PowerSwitch

Bloody hell!

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The Sun - 21/04/10

AN energy crisis will plunge Britain into darkness in just SIX years' time, warn Government experts.

They predict that power cuts will start by 2016 - THREE years earlier than previously thought.

The alarming scenario is detailed in a forecast, seen by The Sun, from official energy regulator Ofgem.

Article continues ...

It reckons that every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes during the year.

By 2017, that will rise to two hours.

Is that a big deal? Surely loads of people have that length of power cuts already, and it's hardly likely to cause mass death, starvation and zombies roaming the streets. My power was off for a couple of hours the other day while the electricity company worked on the line, and I survived!

JohnB wrote:

It reckons that every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes during the year.

By 2017, that will rise to two hours.

Is that a big deal? Surely loads of people have that length of power cuts already, and it's hardly likely to cause mass death, starvation and zombies roaming the streets. My power was off for a couple of hours the other day while the electricity company worked on the line, and I survived!

There'd be nothing to worry about if it was just two hours over the course of a year. Two hours a day would be acceptable.

The truth is probably more like rolling blackouts for several days at a time.

A lack of generating capacity, as is being forecast would lead to powercuts, probably unplanned.
At present the national grid requires a certain amount of generation capacity to be in reserve to cover for all but the most improbable breakdowns. This reserve consists either of steam plant running at part load and able to quickly take full load, or of hydro, diesel and gas turbine plant that can start very quickly.

In the future however this reserve may not be available.
This would leave us vulnerable to unexpected power cuts.
One could forsee circumstances where the available generating plant is just sufficient for the expected load, but with no margin.
Under such circumstances any breakdown or increase in load would lead to blackouts without warning.
To (hopefully !) prevent a nationwide blackout, the grid is fitted with protective relays that automaticly blackout selected areas if the frequency falls to far.
This is a simple, fast acting, fully automatic system, and makes no exceptions for social need, vulnerability, vital industries etc.

The position is not the same as that faced in the 1970s powercuts.
At that time we had plenty of generating plant, the problem was lack of coal owing to the miners striking.
The coal shortage was a slowly developing problem, quite unlike a sudden breakdown.
TPTB decided to blackout parts of the country on a rota basis, so as to reduce the load/coal consumption. Since this was planned in advance it was done as fairly as possible, and the rota was published.
Exceptions were made for a few vital industries provided that these industries HAD A DEDICATED HIGH VOLTAGE GRID CONNECTION.

It was NOT POSSIBLE to make any exceptions for consumers supplied at low voltage, no matter how needy or vulnerable, or important, or deserving, such consumers might be.

Unexpected power cuts can, and do, kill people, but not that many.
Examples include, deaths by car crash due to lack of road lighting or traffic signals, deaths in house fires from candles, heart attacks from walking up tower blocks, and medical emergencies.

Persons or facilities reliant on electricity should consider backup arrangments if loss of supply would endanger life or result in major financial loss.
Most of us though should cope fine with short term rota cuts, planned or otherwise.

every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes during the year.

Translation from Sunspeak to English:

every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes per day.

biffvernon wrote:

every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes during the year.

Translation from Sunspeak to English:

every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes per day.

Yes that is probably what they mean !

An average of 40 minutes a day is actually quite a lot, and could well endanger the weak, old, foolish, or ill prepared, or simply unlucky.

Remember that an average of 40 minutes a day is nothing like a promise that it will come back on in the 41st minute. Consider the following.

Blackouts due to lack of generating capacity are most unlikely during mild weather, since demand at such times is less.
Blackouts are also less likely at weekends, again because demand from industry is much reduced.
Blackouts are also unlikely between about 22.00 and about 06.00 the next morning, again due to reduced demand.

Therefore blackouts caused by lack of generating capacity are only likely on weekdays, in cold weather, and at times of peak demand.

Cold weather is roughly December, January, and Febuary, or about 90 days. Of those days, about 30 days are weekends or holidays when shortages are unlikely.
That leaves about 60 days with high risk of powercuts. If the anual average of 40 minutes powercuts per day is to be concentrated in those 60 days, rather than spread throughout the year, I make that about 240 minutes a day, or 4 hours daily.

"you must expect to be cut off for several hours every weekday, during cold weather, normally in the afternoon or early evening, but possibly at other times if it very cold"

That sounds rather worse than 40 minutes does it not !

Most members of these forums are prepared with backup arrangements, some are off-grid normally, I for one would not notice the difference at home.
This however is not the case for most people who regard electricity as a basic human right.
It cant be repeated too often that power would be interupted to one grid district at a time, without any regard for social need, vulnerability, or reliance on electricity.
We coped in the 1970s, but the world has changed a lot since then, we are more reliant on power, and also have a very risk averse culture that would discourage or prohibit any effort to manage without power.

biffvernon wrote:every home in the country would be left without power for an average of 40 minutes per day.

Many people are out at work for 8-10 hours, and in bed for another 8, so presumably it would be a disaster if they missed recording a TV programme. Even if it happened when they were at home, would 40 minutes without being able to turn the kettle on, or watch the evil box, be that bad?

but central heating relies on leccy to run the pump (and boiler itself)

cold house
no lighting
no telly

doesn't seem much fun to me

if pubs make sure they have back up gennies they could do a roaring trade

goslow wrote:doesn't seem much fun to me

There are plenty of ways to keep warm.

emordnilap wrote:There are plenty of ways to keep warm.

But there's over 60 million of us already!

An average of 40 minutes without power, could easily mean 400 minutes on the 36 coldest days of the year.
It is not a promise to restore the power after 40 minutes.

Another hazard of rota power cuts, especialy short ones, is that they dont reduce the total power used as much as one might expect.
Imagine a cold winter evening with 10% of the country blacked out (a different 10% every hour on a rota) one might expect that to reduce the total demand by 10%, but it does not.

If someone is blacked out from say 19-00 until 20-00, they will probably use appreciably more power than normal when it comes back on.
The use of electric showers, cookers and washing machines would be simply postponed for an hour in most cases.
Thermostaticly controlled heaters will use more power in order to catch up.

As long as the cuts come when Eastenders is on I don't mind.

You could end up with an overload problem if lots of people's UPS batteries immediately started recharging as soon as power was restored.

kenneal wrote:As long as the cuts come when Eastenders is on I don't mind.

+1 and not forgetting all of the other vacuous soaps, game shows, cookery, gardening and DIY programs. TV for the hard of thinking - what have we come to?

If you don't have a telly, you don't need the electricity to run it