UK Generation

[SteamyTea]

Been off work this week (well almost) so thought I would have a look at how much the nations electrical generation has changed.

 

So some of my famous charts are coming up.

 

Basically I downloaded the generation data, created half hour averages (means), then looked at the frequency of delivery to the national grid (the demand).

I picked 3 years, 2012, 2018 and 2023 to save the charts getting too busy.

I then did a second batch looking at the usage between midnight and up to 8AM.

 

I find it interesting how usage has changed and how the distribution is getting smoother.

 

First chart is all hours of the day.

 

 

Second is the 'E7' window.

 

[SteamyTea]

Couple more charts for anyone that is interested.

 

Hourly demand as a percentage of daily usage and actual energy demand in GWh.

This may be useful if you pay on a variable ToU tariff.

 

 

[Alan Ambrose]

For the 1st two graphs - does that mean that usage has gone down but become more peaky? Are we not expecting usage to go up, or is that the effect of home PV?

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

For the 1st two graphs - does that mean that usage has gone down but become more peaky? Are we not expecting usage to go up, or is that the effect of home PV?

Overall generation is down (the energy delivered).

The generation capacity (the power) at the peaks is also down, but the time spent generating at that peak is up by 10%.

(I think, but gridwatch shows energy, not power, but I think I have converted it correctly).

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> The generation capacity (the power) at the peaks is also down

 

So, we don't need to build out the transmission network at all?

[SteamyTea]

7 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

>>> The generation capacity (the power) at the peaks is also down

 

So, we don't need to build out the transmission network at all

Except we are not building new generations on the same sites as the old generation.

And we will be increasing the capacity, and resilience of the network as we move away from fossil fuels.

 

The National Grid is not really like a house or factory circuit, it is much more sophisticated.

Vast amounts of power can be very quickly rerouted when conditions change, it is very dynamic.

[Alan Ambrose]

We’re increasing the network capacity to cope with lower demand? 🙂

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, Alan Ambrose said:

We’re increasing the network capacity to cope with lower demand? 🙂

We have seen a recent drop in usage, but that is not set to continue.  It will make economic sense to electrify and generate with mostly renewable energy.

 

The National Electricity grid has been rebuilt, expanded and improved many times over the last 100 years, I suspect that when the local DC grid in High Wycombe, powered by a local coal fired station got changed to a grid connected AC grid in the very late 1940s, there were people saying it is unnecessary and will only cost more.

The world moves on, sometimes not fast enough.