"Controlled" power shut down - appliances

Sea_Shell

Stage three 

The third option is the one that affects household consumers, using “rota disconnections” to ration electricity. This involves each energy distribution network being divided into 18 areas, known as “load blocks”, which would take it in turns to be disconnected. 

Thanks, so if you're in the same DNO (of 14) and same "load-block" (of 18) as your family, you're all in the same boat at the same time, but if you come under a different block, you could "get out of dodge".



Apologies if this has been asked and answered before.   Threads are fast moving and hard to keep up with.

Sea_Shell

Section62 said:

I would aim to shut down as much as I could before the power goes off.

Not so much for the 'off' (although some sensitive equipment might not be happy), but also because the 'on' may not be as clean as you'd want it to be to keep electrical/electronic equipment in good health.

How well appliances handle power cuts can be unpredictable, hence I'd aim to shut down what I could.  Mum's Bosch (conventional) oven - which you'd think would be one of the least likely to be affected appliances - died as a result of a power cut killing the electronics in the clock/timer/control.  The response from Bosch was that their built-in ovens are designed to be powered-on all the time, and that switching them off or power cuts could cause problems.

Likewise I'd make sure the heating was off and the boiler powered down as some of the modern ones don't like power issues.

Interesting you mention the oven.   We used to turn ours off at the main switch when we go away, but last time we did, and turned it back on, it blew the main oven element when we tried to turn it on.   We've not turned it off since (and had no power cuts), just in case!!

I'll be a bit miffed, if multiple power cuts mean multiple elements needing to be replaced.   It's a DIY job, but still...


Good shout about the boiler.    Although I can foresee the "peak" just being shifted a bit to earlier or later, creating a new peak! 

We'll just get the house warmed up beforehand.

[Deleted User]

Sea_Shell said:

Thanks, so if you're in the same DNO (of 14) and same "load-block" (of 18) as your family, you're all in the same boat at the same time, but if you come under a different block, you could "get out of dodge".

Yes, you've got it there.  Although every DNO would be applying things at the same time, so your combination of DNO/Load Block will coincide with other combinations of DNO/Load Block in other areas.

Spoonie_Turtle

Is the information about which load blocks cover which areas publicly available?  [Not that it makes any difference, I'm just curious and like to know the mechanisms of what's happening.]

[Deleted User]

Spoonie_Turtle said:

Is the information about which load blocks cover which areas publicly available?  [Not that it makes any difference, I'm just curious and like to know the mechanisms of what's happening.]

It wasn't when I used to collate it.

Although probably would become apparent quickly if people got notice of outages.

IanIanIanIanIan

From my DNO SP Energy Networks:

"Your Emergency Power Cut block letter is static and will not change during an emergency. It is based on where you live and how your electricity is supplied. Your Emergency Power Cuts block letter should be next to the address on the front page of your electricity bill in a square box. "

Mine is 'Q'

[Deleted User]

IanIanIanIanIan said:

From my DNO SP Energy Networks:

"Your Emergency Power Cut block letter is static and will not change during an emergency. It is based on where you live and how your electricity is supplied. Your Emergency Power Cuts block letter should be next to the address on the front page of your electricity bill in a square box. "

Mine is 'Q'

That's surprising (well, not the "will not change" bit, that's a fact) - maybe things have changed in the last few years.

Here's the order of disconnection anyway - each row is the blocks that will be switched off in order of required need, from the first block to go (LHS) up to the last block standing in each period (RHS):

Alnat1

That line must have been on my bills a long time and I've never noticed it. I'm a T.

QrizB

IanIanIanIanIan said:

From my DNO SP Energy Networks:
"Your Emergency Power Cut block letter is static and will not change during an emergency. It is based on where you live and how your electricity is supplied. Your Emergency Power Cuts block letter should be next to the address on the front page of your electricity bill in a square box. "

That's interesting.

Under the address on my Octopus bill it says "Postcode area alpha identifier: N" which I guess is the same thing?

[Deleted User]

QrizB said:

IanIanIanIanIan said:

From my DNO SP Energy Networks:
"Your Emergency Power Cut block letter is static and will not change during an emergency. It is based on where you live and how your electricity is supplied. Your Emergency Power Cuts block letter should be next to the address on the front page of your electricity bill in a square box. "

That's interesting.

Under the address on my Octopus bill it says "Postcode area alpha identifier: N" which I guess is the same thing?

But electricity supply cables don't follow postcode boundaries - which was one of the reasons that we didn't release the data in the olden days.

There could quite easily be an open mesh point in the cable in the street between you and your next door neighbour which would mean your supply was from a completely different substation, and we didn't co-ordinate which circuits were which block between the different substations.