Did the UK come closer than regulation proscribes to a black out? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 04:14:05 pm
content: There is a lot to learn from this video, into how the UK grid is structured and managed.The controversy is that the grid operators press release said at no time did the grid go into it's "Reserve" capacity. The regulations state that they must have, hot-standby generation to replace the single largest generator or inter-link if it fails.The grid folks say they kept that in reserve at all times, but other analysists are asking them, "Prove it." and they are avoiding and evading pointing to the public generator records and stating which where online as reserve at that time.I'm wondering if this lady is forgetting about the massive output the pumped hydro can produce for a relatively long amount of time. It think it's rated well into the GW and will run for hours. Or maybe that is not allowed to be counted and it's really only there as a big capacitor to smooth out load shifts.There was apparently a 29% probability of an unscheduled "loss of load". Which at first seems confusing, how would lack of generation cause a loss of load. Well, because the grid will start to severe its self, interlinks to disconnect on FAULT and take the percieved fault area off line. In the case of a generator loss that area will suddenly try and pull much more current (instead of supply) on that circuit and trip it out. It usually cascades at least a bit though and many areas drop out before it stabilises.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 06:15:30 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 04:14:05 pmAt a local IET meeting about the power grid, those responsible asked the attendees the question "will the lights go out?" Their answer was "yes", but it was clear that the question was not a useful question.Your presumption "..massive output the pumped hydro can produce for a relatively long amount of time. It think it's rated well into the GW and will run for hours." has too many adjectives and too few justified numbers. A 30s gurgle leads tohttps://british-hydro.org/pumped-storage-hydropower/and "There are four operational PSH plants in the UK: Dinorwig (1983) 1.7 GW, 10.4 GWh; Foyers (1974) 300 MW, 6.4 GWh; Ffestiniog (1963) 360 MW, 7.6 GWh; Cruachan (1966) 440 MW, 7.6 GWh".More interestingly, Coire Glas is scheduled to come online in 2029: 1.3GW, 30GWh.Now, onto that video...It is made by "UnHerd", an organisation with unclear sources of funds. I'll bet the ultimate source of their money will turn out to be climate change deniers, e.g. Koch brothers.But UnHerd's mission is clearer, fromhttps://unherd.com/about-unherd/"...we make it our mission to challenge herd mentality wherever we see it ...""...We try to give a platform to the overlooked, the downtrodden and the traduced; and to people and places that the world has chosen to forget..."In other words it is an example of the modern trend to spew out random rubbish, in the knowledge that after hitting the fan it will stick to some credulous fools who don't understand facts+reasoning but do understand emotions. "Just saying". "All opinions are equally valid"As for UnHerd's "analysts"; they need to state their qualifications and who is paying money to them.The TL;DR: classic FUD from the climate change denial industry. Ignore it.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 06:43:35 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 04:14:05 pmIn her article on the same topic herehttps://watt-logic.com/2025/01/09/blackouts-near-miss-in-tighest-day-in-gb-electricity-market-since-2011/she talks about Dinorwig being taken out of reserve and used, to lower costs during that event. Her main concern seems to be about a lack of transparency about which things NESO was relying on as reserve capacity.

author: jerryshah
author_rank: ZeroPoster
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:17:10 pm
content: NOTE: This message has been deleted by the forum moderator Simon for being against the forum rules and/or at the discretion of the moderator as being in the best interests of the forum community and the nature of the thread.If you believe this to be in error, please contact the moderator involved.An optional additional explanation is:

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:24:27 pm
content: Surely pumped storage, including Dinorwig, is used every day. It's a low cost load leveler, it would be stupid not to. It's been used every evening I've ever looked on Gridwatch. In fact it's being used right now. What does she mean by 'taken out of reserve'?

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:28:02 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 16, 2025, 06:15:30 pmIf a jester makes more sense people will listen.I did smell the climate denial trying to bubble up when he lead her down the path of saying renewables cause instability. Using many commonly questioned tropes and also things like momentum which are discussed here at length.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:30:08 pm
content: Spot.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:37:07 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on January 16, 2025, 07:24:27 pmAh. Facts and reasoning. Those have no part in this thread.What "she" means by "taken out of reserve" is irrelevant. It is emotion-stirring pseudo-scientific language, which is all UnHerd needs to fulfil its objectives: climate denial FUD.Historically in the UK pumped storage has always been used for two things:blackstart; fortunately not needed - yet. But there's always Putin and Carrington Events aroundvery fast 0->full output, IIRC of the order of 20s. Famously used to power electric kettles at FA Cup final half time, and when Coronation St and Miss World finishAnybody taking notice of this UnHerd crap is terminally ignorant.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:45:51 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on January 16, 2025, 07:24:27 pmIf you are draining Dinorwig its not part of your reserve. If you have a power source trip out Dinorwig can't help if its already working hard.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:48:07 pm
content: I didn't say it was working hard, just in use.https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:51:51 pm
content: The reserve must not be in use. If it's "in use" it's not in reserve, but requires a reserve.Are we playing long at different games or what?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:54:04 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 07:51:51 pmNot really. If its supplying 500MW, and can supply 1GW it still has 500MW to contribute to the reserve.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:54:24 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 07:45:51 pmYes. If something is "in reserve", then it is not in use. If something was in reserve, and is no longer in reserve, then it is "taken out of reserve". Therefore, the relevant question to fact-check is whether Dinorwighas beenin reserve - not being in use for some time would be a good indicator that this has been the case.Although beingpartiallyin reserve would make it more difficult to see from production numbers directly.In any case, there is nothing weird in plants being in and out of reserve. Some reserve is needed, and compensation is of course paid for being in reserve (not producing), so it's a financial decision for plant operators whether they operate, or try to apply for reserve.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 07:56:28 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 07:54:04 pmYeah. Basically the thing is, if they are selling 500MW to power reserve market, then they just need to guarantee that this 500MW is available. If their capacity is 1000MW they can produce 500MW as they wish.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:02:16 pm
content: Whatever their agenda, I was more curious about the mechnisms by which they manage it.Dismissing the entire video as an "Anticlimate woowoo" is rather ignorant I think.Maybe we should check her funding, but the public data she is referring to and the public data she is asking for is valid.If you list the entire generation mix, forecast for the hour, day, week ahead, whatever and sort by "Provided GW". Take the top value. it is likely to be one of the big interconnects which run several GW.The "reserve" is enough "online hot standby" power generation available to IMMEDIATELY switch in should that interconnect trip or the other end shut it down unexpectedly.So they would need multi-GW of generation capacity sitting idle, not generating, but fully staffed, fully powered up, fully ready to go at a moments notice or even automatically on a frequency drop.The lady in the video is calling into question why the grid are not publishing which generators where in that role during the 29% LoLP probability period. She is claiming (I believe) that she cannot find enough and believes there was a deficit and if an interconnect had failed there would have been blackouts.The "hyping" is apparently in how they leave the view open to interrupt a "black out" as "BANG the whole UK lights go out together and can't come on again". That much is BS. The amount of things that need to go wrong for the whole grid to go dark and need cold started are extreme! What we would possibly face is short term, wide area blackouts, similar to the 2019 lightening strike tripping two genertors causing a wide scale London power outage.We are not going to see the UK plunged into total darkenes ... not from gambling with reserve budgets

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:07:23 pm
content: Some of the anti-renewable stuff comes from valid situations, however, they are UK specific and "current infra" specific.Basically the load is in the south and on windy days the generation is in the north. There is limited capacity on the "backbone" highvoltage grid to take supply to demand.The political hot issue is that under such situations... every single businses working day it's windy... in order to deal with this, they have to pay turbine farms to shut down AND then pay gas plants in the south a "premium" to generate that which can't come down from the North.This is genuinely making our electricity a lot more expensive that it should be.It's not that renewables are "at fault". It's specific to the UK infra not quite being ready for it's aims and ambitions of net zero. They are in denial about just how much it's going to cost and how long it's going to take. The grid have told them, if they can get funding it will need to start NOW to get done in 20 years. Although that could be here-say on the dates.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:10:31 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 07:54:04 pmOk. Fair point. As long as it then does not become the largest generator itself.... recursion. EDIT: Never mind. Once you use that reserve, you aren't playing the same game anymore, the red light is on and the public notified.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:14:32 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:07:23 pmThere are multiple high capacity links in planning or construction to get energy from wind turbines in the north, through submarine cables in the North Sea, to the main markets in the south, but most of them are scheduled for completion far too late for the government's plan to be near 100% renewable by 2030. The timescales for many things in the UK grid upgrades are farcical. We pay for lots of energy from wind turbines we don't actually get, before the transmission lines are not there. By the time they are there, the wind turbines will be half way through their useful lives.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:19:36 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 08:14:32 pmYea. It does give the anti-renewable people ammunition though.In more down to earth practical applications however it's quite ... dangerous. In that there is not a lot of awareness about it.Let me example. Last year we got a "mandatory" objective on "Environmentally consensus software" training. Their proposal, most of it anyway, centred around dynamically moving your data-centre loads to times where "curtailment" was likely. So run your AI models during peak wind and peak solar. TO use up the power that might otherwise be "Curtailed" for stability.Obviously implementing this in the City of London would have the exactl opposite effect entirely.However, when I raised this within our company people didn't know what I was talking about.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:26:21 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:19:36 pmWith the UK's high energy cost, why would anyone have a data centre in the UK, unless its for something like high frequency trading, where latency is critical? Our son just finished his MSc in physics are the University of York, and his dissertation was based on plasma physics models running on the university's own HPC cluster, which is sited in a data centre in Sweden, purely on the basis of energy costs.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:30:01 pm
content: Is there anyone wants to try and run numbers on the "momentum" issue under either load shedding or... "World Cup Half Time Cuppa" effects?I assume it is calculatable if you have a known amount of mass at a given RPM providing 50Hz. If you lose N percent generation and have a deficit of I power initially. How fast is the drag on the mass and therefore.... how long do you have to respond to sudden load changes.Like many things it might come down to the numbers and the number might say that, no, the momentum does not really provide that much stability and a gen shed of even 0.1% would cause a nearly immediate drag on frequency. Or it could say something very different.Did any of the threads on that aspect get anywhere on here? Did we explore resonating inverters and perpetual motion too many times already?

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 08:42:09 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 08:26:21 pmThere are quite a lot of data-centres in London, but not on the "Large" scale. Most of them would be 2 or 3 floors of a tower block size and run the most "local" infra for large corporations. One of them I worked for had their primary data-centres in NewYork (the most expensive datacentre to own) and New Jersey (at least one nuke away LOL). However, when the tube station beside their London office went on fire and the fire service pulled the entire city block power there was an all hands broadcast company wide to shift to emergency COB (Continuation of business). I was un-effected being on infra in Riverdale. It was actually really impressive to watch as the emails churned and the update email they sent every 5 minutes when red, amber, green. By the time they had failed everything over the building generator was up and running and power restored with 1 week fuel.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 09:05:12 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 08:26:21 pmIt is about £400 per 5A (charged as 5A per month, no matter if you use 1A 247 or 5A) in London at the moment. So about £0.55 per kWh if you max out that 5A, 247.I have had a quote for about £0.4 kWh in Birmingham (again charged at Amp no kWh).In Germany, about £0.31 kWhIn Finland, about £0.20 kWhBoth not charged by the Amp but by how much you use in kWh.So to answer your question.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 09:59:31 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:30:01 pmInstead of wildly speculating and wondering, why not spend the time using Google search?I remember seeing graphs in the early 70s where the kettle effect suddenly raised the UK consumption by 1GW, to 18GW. My father worked at the Central Electricity Research Lab, so I got to see many of these things. The CEGB famously employed someone to read television schedules and predict such happenings.You could also download the last 10 years supply and consumption from Grid watch (qv). It would be easy to process that to see sudden jumps.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 10:08:53 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:30:01 pmThe bigger problem is what happens when a large source of energy trips. That can lose you a gigawatt of capacity in an instant. If the rest of the sources lacks sufficient slack to instantly cover for the loss you are in deep trouble. If it does, something like DInorwig should be up in under a minute, and the other sources can back off a little.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 10:10:56 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:19:36 pmThe problems facing more widespread use of renewables are well understood by competent authorities. That won't stop disreputable scaremongering by shills, and won't stop incompetent people being scared.The principal issues facing renewables are - to use the industry jargon - dispatchability and storage and inertia. No surprises there, and many people are working on many solutions. Plural, because there can be no single solution.As for people in your company not knowing what you are talking about, so what. Why should they?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 10:16:25 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 10:08:53 pmYup.IIRC Dinorwig takes c20s to spin up.There was recently a nasty blackout in the east midlands caused by such tripping. There was insufficient inertia to prevent the frequency becoming dangerously low, so other sources disconnected themselves to protect themself and other parts of the system. I.e. a cascading failure; they have happened elsewhere too.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 10:33:05 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 16, 2025, 10:10:56 pmThe problem is they are not the ones making decision. The decisions being made in the UK, Germany and other places are based almost entirely on feelings. We see so much stuff being closed down before replacements are in place. Nick Clegg wouldn't support nuclear, because it would take 10 years to build a station, and we needed a solution tomorrow. 10 years later we still don't have either a nice fresh nuclear fleet or a really effective alternative to them.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 16, 2025, 10:52:30 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 10:33:05 pmThere's some validity there, but I don't think Clegg (may he rot in hell for farcebook) could be the sole cause.Neither does that affect the points about not bothering to do trivial research, and ignorant scaremongering by shills.

author: fourtytwo42
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 10:47:58 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 16, 2025, 10:16:25 pmLess than that, I have been down there near the intake valves when it goes from synchronous standby to full generating, the valves are ball valves held closed by hydraulic rams and opened by ~20 ton weights, full closed to full open is ~1-2 seconds, the turbine case and outflow pipe is full of air and the set is spinning synchronously already with a small lag, to go from that to a small lead is very fast indeed. The concrete platform I was standing on that I thought was firmly embedded in the mountain was moving and vibrating quite spectacularly in response! a very impressive and amazing piece of engineering.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 11:43:31 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 16, 2025, 10:10:56 pmIrony being wasting energy looking for solutions, when there is already a solution. Nuclear.There is a lot of things people do not think about as to why having a consistent 24 hour supply is handy.Farmers for example, can irrigate crops at night using cheaper power. Here in Australia speaking to some, they now due to electricity prices irrigate in the day and lose 10% of their water to evaporation.AI Data centres if there is adequate electricity available at night, then they can run at night.I do not believe intermittent energy supplies are suitable at this point in time as for most of the world adequate storage is just "one year from commercial release". Like flying cars are always "2 years away".

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 11:53:43 am
content: Quote from: .RC. on January 17, 2025, 11:43:31 amYes. However in the UK the nuclear industry was basically paused for several decades.According to wikipedia there are 5 active reactors. 2 are 1960s Advanced Gas Reactors. 2 are 1970s AGRs and 1 in a PWR.2 are scheduled to go off line in 2027, another 2 in 2030 and the PWR in 2035. The only new reactor being built was supposed to be online already I don't think we will see it before 2030.The previous government did complete an energy security review just before ending in office. They did support ramping up nuclear to generating up to 40% load. But... governments change and I wonder if this will actually be picked back up or thrown down the back of the cabinet.If they funded new reactors to meet that 40% right now, we still wouldn't see the first one until 2035-2040.*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_commercial_nuclear_reactors#United_Kingdom*https://www.onr.org.uk/our-work/what-we-regulate/operational-power-stations/It should be noted that nuclear presents it's own "balancing" and "momentum" problems, although I believe newer reactors can shed and bypass steam.They tend to need gas plants to balance out the higher frequency load variations.Nucs would "prefer" to run at 100% flat. They are expensive to build, have a finite life time so the more energy they generate in their sweet spot 30-50ys the better! However the same can be said for all plants. The difference is that a nuclear is not exactly responsive. It takes hours to ramp power up and down safely.So the forward planning aspect of the "day by day" energy contracts market would decide how much the nucs are providing and where the rest is coming from, the "adaptive" portion.In short. You can't run on Nuclear alone. Not without the ability to decouple the gens at the nuclear plants and bleed the energy off somewhere. That, with a little forward and joined up thinking wouldn't be that hard to do. I'm 100% certain if you asked industry, "Do you guys want some free high pressure steam to do work with", they would have a queue instantly.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 12:12:46 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 16, 2025, 10:33:05 pmThere was no EPR-2 at the time, EPR seems to have been most suited as a not very succesful prototype.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 12:16:24 pm
content: Quote from: .RC. on January 17, 2025, 11:43:31 amNuclear has many upsides, but too much is too much. Finland is now an excellent case study of a country which is on the upper range of "makes sense" amount of nuclear. Good that we have it; but no sensible person with any understanding on energy markets would suggest building any more; that is exactly why we now hear ideas from politicians to build a communist system of state-controlled energy pricing, where energy price is artificially increased by the government so that nuclear energy makes financial sense, so that we can build more, not because it makes any technological or financial sense or is needed, but because nuclear powerfeels goodto some people.The problem with nuclear is that energy is only cheap when it runs full blast most of the time, and on the other hand, is prone to random outages at unexpected times (sometimes expected, but uncontrollable; we have seen that in Scandinavia scheduled maintenance and refueling cannot be done during summer time, because it is a process requiring so much specialized personnel and equipment that it has to run year-around, going from plant to plant).Therefore it shares all the problems of wind energy (energy being produced when it is produced, not when it is needed), with added problems of its own (slow build time, hard to predict budgets, expensive, waste solutions still non-existent and adding to the expense, good target during war, and so on). Sure it makes a great 20-40% baseline supply, especially if plants already exist and can be modernized/maintained, but too much of it and it requires storage to cope with load variations, just like wind power does. Combined with wind power, you have then two "unique snowflake" production methods which do not offer any kind of synergy. (Wind is uncontrollable; and nuclear is going full blast all the time anyway, you can't turn it up to 150% when the wind goes still.)Pumped hydro (and also, "normal" hydro production which can be stopped and "charged up", even if not reversed) makes a great load balancer for nuclear, that's one of the most prominent initial uses. Now the same hydro is used as load balancer for wind power.Successful (green, near-zero CO2, reliable and relatively low energy cost) grids, such as in Finland, seem to be now combination of not excessively fearing nuclear, and using a lot of wind power. For example Germany is exemplary with wind, but they rushed too much with shutdown of nuclear, making them increasingly dependent on fossil fuels. We have enough nuclear for a baseline and then enough wind to drive average cost of electricity down without having to resort to burning fossil fuels except for very short periods of times. Enough variation in energy pricing to motivate doing distributed load balancing, but average is not too expensive for those who don't want to balance (e.g., data center or factory investments which need to run 24/7). Works really well, can recommend.Then again, I don't think there are any examples of havingwaytoo much nuclear - because it really is so freaking expensive and difficult decision that despite insane "near-100% nuclear" ideas, they don't realize into actions when there is a realization how freaking much that costs; therefore, they remain as ideas and get mostly buried. But it's important not to forget that ideas like these do exist, and how stupid and insane they are.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 12:17:16 pm
content: Quote from: .RC. on January 17, 2025, 11:43:31 amThe power from the solar panels on their barns is cheap during the day regardless.

author: mikerj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 12:51:49 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 16, 2025, 10:52:30 pmYou have continuously blamed the "shills" throughout this thread, yet transparency by the NG (i.e. providing the figures that show a suitable reserve was in place) would have shut this down immediately. Why do you suppose they are so coy to provide this?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 03:05:26 pm
content: Quote from: mikerj on January 17, 2025, 12:51:49 pmWhat is "NG"? It is not up to me (or other people on this thread or "NG") to disprove somebody's argument. It is up to them to prove it.Shills are fond of selective reporting and cherry-picking. It is their standard operating procedure.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 05:28:10 pm
content: There are a lot of smart people here, the data is public. We "could" work it out.(Sorry I'm busy, dog ate my home work)https://bofh.d00t.org/

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 05:32:17 pm
content: In response the original title and premise/title of the video.The answer to "Did the UK come close to a total black out".No.Where renewables at fault.No.Are renewables relevant at that time.No.Is there a potential "fiddling" of the books as to whether "code of conduct" on reserves was breached or not and if it is or is not being "covered up" or "obstructed" I think is the only real meat and question.Is this a valid summary?EDIT: Even if we did go into those reserves and they admitted it, it would still be a non-story. It just shows we have reserves and that they worked. The only point of principle in violation would be them not informing the public that had occurred. By this stage nobody would care or should they. Stuff for the committees and civil money wasting machine to.. burn some tax quid on... look it creates jobs for the otherwise unproductive.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 05:33:18 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 17, 2025, 05:28:10 pmHaving worked with some "very smart people", there aren't many smart people here.Whether we could work it out depends entirely on what "it" is.Fundamentally ideas are ten-a-penny; what matters is whether they can be implemented within all the real-world constraints.As MacKay put it, "I don't care which answer is chosen, provided the numbers add up".

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 05:34:51 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 17, 2025, 05:32:17 pmProbably.In which case why did you think it was worth encouraging other people to spend their time on it?Much better to spend time on valid possibilities.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 05:46:05 pm
content: If we limited all discussions to only fully researched, imperative and non-duplicate discussions....We would not need a forum. Go use IEEE.It's an awkward term, you don't need to tell me that, but it's a thing they call "Socialising". I'm still learning myself. ... and yes, the vast majority of it is in many ways, completely and utterly pointless. ... but not in all ways.EDIT: Sorry to elaborate to bring that into context.Watching that video on my own, I had many questions. I also learnt somethings. I wanted to discuss this with other like minded people, to have people like you warn me about the reputation of the source and highlight the deliberate "off topicing" to bash renewables. I wanted those opinions and feedback.I don't think I am alone in this. Sometimes you are 50/50 on something and have apparenty equal arguments. Saying that to an audience, like this one, can sometimes very quickly address such apparently equalities with imperically informed discussions from others who DO KNOW.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 06:26:12 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 17, 2025, 05:46:05 pmVery little of that background was visible in your OP.For anything to do with energy in the UK (and elsewhere), the place to start is Prof David Mackay's "Without Hot Air".That is lauded by all responsible parties, from "Big Energy" to "Rabid Greens" and "Politicians", and including scientists, engineers, economists, industry leaders, politicians, environmentalists, historians and more.OTOH shills and other climate deniers will ignore it and/or irresponsibly cherry pick partial arguments.Find it here, including a downloadable PDF:http://www.withouthotair.com/Do look at the endorsements herehttp://www.withouthotair.com/endorsements.htmland on the linked pages.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 08:52:35 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 17, 2025, 11:53:43 amFor centuries now countries have run on spinning generators alone powered by steam or water.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 09:51:46 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 17, 2025, 06:26:12 pmThere isn't much in there which is UK specific. Some things are only relevant to certain geographies, like tidal power isn't usually relevant without a continental shelf. Some things are only significant in particular climates. Its really just the tallies where it gets specific to UK needs and implications.Thomas Murphy'shttps://dothemath.ucsd.edu/blog also has some good discussions about what we genuinely understand of the limits to growth. Over the years he seems to have swung between optimistic and gloomy, but he sticks to real numbers, and explains what he is doing with them.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 10:10:02 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 17, 2025, 09:51:46 pmAgreed for the physics, chemistry and biology. But the geography, geophysics, and excellent normalisation to population and land area is obviously very UK specific.QuoteSome of his stuff is excellent, e.g. demonstrating the consequences of economist's presumption that economies can continue to grow at 2%pa indefinitely. OTOH some of his more recent stuff is less simply understood and justified.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 10:15:33 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 17, 2025, 10:10:02 pmInterestingly most economists treat cheap and plentiful energy as a minor factor in growth, even through they all know GDP is pretty much proportional to energy consumption.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 17, 2025, 10:27:34 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on January 17, 2025, 10:15:33 pmIn their world, cause and effect are interchangeable.

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2025, 08:05:35 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 16, 2025, 08:30:01 pmI leave some homework for you but for Nordic countries the grid inertia is 120 GWs to 280 GWs depending on what type generation and loads are running.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2025, 09:18:04 pm
content: In this context, "inertia" is theliterallycorrect term. When a generator is suddenly disconnected the other generators struggle to take up the load, the conventional rotating generators slow down, and the frequency drops. There is a lot of energy stored in the heavy rotating lumps of metal, and that is used to supply energy for a critical few seconds until other sources take up the load.There is far less energy stored in the rotation of renewables generators, so the frequency drops more and faster. In bad cases it drops so far that other generators disconnect themselves for protection. A classic cascading failure.Batteries can come online more or less instantly; they don't need much capacity, merely sufficient for the few seconds mentioned above. The batteries supply the equivalent of inertia to the system.And that is why batteries can be economic: they can charge astronomically high prices for the critical few seconds.

author: mzzj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2025, 10:10:07 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 18, 2025, 09:18:04 pmAFAIK problem with renewables generators is not lack of inertia but the one-way inverters.VFD/inverter use in industry motor uses has also reduced the load inertia. Large synchronous motor provides similarly helpful inertia to the grid as the generators do but if there is a VFD between the grid and the motor you lose the inertia.Large generators or motors can also supply stupidious amounts of power to the grid for short periods and it still makes them desirable compared to battery-inverter systems that are more limited in short-circuit current capabilities. Thus the installation of synchronous condensers that are basically free-running motors that only provide inertia to the system.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2025, 10:34:35 pm
content: Generators and loads have many many characteristics that will always be changing and will require adaptation. Some of those characteristics have been given specific names.When comparing X1 with X2 with Y1 with Z3 to see which is better/worse, adjectives are insufficient: numbers are necessary.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 18, 2025, 11:13:21 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 18, 2025, 10:34:35 pmSadly there is not yet any uniform language around this, in Australia there is some distinction between FFR and FCAS as inertia with well defined "run times" before being depleted to cover the slewing of other generators. But is that "fast frequency response" or " fast frequency reserve" ?Solar/wind being curtailed yet not being able to bid for frequency reserve is evidence of the system being completely broken economically.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 19, 2025, 10:24:51 pm
content: In the last 2 days, every time I watch something on YouTube I get ads from the UK National Grid telling me to go to their web site and find how to prepare for a black out. They try to be very upbeat about the issue.

author: richard.cs
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2025, 11:55:03 am
content: It's not like as lack of spinning reserve would actually cause the general public to experience blackouts anyway. Rather some frequency sensitive load shedding relays would trip kicking a bunch of refrigerated warehouses and similarly interruptible industrial loads off supply (they are paid to be available for this, and paid more if used). Those are then expected to get reconnected over the following 30 minutes or so as additional generation is bought online.There are real grid stability problems that need some work, for example we have issues about protection settings on inverter-connected generation, especially over-zealous anti-islanding that can kick a load of embedded generation offline when the frequency drops. That was a significant contributor to the August 2019 event. But the video seems to be a nothing story, as PaulCA says it's mostly a possible paperwork/code of conduct issue.UK nuclear is another issue entirely. We're in the process of unnecessarily shutting down the last few AGRs because no-one wants to pay to generate the paperwork for further life extensions.

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 20, 2025, 12:35:36 pm
content: This is not just a UK thing. We are heading to distribution problem in New England as we shift to weather dependent power sources.Seehttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/power-distribution-in-new-england/msg5776709/#msg5776709

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2025, 06:42:53 pm
content: Germany is commissioning 12.5 GW of new gas powered generation BTW (hydrogen ready, in theory, if the EU still exists by then). That's a pretty hefty amount, multiplied by 3 it would be enough

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2025, 11:06:47 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on January 18, 2025, 09:18:04 pmDon't want to quibble too much here, but it's not just batteries that need to "come online" but the associated controller circuitry, which I can imagine might take longer than a few seconds to come up to operating condition and allow the batteries to start pouring their power into the grid. (Grid-tie oscillators have to come into sync with the line frequency, etc.)

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 20, 2025, 11:27:51 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 20, 2025, 11:06:47 pmWhy would they not already be in sync when they are needed? They are monitoring the network all the time, waiting for a problem event. These systems can come on line extremely quickly. Their limitation is really the maximum discharge rate specified for the batteries. I don't think any of them can be set up to drain in a few seconds. They need to have a lot more capacity than that.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2025, 06:26:17 am
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on January 20, 2025, 11:06:47 pmBatteries can most definitely respond within tens of milliseconds. I'm not sure about large-scale grid batteries, but they might have some "sleep" states available to reduce quiescent current consumption (compared to keeping the power stage running at zero power), but that state would be entered only when it's certain that there will be no quick requests for output power. I don't know if the quiescent draw while in "running" mode is significant enough at all for this to matter anyway, probably not.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 21, 2025, 09:38:15 am
content: I know my micro inverter has a "sleep mode". If the power draw is under 7W it stops producing a high sample point pilot wave and produces a rather blocky rubbish sine wave. This apparently reduces the "waste" significantly. The idea is also that tiny little residual loads are likely not going to care if they get a "stepped triangle" wave rather than a sine.I run a strip of LED lights all night on it. When it's inverting it does take about 7W to run a set of 2W LED lights.

author: max_torque
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 12:34:27 pm
content: missinformation and out-of-date thinking are ripe here, as CCdeniers and fossilfuel FUDs rule the worm riddling brains of the terminally thick...People still talk about issues "with kettles turning on during the world cup" or during the advert breaks in East Eneders of what ever, but this is tragicaly out of date. The problem back them was two fold, 1) lots of people all doing the same thing at the same moment which is not true any more as we are no longer welded to our living room tvs at 7.00pm exactly syncronised by terestrial live telly and 2) our mostly coal fired powerstartions took ages to ramp up / down due to their massive thermal inertia. Our grid is much more dynamic and agile now, so the problem of it being a weekend with little industrial load (the major consumer of our electricity) and hence coal fired stations being at idle, and then everyone having a cup of tea at world cup half time are long gone.We also have a much better arrangement of load spreading. Most loads are actually "shedable" at the right price, even loads you might consider important. Huge inductrial users are lined up for, and get a good cost saving from, specific deals that mean they get shed first, keeping the "lights on" for the general public.It's also worth noting that "blaming everyone else and just moaning" doesn't get you anywhere in life. The grid powersupply to my house and this computer could stop right now and i wouldn't even notice, because i have a second hand EV battery and solar array that can run my entire house for several days (hint, EV batteries are massive, my Gen2 nissan leaf battery was 42kWH when new, and now some 7 years later at the C rates it sees for my domestic application it's still capable of buffering around 39kWh of energy, and it cost just £1,800. It actually has already paid for itself because i use no "expensive rate" 'lecy at all now. I use roughly 50% from the solar and 50% from the grid, but charging at the cheapest off peak rate has quartered by 'lecy bill.So if you see "renewables" as a problem that's fine, but the actual problem is that you are stuck in the past............

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 01, 2025, 03:16:37 pm
content: Quote from: max_torque on February 01, 2025, 12:34:27 pmWho has said renewables are a problem? The problem is zealots pushing them into service, and pulling other stuff out of service, with little understanding, and a weak regard for ensuring a stable and affordable service to the consumer.

author: watchmaker
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 02, 2025, 01:24:17 pm
content: Quote from: max_torque on February 01, 2025, 12:34:27 pmSee post 55 which references this report:https://rifreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/ISO-NE-r3d-final.pdfI use a heat pump down to -3 F and a heat pump water heater. I also have 6.5KWH solar installation. But as this report points out, as more New Englanders do this and state policy makers discourage non weather dependent, dispatchable power sources (nuclear, carbon) we are going to run into a crunch during the colder, darker, cloudier days of winter.We are going to have a continuing need for non weather dependent power sources; this issue is highly geographically dependent. Not a major issue in California or Arizona, but a serious one to consider in New England.And, we do not have the capacity to transmit electricity not used on the west coast 3,000 miles to the east coast.At this point in my life, I favor nuclear as that source.Also, as a naturalist, I do not think we can "protect" every hill and viewshed at the expense of the greater good. But far too many people look at things from only one point of view and fail to see the big picture.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 11:34:12 am
content: Quote from: coppice on January 19, 2025, 10:24:51 pm3 weeks later and they are really cranking up these prepare for black out ads. We are getting black outs, too. So, far they are feeling more like grid maintenance has gone downhill, and each storm results in power going off to people who haven't previously seen a power failure in a couple of decades. It would be hard to tell from the outside if its really that, or some form of load shedding. When the power failed here last week, the national grid map of power outages showed a large area around York (my home) having a lot of failure reports. However, they cleared step by step over a day, so they may have been due to a number of separate failures. It was the day after a big storm. Things were OK through its maximum.Just had another 10 minute power cut. Slight rain outside, but not a serious storm. The UK grid is starting to suck.

author: DenzilPenberthy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 05:13:26 pm
content: I'm late to the party and only just seen this thread,A thing worth remembering when talking about the ability of things like pumped storage to cope with grid trips etc, is that when they are not generating, they are pumping.If something big trips off the grid and there is a 1GW deficit, you can solve that two ways. Either bring on 1GW of generation immediately, or drop 1GW of load. If the event happens when the pumped storage is pumping, they can be asked to stop pumping temporarily and reduce demand significantly which also solves the problem.Relevant to this topic, I recently stumbled across this YouTube podcast called Transmission by a company called Modo Energy (who seem to be doing something data sciencey with all of the data needed to juggle all of of the generator sources etc)They have some really interesting and (with some actual technical depth) interviews with very high level people about all of these topics.e.g. role of batteries in future energy scenarios with Director of Strategy & Policy at ESO (which is the organisation that sets policy for this stuff in the UK)Inertia, stability issues, need for synchronous compensators etc with Head of Grid Integration UK at Europe's biggest renewable energy companyI listened to a bunch yesterday and found them really interesting (and quite reassuring)