Beelbeebub

I think the rise in gas later on is due to their model not "seeing" any more renewable generation being added in the future due to assumptions. From the notes on the graph you mention. "Natural gas generation responds to this increasing low carbon generation by falling rapidly until the late 2020s. It then stabilises as less new low carbon generation capacity comes online based only on EEP-ready policies. By 2040 it will be around 48 TWh, 61% lower than 2022 levels...." (my emphasis) The EPP-ready bit is that they only consider policies that have been approved or funded at the current time. So they aren't including any new capacity that is at too early stage of development. We don't know what the policies will be in 2040 or even the technologies available then. Maybe we'll all be whizzing about in our cold fusion powered jetpack by then. It is likely (in the absence of the aforementioned cold fusion jet packs or similar) that we will need some sort of thermal power backup and that may well be gas. But hopefully in smaller amounts than predicted there.

All good points about the possibility of local substation store The counter would be the tech for the home batt system is already here from multiple vendors There aren't any planning or space issues. The per house would be part funded by householders, probably the richer ones. The subsidy being maybe lower vat or some sort of rebate. That rebate could be scaled for companies or technologies we deem worthy eg UK manufactured systems or new chemistries like sodium thus giving an industrial benefit. The per house would give very good resilience against a Spain style blackout - plus alot will split "critical" circuits that are backed up (eg lights, freezers, comms) from non critical stuff like drivers or ev chargers to improve the runtime per stored kwh. This isn't easy for a substation system which woukd have to support people charging EVs, taking showers etc during a blackout. The per house would also make peak shifting /shaving more of an individual choice rather than enforced from above.

If lots of properties had 5 or 10kWh batteries with maybe a 3-5kW inverter then alot of the peaks could probably be ironed out. It would give a pretty good load shedding option for when something catastrophic happened to the grid eg a major inter connector going down. A 10kWh /55kW unit is pretty discreet these days and around about 5-7k installed.

The report projects gas falling by around 60% from current ie 10% total annual. As you say we will always need something for when wind and solar are a no go. In the absence of lots more nuclear it will likely be gas. But that's fine. What we do need to do is stop gas being the price setter outside of the times when it is doing the majority. Maybe if the price is set on gas (or whichever fuel) only if it exceeds a certain percentage. Essentially setting the price on the 90% (or whatever) generator not the 100% So the expensive gas etc get paid, but everyone else gets a lower (but still higher than cost) price.

I think the stats are that gas is the price setter 98% of the time in the UK. We seem to run it quite a lot of the time providing 1 or 2 Gw, so I assume as a balancing source.

I think it comes under imports. If you look here https://www.energydashboard.co.uk/live Which comes from the same ultimate source it splits out imports by country and CO2 For example today... The French imports are the 7.9% And wind is nearly 40% of total and gas is that tiddly 12% (but sets the prices for the rest)

Although, to be fair, our home grown AGR reactors were crap.

When you say "our" do you mean your local area or the UK? Just because it is windy in one place doesn't mean it's windy everywhere. Over the past day wind has generated nearly 1/3 of our electricity and renewables over half. Over the last 12 months just shy of 36% of our electricity has come from renewables. Greater than the just over 30% from fossil fuels (gas mainly) This is absolutely amazing. In under 15 years renewables have replaced all of our coal use and about 50% of our nuclear use.

I do wonder if individual domestic (and light industry) batteries might be a big benefit for these types of events. In the first instance they would be able to buffer the grid from demand spikes (the classic everyone plugging in the kettle at half time) but also make blackouts like this much less of a major issue. When it comes to restarting the grid the re connection (and thus reloading) can be tricky. Yeas ago our office had an issue that tripped the main breakers and every time they tried to flip them back on everyone's massive CRT monitors (i said it was a while ago) went "ping" drew huge currents through the coils and tripped the breaker again. We had to unplug our monitors so they could get the breaker flipped and then plug them in again to avoid surges. I thin ka similar thing happens at a grid level. If a massive power cut hits and most people's homes and businesses just keep rolling then when the power comes back if the batteries all wait a random amount of time (say up to 60 seconds) before handing over to the grid again it would make the start much softer.

Unless the flywheels are connected by an inverter setup their energy storage is limited due to frequency drop If they are connected by inverters then they are simply storage devices in which case it's a simple cost/kwh over life analysis - About 20 years ago when i did a study on high capacity, high power energy storage flywheels were quite attractive given the cost of batteries and capacitors back then. I think they are about even at the moment at £200-300/kwh but with batteries dropping so fast that may not hold for long.

Apparently the Portuguese utility company quoted as having blamed "extreme temperature gradients" etc are saying they never said that ie. it was a hoax social media post. So we are back to https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9wpq8xrvd9t?post=asset%3A29c975d4-7442-42f4-98a7-3646f41861b2#post "Some more comments from Spanish power company Red Eléctrica's (REE) news conference earlier. As reported earlier, Eduardo Prieto, head of operation services, has explained that on Monday there were two consecutive "disconnection events". Systems managed to recover from the first event, but Prieto said they couldn't recover from the second, which led to the power outage in Spain and Portugal. When asked, Prieto admitted it is "very possible" that the affected generation was solar, though he said authorities don't yet have enough information to be sure. Finally, he said REE restored power to the grid by using hydro and combined-cycle gas, which operate through a combined gas and steam turbine method." It sounds like something happened to trip out some generating sources and that caused a cascade. There is no indication if it was 2 separate incidents that happened to coincide or if there was an original event that then caused the second event. We will have to wait until there is a thorough investigation to find out. To cause such a large drop in output would require more than just a simple cloud going over a panel or wind turbine breaking. This level and speed of drop is more likely to be either an actual infrastructure failure like a cable breaking or transformer catching fire etc (I imagine we would have heard about the latter) or a series of cascading automatic trips. Unless it is shown that the cascade only happened because of a unique characteristic of renewables this isn't really a "net zero" issue. After all a fuse can blow regardless of whether the power source is coal fired plant or a solar panel. I did read that the large battery farm in MW Australia (100MW IIRC) made a huge difference to stabilizing the grid and stopping blackouts. If anything, a large battery farm can react even quicker to grid outages than flywheels.

I used to be active on a politics forum where the vast majority of users (and mods) were right wing pro-Brexit ukip/reform types. I wasn't going to change their minds and they weren't ever able to mount a cogent argument that would change mine. The sole reason I stayed on the forum was to get a different viewpoint and try to avoid falling into an echo chamber.

Isn't a cold start always problematic regardless of your generation sources? If anything I would have thought synthetic frequency sources would be easier to cold start as they can synchronise themselves very quickly with the existing grid frequency and phase rather than having to mechanically synchronise. Given inter-connects with the wider euro grid I assume that would be your "master" frequency source.

Predictably the Telegraph blames "net zero"... They talk about "experts say" but never really say who the experts are. And then there's this... Wind turbines famously lack any spinning parts.....

TBH in that sort of property warm clothing, electric blankets and possibly a 4 poster bed with heavy curtains are your best bet. Basically a victorian approach (apart from the electric blanket)

Can you expand on this? I know they have some massive commercial systems that have 2 compressors but I was unaware of any small domestic units. A HP with a wide modulation range and a fairly big top end say a 16kw unit that could modulate down below 2kw (at 15C external) would be a real game changer, especially if they could get the price reasonable. It would allow a "one size fits all" solution. Installed wouldn't need to think as much - just wack the unit in and make sure the flow temp is low enough. No more worrying if the client will be cold or the unit will cycle too much. Hopefully the increased volume of sales (only having to make one model) would allow for better economies of scale. The other option would be to make 1 unit, say max 7kw. But make it really easy to just stick 2 units side by side (or stacked one on top) for the bigger properties or ones where the 7kw proved too small.

The irony is that very efficient houses, where the heating requirement is especially low, will often be cheaper to heat by gas as their energy requirement is dominated by DHW where Heatpumps struggle to reach cost parity. This is entirely a function of our electricity market pricing strategy. However, given our greening grid, in all cases a HP now outperforms a gas boiler when it comes to CO2 - which wasn't the case as little as 16 years ago. Whichever way you look at it discussing Heatpumps, even subsidies, isn't politically controversial. It's no different from a consumer program discussing and informing viewers about how to find out which benefits they can apply for. Is "moneybox" going to be canceled because they advise on disability allowance or unemployment benefit claims - about as politically charged subject as you can get at the moment?

I suspect the axe being ground is trying to pull evermore things into the culture war. Net Zero and climate change is a natural thing for certain factions to latch onto now Brexit has occured. Consider. It is a fairly technical subject that most people don't have the time or inclination to understand. It requires trusting what experts tell us. It is highly complex. Experts (by definition) cannot offer certainty. Whereas commentators can offer certainty and simplicity. It requires changes to our behaviour - we primarily use metric measures (Brexit), we shouldn't drive such big cars (climate change) All of these features make climate change ripen to be the next Brexit which is why it's no surprise Reform/Farage are pitching their tent firmly in the "no to net zero" camp.

Exactly, if a podcast on Heatpumps is to controversial politcally, then a motoring podcast would be equally controversial.

The BBC does excellent work in many, many areas. But it should be allowed to operate to "educate, entertain and inform" free from political interference. There is nothing controversial or political about Heatpumps. The only political dimension is the decision about what the UKs targets CO2 emissions should be going forward. Any decision beyond "we aren't going to cut co2 emissions at all and we don't care about the UK being exposed to international gas price volatility" requires HPs The move to HPs requires the population to be educated to a level beyond daily mail headlines.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/22/bbc-tells-pm-evan-davis-to-stop-hosting-heat-pump-podcast I watched a few episodes. It wasn't my favorite podcast (wasn't nerdy enough for me!😁) but it wasn't bad and, given he's a biggish name, it might have reached a few more peeps outside the usual audience for HP content. But the very subject of heat pumps being political?! If anything, banning a bbc employee from covering them (after giving him the OK) is the more politically controversial move.

Any idea why the Willis heater seems to be very common over there but almost never on this side of the sea? In GB an immersion in tank seems to be the norm for unvented electric setups. Is there some reason beyond "that's just how we do it"? Like some sort of odd regulation that banned electric heaters in tanks or something?

Pretty sure thermal stores are exempt from needing legionella cycles as they don't store the potable water at high temps, it's instantaneously heated on it's way through the coil

Am looking at a solar & battery setup. The panels bit is easy - as many as we can fit as they are cheap now. The harder part is the inverter and battery. We've had various quotes from different installers all recommending different brands! So far Tesla PW3 Sigenergy Sigenstor GivEnergy Solax Puredrive/Duracell TBH The powerwall has got a good rep but I can't bring myself to go for it given <gestures out of window> The Sigenstor looks good on paper (and physically) but is fairly new and towards the pricey end I've heard conflicting stuff about Givenergy and Solax but like the fact Givenergy is UK based I know nothing about Puredrive apart from they are apparently now the Duracell units and are also UK based Has anyone got any experience with any? Things like reliability, customer support etc

Slightly different environment but some trials have shown an increase in the agri output after the solar has gone up. Maybe shade helps with reducing water loss and keeps the temperatures in a more optimal range.