from Belgium.
"On July 20, surging electricity demand collided with a bottleneck in the grid, leaving the eastern part of the British capital briefly short of power. Only by paying a record high £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour — more than 5,000% higher than the typical price
...
"The absurdity of that level is apparent when comparing it with the year-to-date average for UK spot electricity: £178 per megawatt hour."
tinyurl.com/yc226632
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It was extremely short notice for a very short term to avoid a brown out possibly cascading grid failure. Like all distress purchases you end up paying
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Yes, that's clear from the article, but it just goes to show what a knife edge we're on though.
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The actual amount of electricity bought at the record price was tiny: enough to supply just eight houses for a year.
Slightly less dramatic part of the article.
Nevertheless, perhaps it highlights a need to invest in better connections across the uk so we can better use electricity from where it's generated to where it's used.
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>> Nevertheless, perhaps it highlights a need to invest in better connections across the uk so
>> we can better use electricity from where it's generated to where it's used.
>>
Which means using fast start gas turbines, - gas is a problem............
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Not necessarily, it can mean more interconnectors within the UK.
There wouldn't have been a shortage of power in the UK at that time, more that we couldn't get it from where it was being produced to where it was needed.
But there still can a trend of grid issues in the UK that perhaps have been ignored or put in the too difficult pile.
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>> The actual amount of electricity bought at the record price was tiny: enough to supply
>> just eight houses for a year.
>>
...jeez, at that price I sincerely hope my house wasn't one of the eight....
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>It was extremely short notice for a very short term to avoid a brown out..
Yeah, Mrs K once had to buy two cokes in a cafe so I could use their loo.
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I meant to ask this last week but during the heatwave it was reported that many of the solar farms in the UK had to stop producing electricity because it was 'too hot' for the panels to work.... please can someone explain that? How do the panels work in the really hot countries where they have massive solar farms.
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Perhaps it was the equipment connecting the panels rather than the panels themselves? Perhaps they use a different type of panel in countries were it gets hotter more frequently?
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It seemed odd and the report didn't elaborate.... sounded a bit like 'it's too windy for the wind-turbines to work' scenario.
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Sooty is right as far as I know. Also domestic inverters ( - the bit which changes it from DC to AC) have an optimal operating range and will slowly shut themselves down as it exceeds that.
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The news report is not clear as to why the power was unavailable.
That solar performance degrades when the panels get too hot is well known - but this would not be a reason for a power shortfall - we have generation capacity to cope in mid winter when demand is higher and no benefit from solar.
More likely it will be capacity suddenly removed from the system - eg: emergency shutdown at one or two plants when other were undergoing scheduled maintenance.
It may be better to accept that occasionally it is better to pay through the nose for a small amount (in this case £10k) of emergency back up, than invest in spare capacity which may cost millions.
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The shortages were in the South East and the available power was available in the North.
The expensive electricity was bought from Belgium - a lot closer than the North of the UK.
Currently many plants are running at reduced capacity for annual maintenance/upgrades etc etc.
The Hot Monday & Tuesday were almost windless - 10,900 windmills producing well under 1GW about 2% of winter capacity. Just now it is under 1.8GW although in theory it can pump out 15GW.
1GW about 40% of a big coal power station.
SP claimed it was "surplus capacity" - they only have windmills now - it could have been used as stand-by for winter peak demand.
Scottish Power would have made a fortune today if they had invested in staff to maintain the station - 300 jobs lost when it closed.
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Record price paid for electricity - Zero
