Spain/Portugal blackout

[Beelbeebub]

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.

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

55 minutes ago, BotusBuild said:

I see them all sat in front of pianos now

Come doomsday, it’ll be the only thing that’s still working mate!    

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

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

It was something that was being looked at (not by me) when I was doing mt PhD, over a decade ago.

It was in relation to smart fridges. Not sure what happened but at a presentation I pointed out that fridge loads, when running, are very low (a few 10s of watts), but massive when starting up (over 2 kW often, why they have 13A fuses, even on little fridges).

You would have to start them all up over a matter of hours in an automated system, a shorter time over manual reconnect as power can be diverted to a zone when reconnected).

 

The grid does not produce a smooth sine wave (or 3).

But a rather messy, harmonically distorted one.

 

[Onoff]

[SteamyTea]

This is what Cornwall is like most of the days.

 

 

And the beaches.

 

[Tony L]

On 29/04/2025 at 08:02, G and J said:

So there is an argument methinks that runs along the lines that if one reads stuff you don’t agree with it helps develop a balanced world view. 

 

Yes, I like to know what kind of rubbish people are reading, so I read a variety of newspapers.  When I bring one of my mum's previous day's newspapers to the office, I keep it hidden so nobody gets the false idea I'm one of those people that agrees with the newspaper's world view.

[ProDave]

I went to a local information meeting for 2 more wind farm proposals near here.  It was a bit of an eye opener.

 

Yesterday was reasonably windy here (enough to need a reef in the sail) so you would expect wind generation to be reasonable.  Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity while we were at that meeting.

 

Lets think about that.  Wind would need to get up to about 80% of our needs to ever stand a chance of net zero.  So we would need 8 times as many wind farms as we have already to achieve that.  Now go and stand on a Scottish mountain top. count the wind farms you can see.  Imagine having 8 times that number of them.  That is not going to be pretty.

 

The wind farms we have are overloading the 2 high voltage pylons south from the Highlands already.  If we have 8 times as many we will need at least an additional 10 similar high voltage pylon lines just to shift the power down to the south where it is needed.

 

I am getting more and more angry at the sheep thinking we can build a few more wind farms up here because there is plenty of land and it's windy and it will solve all our problems.  No it won't, not unless you completely trash the Scottish mountains so there is no unspoiled landscape left.  Enough is enough.  Build the bloody things down south where the power is needed.  Cotswolds, Chilterns, Downs, etc don't have many do they, lets see them on all those hills before we get lumbered with any more.  I am sure all those in favour of building them up here would object to them on the "nice" hills down south.

[SteamyTea]

13 minutes ago, ProDave said:

 

I am getting more and more angry at the sheep thinking we can build a few more wind farms up here because there is plenty of land and it's windy and it will solve all our problems

I don't think anyone that works in the planning of wind farms thinks that.

14 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Enough is enough.  Build the bloody things down south where the power is needed.  Cotswolds, Chilterns, Downs, etc

Totally agree with that.

15 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity while we were at that meeting.

Where was the other 89% coming from, and are you just talking local demand, or national?

[ProDave]

Looking at gridwatch right now, Wind is supplying 9% of demand and solar 24%  Clearly solar will drop to 0% when the sun goes down.

 

Just where do they think we are going to get to 100% carbon neutral without many multiples of the wind farms we already have?  And just what will we do when the wind does not blow (not uncommon)?  Battery storage won't cover a week of winter anti cyclone.

 

The "plan" is at best based on hope, not a proper plan.

[saveasteading]

22 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Build the bloody things down south where the power is needed. 

Seems so obvious. Transmission losses will reduce too.

I guess Scotland could say "no, that's enough".

Lake District and Pennines perhaps couldn't.

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Seems so obvious. Transmission losses will reduce too.

May not be the cheapest option though.

 

Bulk transmission losses are quite low, it is local substation losses that the problem, and we cannot easily get rid of them without serious engineering.

[jack]

On 29/04/2025 at 15:09, Beelbeebub said:

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.

 

These have been very successful projects by all accounts:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_Big_Battery

 

Apparently they provide inertia support too.

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, jack said:

These have been very successful projects by all accounts:

Technically they are very useful for stability.

One problem, with the UKs pricing system for electricity, is that the developers may be charging £300/MWh, pushing up the price for all power to £300/MWh.

That nonsense must stop, it is not a 'renewables' problem as the price to start up a gas plant can be even higher.

[saveasteading]

Problem identified.

 

 

 

[JohnMo]

23 hours ago, ProDave said:

Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity

Just had a look today, so our local energy mix - NE Scotland.

So mostly wind

 

Then looking at UK as a whole

 

Very different story, comparing local grid to UK wide.

 

 

Edited Friday at 08:20 by JohnMo
Added NE Scotland

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

Very different story, comparing local grid to UK wide.

As I keep saying.  Scotland has enough wind generation for now.  It is further south that needs more so time for them to have most of their hills covered in wind farms.

[Beelbeebub]

On 01/05/2025 at 09:45, ProDave said:

Yesterday was reasonably windy here (enough to need a reef in the sail) so you would expect wind generation to be reasonable.  Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity while we were at that meeting.

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.

 

[BotusBuild]

We should have more nuclear and less gas as the base load in our grid. This will lessen the burden on bills of the electrcity-gas price link (which is a pants situation anyway).

 

Investment in nuclear as well as solar and wind is what is required

[Mike]

14 minutes ago, BotusBuild said:

We should have more nuclear and less gas as the base load in our grid. This will lessen the burden on bills of the electrcity-gas price link

It would increase price stability, but may not reduce bills.

 

In last year's CfD auction (Allocation Round 6) the strike price for solar averaged £50.07 MWh and onshore wind £50.90/MWh (both at 2012 values); Hinkley Point C is £89.5 / MWh (also at 2012 values). The first of those links suggests a strike price for new gas of £82.83/MWh (at 2012 prices).

 

 

[Mike]

On 29/04/2025 at 16:09, Beelbeebub said:

We will have to wait until there is a thorough investigation to find out.

For those interested, the European Network Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) is setting up an expert panel to investigate that - press release on their website.

[saveasteading]

Could be interesting in Lincolnshire if Reform ban renewable energy.

Or do they mean the production of it, while importing from elsewhere?

That brings us back to the earlier point of whether it is fair to have areas with no production but the same prices.

 

Silly question really, as they won't have thought it through.

 

[MikeSharp01]

9 hours ago, Mike said:

In last year's CfD auction (Allocation Round 6) the strike price for solar averaged £50.07 MWh and onshore wind £50.90/MWh (both at 2012 values); Hinkley Point C is £89.5 / MWh (also at 2012 values). The first of those links suggests a strike price for new gas of £82.83/MWh (at 2012 prices).

How do 2012 prices relate to today's prices? On Export Octopus you get £0.15 for each kWh of export so £150 for a mWh in today's money!

[SteamyTea]

16 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

mWh

MWh

 

17 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

How do 2012 prices relate to today's prices

The Bank of England has an inflation calculator that uses consumer price index.

 

£50 in Mar-12 is now £71

£90 is now £128

 

(CPI is probably not the best indicator for industrial inflation)

[MikeSharp01]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

MWh

Yes sorry another wrinkle in the unit's naming rules / conventions. M for Mega (1,000,000) as it distinguishes it from m for milli....

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Yes sorry another wrinkle in the unit's naming rules / conventions

Pop it into autocorrect.

 

I am still not sure how bit and byte are abbreviated, I assume b for bit, B for byte, only bemuse one is bigger than the other.

Edited Sunday at 07:41 by SteamyTea