UK gas/electricity supply shortages this winter
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elbows
Well-Known Member
Looks like they brought back a Torness nuclear reactor ( that was offline for refuelling) some days earlier than originally scheduled. So thats helped a bit in the last few days.
The Heysham reactor that didnt successfully return to service the other week, starting but then stopping again before it had got remotely close to full output, is listed as being offline for a few more days to come due to "Shut down to repair an impulse line steam leak", so thats what happened to that one.
One of the Hartlepool reactors is still offline for refuelling, currently listed as due back on the 10th December but maybe they will manage to bring that forwards a bit too.
Overall UK nuclear plant statuses obtained from Power station daily status but have to poke around on some other sites for full timing details.
The Heysham reactor that didnt successfully return to service the other week, starting but then stopping again before it had got remotely close to full output, is listed as being offline for a few more days to come due to "Shut down to repair an impulse line steam leak", so thats what happened to that one.
One of the Hartlepool reactors is still offline for refuelling, currently listed as due back on the 10th December but maybe they will manage to bring that forwards a bit too.
Overall UK nuclear plant statuses obtained from Power station daily status but have to poke around on some other sites for full timing details.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
France now has about 5GW more nuclear power available than it did at the start of November. This is under half of what they had originally scheduled for that period, but still makes a big difference.
Meanwhile it looks like we lost another interconnector to France, 1GW of capacity lost, possibly just for a day, time will tell.
Meanwhile it looks like we lost another interconnector to France, 1GW of capacity lost, possibly just for a day, time will tell.
elbows
Well-Known Member
If I havent messed up the data & calculations, then despite wind falling off a cliff in the final days of November, November was still a pretty impressive month for wind generation in the UK.
This graph is done by adding up all the half-hourly figures for wind generation each month and then dividing by the number of half hour periods that were in each month. Figures are in MW, so averaged over 9GW in November.
Broadly speaking the wind does have a habit of coming along nicely during the period of the year when we need it most, when demand is higher in winter. But obviously there are still problems when it happens not to be blowing during hours of peak demand on specific days. And there always remains the chance of having a bad month for wind when we are most in need of it.
This graph is done by adding up all the half-hourly figures for wind generation each month and then dividing by the number of half hour periods that were in each month. Figures are in MW, so averaged over 9GW in November.
Broadly speaking the wind does have a habit of coming along nicely during the period of the year when we need it most, when demand is higher in winter. But obviously there are still problems when it happens not to be blowing during hours of peak demand on specific days. And there always remains the chance of having a bad month for wind when we are most in need of it.
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a_chap
When the world came apart, where were you?
How on earth can that happen?
I mean lose my keys from time to time but interconnectors are huge things.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Well I suppose one way of thinking about our boiler positively is if it's not working (again) we don't need to pay extra.
Fucking thing never works in winter, bit of an oversight.
Fucking thing never works in winter, bit of an oversight.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
A lengthy period of low temperatures and low winds is incoming...
elbows
Well-Known Member
So far the 8th to the 12th looks like the tightest period, but obviously these generation/demand forecasts can evolve just as weather forecasts evolve.
eg:
stuff_it
Too skool for cool
Dunno, lots of cell towers are on buildings like hospitals that have their own power backup anyway. They could still turn off the civilian mobile service though.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
I should be OK for lighting.
In the event my recycled laptop cells have only 500 usable mah left of their original 2500, my new 8 cell box should supply my very usable 1.25 watt lamp for at least 10 hours. my string of xmas lights takes only 0.017A / 0.085 watts but the powerbank turns itself off ...
I think I'm going to sacrifice the pink cell in favour of a fuse - though I will still be keeping the thing in a saucepan for safety ...
In the event my recycled laptop cells have only 500 usable mah left of their original 2500, my new 8 cell box should supply my very usable 1.25 watt lamp for at least 10 hours. my string of xmas lights takes only 0.017A / 0.085 watts but the powerbank turns itself off ...
I think I'm going to sacrifice the pink cell in favour of a fuse - though I will still be keeping the thing in a saucepan for safety ...
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
If anyone survives the fall of civilisation it's going to be you isn't it?
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
elbows
Well-Known Member
Only 1 of the UKs nuclear power stations is offline now (a Hartlepool reactor for refuelling) since they managed to restart the Heysham reactor that was being repaired recently and its been ramping up for a number of days, although its still some way away from full power. One of the Torness reactors is operating below full load though, to conserve fuel.
There have been no really obvious signs of stress on the UK system so far this month, with no interesting system messages since November 30th.
The interconnector to France that developed a fault recently has been working again since late on the 4th December. The other interconnector thats been on reduced capacity for a long time since the 2021 fire, is still on a lower capacity than they had managed to get it back to until a recent issue (500MW instead of the 1000MW they had managed, with 2000MW being its full pre-fire capacity).
There have been no really obvious signs of stress on the UK system so far this month, with no interesting system messages since November 30th.
The interconnector to France that developed a fault recently has been working again since late on the 4th December. The other interconnector thats been on reduced capacity for a long time since the 2021 fire, is still on a lower capacity than they had managed to get it back to until a recent issue (500MW instead of the 1000MW they had managed, with 2000MW being its full pre-fire capacity).
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elbows
Well-Known Member
And please be aware that I report on the state of the nuclear fleet and the interconnectors because there are a reasonably low number of them, its not hard to pay attention to them all. Unfortunately Im not setup to keep an eye on the much larger generation capability offered by gas etc, because there are too many units. And with wind I only keep an eye on the totals.
When balancing the system every option counts, they are all relevant. But there may be times when failures of specific units that I am not monitoring are the difference maker, and I usually wont be telling those individual stories. If its the fluctuation in wind, combined with interconnector flows or nuclear woes that cause the period of tightness then I will be able to commentate on tricky periods more comprehensively, but there may still be important parts of the story missing from what I post here.
When balancing the system every option counts, they are all relevant. But there may be times when failures of specific units that I am not monitoring are the difference maker, and I usually wont be telling those individual stories. If its the fluctuation in wind, combined with interconnector flows or nuclear woes that cause the period of tightness then I will be able to commentate on tricky periods more comprehensively, but there may still be important parts of the story missing from what I post here.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
One of my friends said that there isn't a shortage of eggs so much as there is a shortage of supermarkets willing to take them off farmers for a reasonable price. How true is that?
wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
Heard a farmer on the radio saying they had reduced their production for this very reason and if things don't improve they might stop eggs altogether.
Bingoman
Well-Known Member
So how is that going affect people trying make cakes etc
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It's not. Eggs aren't gas or electricity.
Karl Masks
Birds Angel Delight
this is becoming unreal
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
This is bollocks, a farm in Sussex recently had to cull 350k hens and destroy over 1.5m eggs, because of an outbreak of bird flu, that's the reason behind shortages.
Not that this has anything to do with this thread, which is about energy shortages.
<scrolls back up to see what moron took the thread totally off topic>
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
No that's bollocks too, it's primarily a pricing issue - supermarkets held the price down too long and producers cut back drastically as they were making big losses.
Listen to this guy from last month (or look up the trade production and pricing statistics from e.g. DEFRA or the ONS):
bluescreen
tofu eating wokerati
Doesn't this mean that gas engineers will have to visit each home to purge the system safely before the household can be reconnected?Already gas shortages in South Yorkshire. Around 2000 homes without gas for a couple of days now after a burst water pipe flooded the gas mains with 400,000 litres of water. Videos on Look North news showed water pissing out of people's gas meters and a lamppost.
BBC
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Yeah they will have to make sure all the water is out of the system. There are around 100 engineers working in the area. Some people reported water pissing out of gas cookers.
that's like the story of the year Guinness told the Irish hop farmers the price they were going to pay for hops, and the hop farmers went home and ploughed the hop bines under and grew other things...
is this the time to mention that a lot of the problem with nuclear waste in the UK comes from Thatcher insisting that Scargill wasn't going to turn the lights out, so all the reactors were running over-capacity, as were the places the spent fuel was delivered to, and so they were just emptying spent fuel into ponds without tracking or audit....
so we're still not able to clean up after Thatcher's legacy of radioactive evil...
so we're still not able to clean up after Thatcher's legacy of radioactive evil...
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