National Grid confirmed that the West Burton coal plant in Nottinghamshire and a coal unit at the Drax site in North Yorkshire were warming up in anticipation of generating electricity on Wednesday evening in exchange for eye-wateringly high payments.
Last week the electricity system operator paid about £4,000/MWh to power plants that could generate electricity at short notice, and a total of more than £86m to keep the lights on. The Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal plant near Nottingham is also in line to benefit from record power prices this week.
My batteries are almost full and I can switch my Sunny Island into reverse at very short notice if Nowty Towers gets a call from the National Grid. I am more than happy to help the country out for £4 per kWh
16.9kW PV > 107MWh generated
Ripple 6.6kW Wind + 4.5kW PV > 22MWh generated
5 Other RE Coop's
105kWh EV storage
60kWh Home battery storage
40kWh Thermal storage
GSHP + A2A HP's
Rain water use > 510 m3
nowty wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:57 pmMy batteries are almost full and I can switch my Sunny Island into reverse at very short notice if Nowty Towers gets a call from the National Grid. I am more than happy to help the country out for £4 per kWh
DITTO
85no 58mm solar thermal tubes, 28.5Kw PV, 3x Sunny Island 5048, 2795 Ah (135kWh) (c20) Rolls batteries 48v, 8kWh Growatt storage, 22 x US3000C Pylontech, Sofar ME3000's, Brosley wood burner and 250lt DHW
nowty wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 3:57 pmMy batteries are almost full and I can switch my Sunny Island into reverse at very short notice if Nowty Towers gets a call from the National Grid. I am more than happy to help the country out for £4 per kWh
DITTO
Ditto. Been sunny today. Sat here at 90% but get nothing for exporting. If octopus emailed with an offer of £4 per kWh I'd export 3kW for a few hours no problem at all!
12x 340W JA Solar panels (4.08kWp)
3x 380W JA Solar panels (1.14kWp)
5x 2.4kWh Pylontech batteries (12kWh)
LuxPower inverter/charger
(Artist formally known as ******, well it should be obvious enough to those for whom such things are important.)
Looks like there are some open cycle gas turbines on the grid now to make up the difference - 0.3GW at the moment but expect that will rise, along with 1GW of coal!
Tesla Model 3 Performance
Oversees an 11kWp solar array at work
If we had a government that was genuinely concerned about carbon emissions, don't you think they would have issued an appeal?
"At the moment we are short of low-carbon electricity as a result of... Please, if you can put off anything like using the washing machine or dishwasher, or recharging your car, leave it 12(?) hours if you can."
Unfortunately this is one of those occasions wher an individual can't make any difference by themselves, but all together...
A
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
AE-NMidlands wrote: ↑Wed Sep 15, 2021 5:06 pm
If we had a government that was genuinely concerned about carbon emissions, don't you think they would have issued an appeal?
"At the moment we are short of low-carbon electricity as a result of... Please, if you can put off anything like using the washing machine or dishwasher, or recharging your car, leave it 12(?) hours if you can."
Unfortunately this is one of those occasions wher an individual can't make any difference by themselves, but all together...
A
If the wind doesn't start blowing soon and/or we get a cold snap we should expect the electrical equivalent of a hosepipe ban. Can't see how it'd be enforced. The next step after that would be rolling blackouts. But I don't see how a government could survive rolling blackouts. (Common in California and other parts of the US though.)
12x 340W JA Solar panels (4.08kWp)
3x 380W JA Solar panels (1.14kWp)
5x 2.4kWh Pylontech batteries (12kWh)
LuxPower inverter/charger
(Artist formally known as ******, well it should be obvious enough to those for whom such things are important.)
Are there enough environmentally-aware UK citizens to have an effect on this?
If supermarkets can use pester-power to sell sweet crap at the check-outs, how come we can't do something similar? Especially as the Greta generation seem far more aware and active (-ist) than their parents (my kids)
A
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
But hasn’t energy been too cheap for so long (I accept there are people who need support with energy pricing) that we (the population) have become used to it ?
We do not appreciate the value of energy enough.
Maybe this winter, along with the realities of Brexit, is going to be a wake-up to the realities of our energy supply and, perhaps, the challenges of decarbonisation.
Last edited by Bugtownboy on Wed Sep 15, 2021 7:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
The problem is how renewables have been sold to us. The public has been sold on "We pay to build this wind turbine and it generates 'free' electricity all winter, every winter, for decades". However the intrinsically intermittent nature of wind/solar hasn't been planned for/explained to a population used to unlimited, cheap, energy at their fingertips 24/7/365.
How many households have been blindly running their tumbledriers on this warm/sunny/dry day?
12x 340W JA Solar panels (4.08kWp)
3x 380W JA Solar panels (1.14kWp)
5x 2.4kWh Pylontech batteries (12kWh)
LuxPower inverter/charger
(Artist formally known as ******, well it should be obvious enough to those for whom such things are important.)
