nuclear-news

Dave Toke’s Blog 13th Aug 2019 . No it wasn’t the wind turbines that caused the blackout but batteries
likely to benefit from reaction In the aftermath of last Friday’s blackout
the usual suspects are blaming wind turbines’, but that’s not what the
electricity market nerds are saying.

They are pointing to the fact that big
power outages have happened before the age of large-scale renewable energy
penetration and that stories of crisis at the National Grid are well
overblown. I certainly remember the blackout of 2008 which was caused by
the near simultaneous disconnection of Sizewell B (nuclear) and Longannet
(coal), but then of course we did not see anything in the media about how
it was all the fault of nuclear or coal-fired power plant.

This time a large gas fired power plant tripped, followed a little later by a big
offshore windfarm. Now there is talk of how the grid has become more
unstable because of increasing renewable energy penetration (now around 35%
of electricity on an annual basis) and how, depending on people’s interest
a) we ought to stop this nonsense and get back to having real large power
plant or b) we need more batteries and/or other stuff.

In fact such an approach is decried by top electricity system management experts such as
Nigel Cornwall. He tweeted in response to stories that the National Grid
was beset with a splurge of ‘near misses’ and last-gasp efforts: “Near
misses” and “last minute contracts” is the way the system – and all
electricity systems – is designed to operate. (National Grid) has done a
huge amount to modernise its balancing services, and I am struggling to
understand whose agenda this is. Two large power stations failed at the
evening peak, when the system was already calling for more output/demand
turndown. This was almost an occurrence of Titanic probabilities. You can
of course contract for a huge amount of extra reserve but at immense cost
to consumers’

https://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.com/2019/08/no-it-wasnt-wind-turbines-that-caused.html