^Qwerty^

Over the last couple of months or so, I've noticed an increase in the number of media articles, particularly on the radio, where power cuts are being mentioned. Whilst we’ve got Michael Fallon telling us the lights aren’t going to go out, although clearly, he’s not likely to say anything else, it would seem we are not on our own in the predicament we now find ourselves, and a severe cold snap across Europe this winter might be enough to push us over the edge. The UK policy includes a reliance on interconnection to keep us going; it would appear to be fundamentally flawed.

I can’t recall the name of the person I was listening to yesterday, but he seemed well informed and clued up on the current state of play.

My thinking is that we, the general public are being conditioned to a reality that power cuts may happen, albeit in a rather subtle way by denying that it will ever happen in the first place.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes, due to successive governments' failure to ensure we have adequate power provision amidst a desperate and devisive policy of commiting us to renewable energy making up a significant part of the energy supply and the fact that the energy companies can more or less do as they please power cuts within the next 3 years are pretty much inevitable unless we don't get any extreme weather or something drastically changes with the energy provison policy!

RA Dunk

All through privatisation I assume? Mind you it couldn't be anything else really as we've never been conditioned for power cuts before!

^Qwerty^

The drastic change in policy will only come once it happens.

In many respects we could do with it to happen this winter rather than next, as more plants will have been shut down in 12 months’ time. At least if it goes off for a few days this year, the government will have no choice but to tear up the current commitments which are forcing the closure of older generator plants.

richs2891

I'm not old enough to remember the 3 days week or the winter of discontent, Was it just the electricity that went off or did gas supply go off as well ?

I guess that less people had gas boilers for heating then which do require electricity to run.

Just throwing ideas around but would turning off all the lit motorways and having reduced power at night save a load ?
forgot to ask how many other countries have tied themselves and committed to reducing the carbon emissions from power stations ?
Will it honestly make any difference or not ?
Richard

Tidgy

All this green lobby have had there way and simply put renewables can't supply the amounts of electricity we require.

They have waited too long to start on new nuke plants, when one nuke plant supplies 10% of the required electric supply a year then is a considerable increase in capacity and the only viable option.

Interestingly the government asked the construction industry leaders about this about 5 years ago and they came back with nuke is only viable option.

Chip

Just the electricity, the gas stayed on.

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

just the leccy. We averaged about two power cuts of two to three hours per week, night-times.

It was cold and miserable.

mrmadcap

I know for a fact that there is a desperate shortage of skills in the power sector such as fitters, overhead linesman and jointers.

We used to be world leaders in nuclear power now it looks like we have to rely on China to design and build. That's the same as relying on Joseph Stalin or Poll Pott.

Just how deep is this country going to sink?

Chip

During the bad winters of 88 and 90 there were plans to isolate parts of the gas system as supply was running low. I know, I was working on it at the time.

In those days storage was kept in low pressure district holders which only hold a few hours usage. Nowadays with the investment in High pressure pipelines the situation is better with more storage via line packing and a lot more LNG stored as well .Building gas fired power stations hasn't helped though.

With the leccy there is a lot of scaremongering as seen these past few years. Two years ago the press were saying that the system was running at 100%. It wasn't, it was running at most at around 92-93% of max.

So will we have power cuts? I personally don't think so.

Tidgy

were a country of managers mate, there are so few apprentiships now adays that are for fitters etc

Chip

Please tell.

neil-h

It's not just the practical side, the power sector as a whole is struggling to find new people. Having just finished a part time power degree, you can even see the skills shortage in the education sector.

Tidgy

ts true in alot of sectors mate.

i work in construction, when the squeeze hit the first thing people started doing was pulling graduate engineer programs. Now your either having to recruit fresh uni grads or 10 years + seniors eng's.

we have about 35 vacancies accross the uk in our business stream alone.

mrmadcap

Trouble is if you are a young person wanting an apprenticeship in the sector you can't just go to your local college as the training is highly costly and specialised. You need to be employed and sponsored by a DNO, but that's not going to happen as they have all been sold off.

The DNO's used to deliver their own training back in the day before privatisation, I think we are seeing the last of the experienced few coming up for retirement with no young blood coming through as replacements.

If the country embarked on a massive apprenticeship programme in the power sector there wouldn't be enough experienced guys to mentor them on site or training providers to deliver the formal training.

We will end up like a third world country relying on bringing in technical skills from overseas.

zip106

So what is it when it's not being power?


Ba-dum, and dare I add, tish.

boomer

The gas might "stay on", but the ability for your boiler to take advantage of that is probably close to zero without any electrickery!!

Pumps, fans, circuit boards, central heating controllers etc. all require electricity - even more so with the modern, new fangled condensing/combi boilers - so basically once the lecky goes off, so does your heating!!

That is why i bought a portable calor gas heater a few years ago in anticipation of such a situation. They will cost far more than mains, and will exhale loads of moisture - but at least i will have some warmth!

mb

Infected by sti

iTrader: (6)

Or buy a small generator that will run your boiler

madscoob

iTrader: (3)

2010 i think it was there was only 1days worth of gas in the pipelines, untill the lpg tankers where able to dock in milford haven, can someone confirm this,?

RA Dunk

I doubt it, I spent last year working in a Gas terminal for Shell and 70% of the Gas we dealt with came via 'pipeline' from Norway. This however is the North East of Scotland.

speedking

AIUI if there is a shortage of electricity then businesses will be switched off first and domestic premises will not be affected. Seems back to front to me, but what do I know.

jods

I remember the power cuts in the 70's. It was great. We lit the log fire, got some candles on and played games. Thankfully I have an open fireplace. I might just invest in a petrol generator so I can power the DVD and TV though.

boyward

Worst thing is that the more renewable (wind power) that is generated, the higher electricity prices will be as well.

From what I understand, the energy companies are obliged to buy wind power when it is available and have to pay a minimum price (as has recently been negotiated with tis new nuclear plant) for the energy generated ... this is well in excess of what hydrocarbon generated electricity costs ... therefore the more wind power going into the network, the higher the price of electricity.

On top of that, to run the rest of the Coal/Oil/Gas/Nuclear fleet of power stations to balance the rest of the power is inefficient as you could have loads of wind one day but none the next - these power stations like to be run at steady load at their most efficient which is usually 80-90% of their max i think?

All this adds to the cost of power. To keep their profits up they have to keep putting the prices up as existing margins are getting taken up partly by these inefficiencies artificially inflating the costs of electricity despite wind power being 'effectively free energy' - is it hell, it's being generated for free but the investment companies that are building them (most are not energy companies) are getting all the grants from the govt and are allowed to charge a premium for the energy generated to line their already well filled pockets ... mean while we're the ones struggling with energy costs.

/rant

^Qwerty^

I quite like this article

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/artic...ust-in-germany

Coupe-Se

There is NO shortage in the ability to generate electricity in this country!! This is an utter myth.

All the foreign companies that own and run Uk power stations are mothballing them as the feed in tariffs are at a point that they cannot make the mega profits they are used to.

The company my brother in law works for are mothballing now and making a lot of staff redundant. Little Barford station where he works is often on tick over due to the low feed in rates meaning there is little profit in generating.

As ever it's all about Huge Corporate profits, not the ability to generate.

neil-h

That's the way load shedding works, you either get rid of a small amount of large loads or a large amount of small loads. Practically speaking it's better to take 1 factory offline than it is take off half a town (for instance).

I find these two points slightly contradictory, if power plants are being mothballed and not replaced. Then how can we not be heading for a potential energy shortage? It's not like you just walk back in to a decommissioned power station and flick the on switch.

speedking

The gap between supply and demand is narrower now than for decades.

Unfortunately nuclear power stations are now at an age where despite several life extensions it is no longer economically viable to keep them going. They provide the baseline continuous economical green output. Gas fired stations should only be used to top up when demand requires it.

Big subsidies are paid to wind generators but that is cheaper than paying the fines if we don't meet the legally binding emissions limits that we have signed up to.

Of course wind energy isn't free. There is the capital cost of the windmills plus the infrastructure to access them for maintenance and repair (very expensive if offshore), plus the cost of collecting the electricity generated and transmitting it to the grid. All to be written off over a ~25 year life cycle.

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

I work with most UK power stations in the power industry and the whole industry in the UK has been in decline for years. We have not built a new significantly sized reasonable generation capacity station for some 20 years.

EU emissions regulations have set out guidelines for stations to meet and reduce overall emissions and it's very often cheaper for an energy company (like French owned EDF) to buy a power station purely to close and decommission. In this way they can demonstrate an emissions reduction through their figures without having to invest in expensive re-processing plants like FGD plants for their other sites.

We have been buying electricity from France across boarders for years now as we simply don't have the capacity here any longer.

All the 'green' energy like wind turbines, hydro etc have their own problems and simply don't produce enough.

We are supplying systems worldwide to new build power stations opening every week but our UK market has declined from 95% of our business turnover to around 5-10% at most.

It's a sad state our country has got itself into yet again by not acting on this 20 years ago when they should have done.

Andy