UK Wind Record

[GarethC]

16.035!

[nowty]

16.062 Gridwatch
18.8 Energy Numbers

Gonna be close and its not really, really, windy either.

A lot of exporting though, so good demand.

[nowty]

16.131 Gridwatch
18.9 Energy Numbers

[GarethC]

16.209 looks like it was the max. Surely that's a new record?

[Marcus]

I did see 16.25 briefly! Spent too much time popping in to check instead of doing my paperwork.

[nowty]

Had a look back at the data on Gridwatch and the highest was 16.248 GW at both 21:05 and 21:10, thats almost 0.5 GW over the previous highest ever.
The highest I saw on Energy Numbers was 18.9 GW, I've seen 19.2 GW last month when we were close but I don't believe broke the record.

Both figures are in or around record territory so we may have broken it but as last time in May the national grid seems to have given up on making announcements as its not big news anymore.

What surprised me is how it was not mega windy and Scotland was even less windy.

We are almost guaranteed to see more records fall over this winter as the UK demand increases, coupled with more wind capacity and higher wind speed.

[dan_b]

I suspect that the increase in wind was due to less constraint due to increased overall grid demand?

[nowty]

I suspect that the increase in wind was due to less constraint due to increased overall grid demand?

I believe thats the case and if its storm force, some need to shut down, so although there is more wind resource, less is usable. So its not as musch of an increase as the maths would suggest.

The golden factors I believe we have now,

• Increased wind capacity, especially offshore.

• Reduced baseload capacity as coal and nuclear are retired, so less chance of curtailment.

• 180 degree reversal from normally importing from Europe to exporting to Europe via interconnectors, so adds to demand.

• Increased EV and heatpump use for heating, not really sure how much of a difference this is making but it is now visible on the streets, just how many reg plates have the green flash on them.

[dan_b]

The Crown Estate Asset Map for offshore wind has now been updated and included Hornsea 2.

So we can now see it is currently generating 849MW.
And the nextdoor Hornsea 1 is putting out 797MW

[nowty]

Tomorrow afternoon (26th Oct) looks like record territory again and maxing out near peak mid week demand time.
https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=gener ... t/out-turn