for. For a gas boiler, thermostat and pump, you might only need 150-200W of power, so a cheap inverter and 12V leisure battery might give you 100hrs of run time for your heating system. In reality, if power cuts are limited to 3hrs per day, you don't really need to heat your home as the temperature inside will not drop to the point where pipes start to freeze that quickly.

Silvertabby

I worked in a supermarket during the early 70s power cuts.  When the lights went out we lit Tilly Lamps and kept the (manual) tills ringing by listing the price of each purchase on a hand-written 'receipt' and adding up the total cost by brain waves.  I suppose shops would just close now.

We are as ready as we can be - plenty of torches/batteries/battery operated radio and back-up power cells for mobile phones and kindle/i-pad.  

We have a gas hob and fire, and so will be able to cope better than many during any black-outs - but there a couple of elderly neighbours who may need our help.

daveyjp

I know we would have no problem as we did actually have a local power cut about month ago which lasted far longer than 3 hours.

Gas fire, gas cooker, gas hob so heating and eating covered.

Camping lights and torches

Battery powered devices

dunstonh

. As someone who also was round for the power cuts of the 70s, torches and a plentiful supply of batteries is key -nothing worse than falling over in the dark!  And a thick jumper in case it is really cold at the time.

On the other hand, with a bit of preparedness, it isn't as bad revising the periods are relatively short.  We get about 12 power cuts a year, being a rural property.    We have 3 wood burners, loads of paraffin lanterns, and a dozen modern powerbank lanterns.  Several bowlfires (outside use being paraffin but useful when the power is off and I can go to the workshed and fire up a bowlfire and lantern and do some stuff in there.  There is also a wind-up radio and plenty of books.

We also have an AGA, which I know most won't have but in our case, it means we can still boil the kettle and cook dinners.  I doubt there will be any load shedding during meal times.  So, I people shouldn't worry there.  However, they could consider a camping stove and suitable kettle to allow tea making.  Having some pot noodles available as well in case it goes on longer than expected.

We never consider powercuts a hardship.  Indeed, they often end up very relaxing.  Either inside the house with fire burning and reading a book or outside with the hissing of paraffin pressure lanterns/bowlfires running, listening to the radio the old way (often radio 5 on medium wave).     It just provides a period of calm.    

We don't have any streetlights.  So, at night, it is pitch black, and a clear night gives a fantastic view of the stars. This could be a chance for towns and city people to see the stars as they have never seen before.    Parents with younger children should see it as an opportunity.  Make it an adventure.   Many young children don't get the chance to have adventures nowadays.  They grow up faster and have devices for everything.   They could spend a lifetime reminiscing about the adventures they had during blackouts.  Wrapped up warm with a torch, eating a pot noodle that they helped made from a whistling kettle on a stove whilst looking up at the stars.  Rather than a lifetime remembering how their parents moaned and swore and were miserable about it.

Workerdrone

I think Im fairly well prepared. As we will know about powercuts in advance I'll just stick a stew in the slow cooker in the morning and the pot will keep it hot for ages. Ive always insisted on keeping a gas hob which I can still manually light for making hot drinks. We have plenty of candles and Ive just bought a damn good multi function torch. I still have a gas fire although it requires electric to open the gas valve before ignition. I suppose if it was cold I could always light the fire before the outage assuming the gas valve won't close when the electric goes out.

As a final backup plan we chose to store our touring caravan on the drive to save on storage fees. I can run the lighting off the leisure battery, cook in, shower and even run the heating and fridge on gas so I suppose we are pretty well sorted if its a long blackout.

brewerdave

@workerdrone -great idea about the slow cooker -will have to make sure that we have plenty of suitable veg. for cooking up a casserole on any days that the power is going to be off at evening meal times.

matelodave

We remember the 70's, as said above the ppwer cuts were scheduled, three hours a day if I remeber rightly, sometimes in te evening and at other times but it was easy to plan. We had a small child and a baby.

Just wrapped up warm, filled a flask to make a bottle for the baby and made sure we had batteries for a couple of torches. We had central heating which stopped working for three hours, but it wasn't the disaster that everyone is forecasting (although the play-station brigade may feel it is). Three-six hours isn't a hardship. We often get power cuts where we live and, have had several over 10 hours.

Some factories got themselves organised and it had no effect on their production others just whinged and moaned but we all came out of it unscathed and I dont remember anyone need counselling because it affected their mental health etc - we just got on with it. 

We'll do the same, get some batteries for the torch's, make sure that we've got some food (you dont actually need hot food everyday) and go to bed early if necessary.

As dunstonh says, enjoy the difference, the world wont end

Life could be a lot worse, you could be in an air-raid shelter with bombs and guns going off around you with no water, light or leccy for days or even weeks.