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

TheGardener

I'm with octopus and can't find a load block anywhere - there is nothing under my address line that resembles a load block. 

[Deleted User]

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?

Your thought does make perfect sense - but as doodling/ariarnia/MattMattMattUK have pointed out, there's almost a third category of outage, roughly leading to:

Most severe - gas shortage meaning we need to preserve the gas system - large scale planned outages involving the full rota and possibly past the level 3/phase 1 rota (I agree with doodling that this is unlikely given what we know at the moment).

Less severe - power station breakdown, prolonged still weather, loss of interconnector supply... - in this case the need for outage follows the demand curve much more closely and we will end up using only parts of the rota each day based on weather and how well customers can flatten the curve.  This is much more likely (relatively) based on the NG data and reports (although still not a very likely occurrence, and not predicted to happen at all in the 'base' scenario).

Unpredictable - the unplanned outages that happen all the time, which tend to track system stress and severe weather.  It's difficult to know what knock-on these might have, as it can range from a one-street power cut all the way through to a system collapse (which we've been close-ish to twice in the last 15 years).

Robin9

All these schedules do seem make everything look very clinical and exact - it practice I think it will be a little cruder.

I was a young engineer with a DNO during the scheduled cuts of the 1970's.   In anticipation of the cuts we had to prepare the network and moved some connections around to ensure we could keep the hospitals and the food processors on - if you were on a circuit which fed a hospital you were lucky and did not go off.  I wonder if all these schedules take account of this.

Then things were more under control -  we knew how much coal we had -  today we are dependent of gas from others.

Before any cuts of course there are the notifications to the big users, the two stages of voltage reductions and of the frequency.

ariarnia

TheGardener said:

I'm with octopus and can't find a load block anywhere - there is nothing under my address line that resembles a load block. 

its not on my bill either (ovo) but when i emailed my network opperator they responded within about an hour no problem. not that we really need it now but its nice to have the info. i put a link for how to find your dno up in the thread. 

SAC2334

TheGardener said:

I'm with octopus and can't find a load block anywhere - there is nothing under my address line that resembles a load block. 

its on page 2 of a bill under the supply address and says Postcode area alpha identifier: S ( in my case )

LilacPotato

Hello, 

I don't post much on here (but I read it a lot!) so not sure I can post links but there is a website called powercut105. com where you can enter your postcode to find both your DNO and your load block number. For anyone with extra time to spare perhaps with some time entering postcodes we can find out where we should move to to be a J!

GingerTim

LilacPotato said:

Hello, 

I don't post much on here (but I read it a lot!) so not sure I can post links but there is a website called powercut105. com where you can enter your postcode to find both your DNO and your load block number. For anyone with extra time to spare perhaps with some time entering postcodes we can find out where we should move to to be a J!

'Postcode not found'! 

SAC2334

LilacPotato said:

Hello, 

I don't post much on here (but I read it a lot!) so not sure I can post links but there is a website called powercut105. com where you can enter your postcode to find both your DNO and your load block number. For anyone with extra time to spare perhaps with some time entering postcodes we can find out where we should move to to be a J!

worked fine for me .postcode into it then it connects with your  network operator which shows the load block S which agrees with what Octopus says .Also worked for my friend in scotland with SSE/OVO ..
Powercut105 is the place to go.. Thanks Lilac 

LilacPotato

GingerTim said:

LilacPotato said:

Hello, 

I don't post much on here (but I read it a lot!) so not sure I can post links but there is a website called powercut105. com where you can enter your postcode to find both your DNO and your load block number. For anyone with extra time to spare perhaps with some time entering postcodes we can find out where we should move to to be a J!

'Postcode not found'! 

Darn it! It worked for the three I tried!

TheGardener

SAC2334 said:

TheGardener said:

I'm with octopus and can't find a load block anywhere - there is nothing under my address line that resembles a load block. 

its on page 2 of a bill under the supply address and says Postcode area alpha identifier: S ( in my case )

Sorry - but no not on my bill it isn't. Just the address and postcode. There is nothing else other than a QR code box. I have looked and got DS to look as well. Not there.