Will the lights stay on this winter?

In the news this morning, National Grid are stating that they are confident that they will be able to keep the lights on this winter in the UK. I am afraid that I don’t buy into their optimism, just recently, during the heatwave, we were in danger of running out of power so we were forced to purchase an amount of electricity from Belgium, via one of the cross channel cable links, the Belgians made us pay through the nose for the small amount that we used, the price paid per megawatt was an all time record high.

There doesn’t appear to be any policy for development of future power provision here in the UK, as usual everything appears to be a shambles. There is this vision put forward that renewables will save the day, if only that could be true. Europe is slowly being strangled by its gas supplies from Russia being gradually diminished, Europe relies heavily on gas to generate electricity, so with their supplies of gas being strangled I doubt that there will be any surplus electricity for the UK to use via the undersea cables this winter. Our power generation capabilities run at maximum quite often throughout the winter, our power generation frequently runs on a knife edge and we come close to serious power outages. If we cannot rely on surplus generation in Europe this winter we will be in serious trouble with power generation, I understand that the few remaining coal powered generators have been given more time before they are phased out, a contradiction of the recent energy statement made to the rest of world concerning our plans to combat climate change. I think the retention of the coal powered stations is certainly common sense in the times that we now find ourselves.

Looking forwards, which is something the energy industry should be doing, there is the headlong rush to bring in electric vehicles which will need a large increase in the ability to generate and distribute energy via an infrastructure that will by necessity need to be upgraded. Perhaps the need for more energy provision has become self limiting by price, the forecast is that an average household will be paying in the region of £500 for energy, that’s gas and electric, for the month of January which is of course one of the most expensive months energy wise. I fear that many families will struggle with those sort of increases, many of us are on pensions and such huge increases in costs we will struggle with.

I made the decision, about five years ago, to use some of our savings to invest in solar power, we had panels installed on our south facing roof that have the capacity to generate 4kwh. I subsequently made a decision to have batteries installed so that we could store the solar generated power that we didn’t use, we now have batteries that can store 12 kWh. On a sunny day such as those we enjoyed recently,we have generated on a good day, 26kwh which means that with the batteries we have enough stored energy to go through the night and we still have about a quarter of the batteries capacity left to start the next day. This means that for most of the days during June and July we have been self sufficient for electricity, during the month of June we drew only 19 kWh during the day time tariff and again coincidentally 19 kWh during the night time off peak tariff. Calculating the cost at the current day plus night rates we used £10.00 of electricity for the whole month, in fact our monthly standing charge was considerably more than the cost of our electricity used. Unfortunately this only works when the sun shines so winter means we will draw considerably more energy from the grid, I have the ability to charge the batteries using off peak electric, we are on an Economy 7 tariff, so throughout the dark days of winter I store 12 kWh of electricity which has cost exactly half that of the cost of daytime electricity, so every time the cost of electricity rises then the cost of installing my panels and batteries becomes even more cost effective.

At this point in time if there is a power cut then we cannot draw energy from our batteries so we are without power. The solar system has to be engineered such that in the event of a power cut the system is isolated so that power cannot be fed into the grid, a safety measure to prevent electrocution of any unsuspecting tradesman working on the grid, however it is possible with right equipment to isolate the house from the grid when there is a power outage and use the power stored in the batteries. There is a cost involved in this modification and I need to consider whether it is worth the cost for the amount of power cuts that we are likely to suffer. It looks as though we are all very likely to suffer power cuts this winter because when it gets cold it is doubtful whether National Grid will have the resources to hand to keep the lights on. Dave W

I believe you are in the south of England. Do you have figures for max, min, and average power generated per day per installed nominal KWh of solar panel for winter months like Jan and Feb?
In summer I figure it would be easy to solar charge an electric hybrid for all my normal driving, and cut back to say 20 miles per week in winter.

I have just completed a 4KWH petrol generator installation that will automatically connect to the house mains in the event of a power cut. Expensive to run but hopefully will be for short periods only.

Edited By Bryan Cedar 1 on 28/07/2022 11:31:57

It does seem bizarre to have the solar and batteries but not be able to use it in an outage. Depends how much it costs to get it set up to isolate it and use it in an outage I guess, versus the cost of buying a small petrol generator for emergency use. That is what we use here for the almost annual cyclone-related outages in the tropics. A small four stroke lawnmower type engine driving a little generator in a package the size of a carry-on suitcase will power a house. (But not aircon/heating or stove) And not that expensive to buy -- if you need it. Trouble is, you don't know if there will be outages coming up or not. Whereas we know there is good chance of our power going out every monsoon season at some point.

Just drive through any city at night in the UK, esp London.

A quick way for the UK to reduce consumption of unnecessary power would be turn off office lighting when the office stands empty, or light up every other floor and let those still working hot desk.

Turn off all these ego/vanity lighting schemes in public places

Install more sensors to turn of lights (and aircon?) when a building is unoccupied.

Lots more ways to easily stop wasting power.

Drives me nuts seeing skyscrapers all lit up at night and most workers having left or wfh....

Sorry, beginning to go into full rant mode !

Edited By JasonB on 28/07/2022 12:06:54

I often wonder when considering how puny our global warming contribution actually is compared with USA+China+India, what next?.

Until those countries really step up to the mark, are we just bankrupting ourselves for the moral highground?

A quick way for the UK to reduce consumption of unnecessary power would be turn off office lighting when the office stands empty

Depends on whether or not the lights can be switched off - I have a recollection that some office blocks were built without light switches, as it was deemed cheaper to run the lights all the time than install switches when the block was built.

Currently looking into having a DEFRA approved wood burning fire installed in place of a hopelessly inefficient coal-effect gas fire. At least I would have one room capable of being kept warm if the power went off - house has gas CH, but it still requires electric to run.

Worst case scenario would be to decamp to the motorhome on the drive during power outages, as the heating is gas with control electrics being from the 12v habitation battery that is recharged from a solar panel.

Nigel B.

I'm sure there will be a switch somewhere, or easy enough to put one in, just need a can do attitude.

Tony

I can remember arguing with someone who thought that leaving office fluorescent lights on over lunch break was cheaper than turning them off because the start current was so much higher than running current. I tried to point out that if the inrush current was so high then all the fuses would pop. Combined with the short time it took to go to normal running current the potential saving was only reached if you were only going to switch them off for a small fraction of a minute. It may be this sort of urban myth that results in all the lights being left on. There is also the attitude that it is someone else's responsibility.

Martin C

Last office I worked in had movement sensors. If you were working late you had to wave your arms about every 20 minutes or so or you'd be plunged into gloom. Very low emergency lighting stayed on so you weren't left completely in the dark. What I object to is the 'look at me' floodlighting people put on their big houses, but as we don't have much energy storage it is possible that overnight wind power is sufficient to run floodlights with no carbon emmision. Putting in more pumped storage would bring the environmentalist down on our necks, and batteries have pollution issues of their own. We're all doomed! Our contribution is to only heat and light the rooms we are using, and to wear a decent wooly jumper in winter

The last office block I worked in before retiring was big and modern and the lighting was controlled by a mix of light sensors and timers. At night about 10% of the lights were always on for safety reasons and had battery backup, the rest were motion sensitive.

Although most folk worked core-time (0830 - 1700), it wasn't unusual to find teams or individuals working late or shifts. Most cleaning and other maintenance was done in the evenings. Both buildings were rarely empty: I suspect the big one was never so.

The office before had manually switched lights throughout which caused problems. It had a last man out rule but there were too many accidents when the real last man or woman was suddenly plunged into darkness. Not practical to thoroughly search a big office and toilets for other late workers before turning the lights out, so the rule was changed to leave lights on unless certain no-one else was present.

Even though the automatic building looked wasteful from the outside because at least 10% of the lights were on, the manual building was far worse because people left lights on all day. Sometimes because it was no-one's job to turn them off, and sometimes to avoid rows. A significant minority are enraged when others mess with 'their' workspace. Must be an ego/power thing: obviously anyone put in charge of light switches by management must be a jumped up jobsworth who needs to be argued with.

But I'm sure turning lights off is part of the answer and should be done whenever it can.

Dave

Our city recently phased out its coal burning electrical plant, and installed a natural gas generating station.

The government, in their infinite wisdumb, said that the new plant must be as efficient as possible, so they drilled a well into the aquafier for cooling water.

They drew contaminates from the adjacent ground under the coal-fired station, and began contaminating the drinking water for a city of 600,000.

The midsouth US where I live is frequented by tornadoes and bad weather during the summer, and this city is full of large trees, so power outages happen a lot, and can last for up to two weeks depending on the severity of the storm.

Ice storms are the worst because the trees shed limbs, and knock down random power lines all over the city.

My house does have natural gas heat, and so far, the gas service has never been interrupted.

I can run my fan/coil unit on a small generator, and use the natural gas to heat the house.

My next door neighbor has an all electric house, and when her power goes out in the winter, she has no good way to heat her house.

After the last ice storm here, which I think was about a year ago, we were out of power for about a week, and so I purchased a 7.5KW gasoline genset. I work at home, and so it is critical that I be able to keep working regardless.

I use a 120/240 volt, 3-wire connection, and I use a large cord and twistlock plug to connect my house electrical panel to the genset.

I have a main breaker on my electrical panel, and so I manually open the main, plug in the genset, and then close the genset breaker. This allows me to operate my entire house on the genset, as long as I don't exceed 5.0 kw continuous.

The biggest thing to avoid is having a refrigerator/freezer full of food go bad.

For me, I have to keep working and remain on the internet at all times, and so that is also critical.

I have camped out in the winter in 18F weather, and that is no big deal, but there is nothing like having a nice warm house when the power is out during the winter.

The Honda genset I bought is super quite, and uses an inverter for clean power.

I can hardly hear the genset running from inside the house.

I despise loud generators, especially when trying to sleep at night.

.

Edited By PatJ on 28/07/2022 13:46:27

UK politicians of all colours have been warned about the energy disaster coming for at least the last 20 years, it has now arrived big time & renewables aren't going to cut it, next problem is food security, guess what guys like energy when you rely on imports you will get shafted big time!

Tony

Nigel B ,

We have a woodburner that gives about 5 kw of heat located in our lounge and being more or less central in the house tends to warm the rooms above as well. My wife and I were only talking this morning about how we will manage if we have to reduce our gas and electricity consumption this winter, we came to the conclusion that if necessary we can shut down the gas central heating and rely on heat produced from the woodburner in the lounge, on reflection it is no different than what our parents did when we were younger, most houses heated only the one room, the living room, and the rest of the house had no heating, there were very few houses with central heating in the 50’s and 60’s and the coal fired back boiler was lit at least once a week for our weekly bath night, brings back memories of ice on the inside of the bedroom windows, we all survived, we wrapped up to keep warm, it looks as though we are going to have to alter out lifestyles if we are to remain comfortable. Dave W

Bazyle have sent you a PM.

Dave W

I'm missing something here. a 4 kW system 12 hrs per day 30 days per month should generate 1440 kWhr. I know it isn't ideally aligned to generate max power all day, but there is a huge discrepancy.

Perhaps you need to put the barn on a turntable so it can track the sun (and that isn't a serious suggestion!)

Having spent six years after graduation in a rented house with no heating at all, I can say that in the UK, the answer to staying warm in Winter is to wear more clothes.