Mail online article about how the rolling blackouts will be planned and implemented.

ariarnia

and even if its not the exact times for this winter (if we have any blackouts) then its still good i think for knowing roughly how things will work and that there is at least a plan. 

Spoonie_Turtle

Your electricity bill should also tell you your DNO and how to contact them.
But quite often these postcode search tools are quicker than trawling through downloaded files to find an electricity bill, to be fair!

pete-20-11

Maybe I’m on three phase as mine says T B C



but seriously, I wonder if I’ll ever find out. Guess perhaps if we have a power cut, then I’ll know. 

Chrysalis

I might do a new table with the assumption weekday daytime is more likely to have a cut than weekend day time, will bring the scores closer but I expect no significant change on the top 3, those are just crazy good compared to the rest. S might not be so far adrift but will stay bottom.  The problem S has is its weekend slots are not just weekend but also at times where demand is not lowest, its second Saturday slot is 6-9pm.  All 3 weekend slots are midday to 9pm.

Also observed though S seems to be quite a common block.

The top 3 have 7 slots between them with 4 of them midnight.

rothesy

My supply number is S XXX XXXX  I always thought the S meant Scotland or ScottishPower but obviously not.  Everyday is a school day.......

mmmmikey

Just a thought.....

This "rota" is for planned outtages. The essential problem (massively oversimplified I'm sure, but focus on the logic) is that there is a risk of running out of gas, so we may need to save what we do have and share it as fairly as possible (parking any thoughts about what is and isn't fair at the moment). The point is, this isn't a plan for how to handle unexpected powercuts, it's a plan for sharing what we do have when stocks run low. That is, we don't want to be in a position where we just keep using it until it runs out and that's it until we get some more. We want to manage the gas stocks so if things start to look tight we can eek it out as long as possible.

We can just as well save gas by not using it at midnight as we can by not using it at midday. So to me this idea that we're more likely to have planned blackouts during peak hours than overnight is questionable. Surely the whole point of having a rota is that we can plan to make it fair.

I can see a logic that says an unplanned powercut is most likely to happen at peak times (although I think even that is questionable) but I can't see a logic that says a planned outtage is more likely to happen during peak hours. The whole point of planning is to spread those outtages evenly.

Does this make sense?

doodling

Hi,

Whilst gas shortages is one of National Grid's two scenarios resulting in electricity supply issues for this winter, I do not believe it to be the most likely one. We are very unlikely to suffer shortages due to our North Sea production capacity, our good relationship with Norway and our relatively large LNG import capacity.

The other NG scenario is the more likely one. We simply may not have enough generation capacity to supply the electricity the country needs at peak times when the wind isn't blowing.  Normally we would plan to import the shortfall but this year France also has generation problems and continental Europe as a whole may suffer electricity shortages due to gas shortages on the continent - there may be none spare for us to import.

In the gas shortage scenario the logical response would be rota disconnections over a whole day as the desire would be to conserve gas and saving gas at one in the morning is just as valuable as saving gas at 17:00.

In the insufficient generation scenario the logical response would be disconnections only at peak times as that would be the only time when there would actually be a problem.

It is important to understand that the different scenarios lead to different solutions and different effects on the public.

ariarnia

mmmmikey said:

I can see a logic that says an unplanned powercut is most likely to happen at peak times (although I think even that is questionable) but I can't see a logic that says a planned outtage is more likely to happen during peak hours. The whole point of planning is to spread those outtages evenly.

Does this make sense?

i think i get what your saying. and i think someone will come along and say this is completely wrong but i think the problem is power storage and how quickly we can make/get electric when its needed.

if 30% of our electric is made from gas then yes we need gas when we need it. but we also need 70% of our electric to come from something other than gas. so at peak time if we need 100% of demand we can get maybe 30 from gas, maybe 30 from oil, 20 from wind/solar/water, then buy 20 from France. and we're good and all the lights stay on. but if the wind isnt blowing or france doesn't have any power to sell then we might be able to push gas production to 35% of demand but we can't suddenly make the gas powered electric plants double there proaction as they don't have the capacity.  

MattMattMattUK

mmmmikey said:

Just a thought.....

This "rota" is for planned outtages. The essential problem (massively oversimplified I'm sure, but focus on the logic) is that there is a risk of running out of gas, so we may need to save what we do have and share it as fairly as possible (parking any thoughts about what is and isn't fair at the moment). The point is, this isn't a plan for how to handle unexpected powercuts, it's a plan for sharing what we do have when stocks run low. That is, we don't want to be in a position where we just keep using it until it runs out and that's it until we get some more. We want to manage the gas stocks so if things start to look tight we can eek it out as long as possible.

We can just as well save gas by not using it at midnight as we can by not using it at midday. So to me this idea that we're more likely to have planned blackouts during peak hours than overnight is questionable. Surely the whole point of having a rota is that we can plan to make it fair.

I can see a logic that says an unplanned powercut is most likely to happen at peak times (although I think even that is questionable) but I can't see a logic that says a planned outtage is more likely to happen during peak hours. The whole point of planning is to spread those outtages evenly.

Does this make sense?

We will have major cuts for longer than three hours a day if we are likely to run the ropisk of running out of gas as loss of pressurisation across the network would be disastrous, if it happened nationwide it could take many months to bring back online even when there was adequate supply. The rota is designed to reduce peak electricity usage where usage may exceed generation capacity, it was not primarily designed to reduce total gas consumption. 

If we get to a position where we need to save gas to ration supplies long enough to make it through a winter then much longer power cuts for much larger groups would be needed, possibly 25-50% of dwellings and for 12 hours or more. It is much harder to preserve supply than shave peak usage as people effectively just time shift their usage with shorter power cuts. 

Therr are weekend peaks but they are not as large as weekdays peaks, so there usage depends on the exact reason and implementation of the blackouts. The rota system was also not designed to be fair, it was designed to work. If we get to a situation where we really need to preserve the gas in reserve than fairness becomes even less relevant, the key will be slashing usage to a level where pressurisation can be maintained. 

[Deleted User]

rothesy said:

My supply number is S XXX XXXX  I always thought the S meant Scotland or ScottishPower but obviously not.  Everyday is a school day.......

The S in your supply number means ..... Supply.

It's not your load block.  That will be somewhere else - either in a little square by itself near the address, or labelled as postcode alpha identifier.