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Why replace it?Potemkin Villager wrote:Would love to hear some suggestions as to what we are going to replace coal with...
I agree Chris but in your dreams......... there is the small matterclv101 wrote:
I say we half that 30GW of Sunday morning demand... and not just for Sunday morning but all the time. Our 30GW of background demand is crazy.
That is indeed a small matter and easily solved. Global warming resulting from burning carbon is vastly more problematic, even existential. For Jordan it's just a matter of paying the bills. Here's Jordan doing it's bit to reduce electricity demand:Potemkin Villager wrote: I agree Chris but in your dreams......... there is the small matter
of how this could be achieved and how to keep the system frequency
steady.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... NC20130403Lights go out in Jordan as energy crisis bites
Indeed- the fact that we use 30GW at 4:30am on a Sunday morning... and only another 15GW at peak time is a clear indication that electricity is too cheap.extractorfan wrote:The cost of electricity is too cheap yet to warrant efficiency measures. I find this really annoying, as annoying as people throwing away perfectly good office equipment.
There's so much we could do, but won't.
AFAIK there is no detailed record of PV electricity production because most installations are very small and not monitored in real time.Potemkin Villager wrote:I have looked high and low but I cannot find PV anywhere!
Would love to hear some suggestions as to what we are going to replace coal with as all the renewables seem to have precisely zero impact on it.
I raised the same point (about the base load) a couple of weeks ago on Biff's thread, also linking to the dashboard. Adam2 made some informative comments about some of the base load being due to off-peak space heating, water heating, etc. i guess this is a good thing, as it does even out the peaks and troughs of demand. However, I'm still sure we could make very simple changes in order to reduce the background demand. Lighting is the first thing that comes to mind. For example, my local Tesco has its car-park lit 24 hours a day. It also has two large, illuminated "Tesco" signs, at least 2m x 8m, no doubt full of flourescent tubes, also lit 24/7. Then there's the street-lighting, shop display windows, etc.clv101 wrote:Why replace it?Potemkin Villager wrote:Would love to hear some suggestions as to what we are going to replace coal with...
Look at the chart for the last week. Demand peaks at around 45-50GW on weekday evenings. The interesting thing is that the demand bottoms out at around 30GW early Sunday morning.
Coal has been generating a fairly steady 15GW. I say we half that 30GW of Sunday morning demand... and not just for Sunday morning but all the time. Our 30GW of background demand is crazy.
The daily cycle from minimum to maximum is only ~15GW, a small amount on the huge background.
I'd've wrote:I agree; fossil fuel is basically too cheap to facilitate behaviour-change at the moment.
Actually E, I think I stick to my original comment. We're not going to successfully make the switch away from fossil fuels unless we seriously start to reduce our energy consumption, whatever its source. Unfortunately, in the BAU world, money talks. So I believe it will take a serious price-hike to change behaviour, as it's done with smoking and, to some extent, petrol prices. The problem, of course, is this would penalise the modest users of electricity, as well as those who squander.emordnilap wrote:I'd've wrote:I agree; fossil fuel is basically too cheap to facilitate behaviour-change at the moment.
Impressive! What size installation do you have?biffvernon wrote:My pv system generated 26kW hours yesterday.