Extreme Gridwatch Events Winter 2022/23

[Joeboy]

Right this is a bit of a crash course in the Balancing system so here goes.
Generation (& to an extent demand but not going into that) can participate in the balancing system but to do so they need to supply a constant stream of data (in half hour chunks) as to: What their Import Capacity is (MIL), Export Capacity (MEL), and ACTUAL(FPN) import/export power flow is in that period.
This all gets fed into National Grid/Elexon who can then see who's doing what, where & how much is available to allow them to make decisions - "you need to increase output, you need to lower output" to keep everything in balance (Load vs Demand) - you can see how good (or bad) they are doing with this lever pulling by what the grid frequency is (<50Hz Demand exceeding Supply : >50Hz Supply exceeding demand)

There's more to it than that but we'll be here all day: The good part about all this is that you now have a juicy data source. What I (Terravolt) do is pull all this info in & make it far more user friendly than what the Grid use (it's all hidden behind grid codes and not user friendly: Whitelee Battery is under the name: T_WHLWB-1 which yes doesn't take a genius to work out but that's an easy one.)

So if you pull up the stream for this one location: Here & then click the "Physical" button you should get a graph of all of yesterday.

You'll see it had an Export Limit (Green Line - MEL) of 50MW Max at the start. So upto 50MW can be called upon.
Import Limit (Light Blue - MIL) of 36MW until about 12:30pm (it charged for about half an hour (FPN went negative) & then MIL went to about 0 suggesting it was perhaps full.)
Power Flow (Purple Line - FPN) of 40MW from 17:00 to 18:00 (so 40MWh discharged)
MEL plummets to 0. Suggesting the battery is empty and is no longer able to supply anything to the grid. (Curiously MIL stayed 0 so perhaps it has to cool down or something.)

Nice one, thank you for that. Akin to a curtain twitch in Oz.

I will dive in with a morning cuppa.

[nowty]

Not much capacity left on the interconnectors. I think we still have another 3 GW of demand to come, notwithstanding the England World cup game interference.

[Stinsy]

What is the impact of the football match?

Will factories shut down and therefore reduce demand?
Will millions od fridges opening every few mins to get beer out increase demand?

[Oldgreybeard]

What is the impact of the football match?

Will factories shut down and therefore reduce demand?
Will millions od fridges opening every few mins to get beer out increase demand?

Used to be all the hundreds of thousands of kettles going on at half time, I think. Not sure that tea and coffee drinking is that big a thing any more, though.

[dan_b]

Exactly this - the UK has the biggest TV-schedule-led electricity ramp of any country in the world - normally driven by people watching Soaps like Eastenders - but basically it's the "ooh let's put on the kettle for a cuppa" during adverts/half time which is peculiar to the UK. 10 million 3kW electric kettles all going on at once has a big impact on grid stability. Every. Single. Day.

[Oldgreybeard]

I read ages ago that another consequence of all those cups of tea, and the associated flushing of toilets, was that all the water company booster pumps turned on, due to the step increase in water demand. No idea if it's true, but it would seem to be logical.

[nowty]

We seemed to max out on demand at around 17:40 at just over 41GW on almost full import.

I took a screen shot of both Gridwatch and Energy Numbers as a benchmark against future low wind events.

[nowty]

What is the impact of the football match?

Will factories shut down and therefore reduce demand?
Will millions od fridges opening every few mins to get beer out increase demand?

Used to be all the hundreds of thousands of kettles going on at half time, I think. Not sure that tea and coffee drinking is that big a thing any more, though.

I remember a news story back in the 80's about Dinorwig (pumped storage) opening the taps for the kettles at half time on an FA Cup final. So I have been watching gridwatch closely.

Just before half time, demand was 37.17GW (it had been dropping steadily since the peak at 17:40), then it dropped to just below 37GW a couple of mins into half time, but after 10 mins into half time, demand was up to 37.48GW.

And Dinorwig climbed from 0.38GW to 0.86GW from the start of half time to 10 mins into half time.

Now we are back into the second half demand has dropped to just under 37GW again and Dinorwig has dropped to 0.21GW.

Kettles or time delayed fridges coming on after the doors been opened ?

Now as half time was dependant on added minutes and the discretion of the referee, I just imagine one person with their hands around a large valve, taking orders from someone watching the football and shouting, "NOW".

[Mr Gus]

I read ages ago that another consequence of all those cups of tea, and the associated flushing of toilets, was that all the water company booster pumps turned on, due to the step increase in water demand. No idea if it's true, but it would seem to be logical.

You raised it OGB, the crowds need to know fact / fiction on that one ...go for it, (fly on the wall when they take that call)
No putting it off now! ...for the team!

[Joeboy]

Gas tracker unit price has risen 371% across the month of Nov.
From 3.59p to 13.34p per kWh.