6 ms·

There's a real-time view of what is powering the UK national grid at [1]. Currently gas (~40%), wind (~22%), and nuclear (~18%), plus various interconnectors (w

There's a real-time view of what is powering the UK national grid at [1]. Currently gas (~40%), wind (~22%), and nuclear (~18%), plus various interconnectors (who may be using coal?) [1] https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

jonatron 8y ago
Do you know where the night demand comes from? I expected to see a bigger drop at night
- robhawkes 8y ago
  I can't find firm material on exactly what explains the night usage — I'm sure the National Grid have details on this somewhere. Even so, the price of electricity reduces at night and so industry uses it a lot during that time. A lot of people leave appliances on overnight too, like washing machines.
  - philjohn 8y ago
    And people on economy 7 tariffs heating storage heaters, although in the summer months that wouldn't be usual.
  - saalweachter 8y ago
    I expect that if solar becomes a dominant source of electricity, time-insensitive industrial uses (eg, aluminum smelting) will happily become daylight operations.
    - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
      Aluminium cells can only be powered down for 4-5 hours before they become very expensive bricks. They can be (and they already are) used to smooth out grid fluctuations, but not on the scale of day to night.
      - DoctorOetker 8y ago
        In theory, could the cells reside in a high temperature resistant vacuum flask (Dewar flask)? Made from quartz perhaps? It might need supports between the inner and outer walls, causing heat to leak, and hence multiple layers of vacuum with supports to be required for containing the heat...
- mhandley 8y ago
  In some part, what you're seeing on the demand side is underestimated during the day, due to solar not being centrally metered, and offsetting some of the true demand. As the mouseover on the solar gauge says, you can see this in the demand drop around noon.
- philjohn 8y ago
  UK has some tariffs with a cheaper electric charge at night called Economy 7. This is used to heat storage heaters for properties without gas central heating. Industrial load will also play a factor, as will lighting homes during the dark hours.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    The biggest industrial users - those on half hourly metering - also get discounts to move usage offpeak, and there's some tariff options that turn off or restrict those highest users during peaks. Partly so the grid don't have to keep waking up Dinorwig. :)
    - ljf 8y ago
      To save others googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station - cheers for the interesting read!
      - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
        Wow. When notified in advance, Dinorwig can go from 0MW to 1800 MW power delivery in 16 seconds. Unprepared, looks like it takes a couple of minutes.
        myself248 8y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM Absolutely breathtaking inside that place.
        louthy 8y ago
        Rimmer: We can’t afford to take any chances. Jump up to red alert. Kryten: Are you sure, sir? It does mean changing the bulb.
      - 24gttghh 8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
Angostura 8y ago
Don't forget to mouse over the dials for a handy explanation of the data.
belorn 8y ago
An interesting relation in the production of wind vs burning gas. You can easily see how gas is used to fill in when the wind is not blowing.
- theBobBob 8y ago
  Gas is often used for load balancing, even before renewables became more widespread. Some types of gas generator plants can be spun up to full capacity in a matter of minutes. Nuclear on the other hand is the opposite. It takes considerable time to spin up or down but is great at providing a very high, very steady baseload.
  - mrpopo 8y ago
    > Nuclear on the other hand is the opposite. It takes considerable time to spin up or down but is great at providing a very high, very steady baseload. Not correct. Nuclear power is pilotable, even if not as much. It's used as a base load because it's more profitable.
    - i_am_proteus 8y ago
      Also, that's nuclear as built. Pilotable nuclear reactors can be built, otherwise nuclear-powered ships couldn't accelerate.
    - theBobBob 8y ago
      Just read up a little bit and didn't know how controllable the output of a reactor is. I guess I was thinking more about spinning up from zero.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - imtringued 8y ago
      It is possible but since the fuel costs are insignificant compared to the construction cost of the plant there are no savings to be gained by shutting the plant down. Generating less electricity means slower amortization.
phillc73 8y ago
That's a very useful site! Clicking the little France icon top left switches to the French equivalent. At the moment ~92% nuclear and ~11% hydro! What really depresses me is looking at the Australian electricity generation mix: https://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/australian-electricity-statistics/ https://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/australia... There is a ridiculously high amount of black and brown coal here.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Check out https://www.electricitymap.org https://www.electricitymap.org to see a real time electrical generation/consumption mix map of the world, including past 24 hour historical data per grid operator. Great Britain: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... No affiliation, just a huge fan of the folks at Tomorrow who put it together. If you don't see your local geography supported, contributing a scraper is possible via their Github repo [1]. [1] https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#adding-a-new-country https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#adding-a-n...
- hunta2097 8y ago
  Wow that really is depressing. Why doesn't Australia use the massive potential of Solar? They must have million square miles to spare which has year-round (very strong) sunlight? Even at relatively low yields, it would be huge. Edit: just realised it's 0200 there and it's a live graph! It looks like solar made up almost 10% in 2018 - most of this is small-scale rooftop systems.
  - gen220 8y ago
    It's probably related to the fact that they're the top exporter and a top-5 producer of coal. The "Market" means you use what's cheap, and coal must be very cheap to purchase (and burn) there. Further, setting up solar panel infrastructure is high up-front capital expense, and the Australian banks that might finance such expenditures are notoriously risk averse, and likely have plenty of assets tied up in the coal industry, so they'd have no interest in disrupting it. Toss in the idea that cheap coal probably equals cheap electricity, whereas solar would be relatively expensive (most countries get with now-mature solar industries circumvent this by subsidizing nascent solar generators). That's a killer recipe for maintaining the status quo.
kleim 8y ago
(who may be using coal?) Australia and Germany?
jsingleton 8y ago
There are loads of great resources that display this data. https://www.electricitymap.org/ https://www.electricitymap.org/ provides a global map view. https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alex.rogers/gridcarbon/ https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alex.rogers/gridcarbon/ has apps that calculate the carbon intensity. https://carbonintensity.org.uk/ https://carbonintensity.org.uk/ is my current favourite. It's an API that provides GB data broken down regionally and with a forecast powered by ML. I wrote more here: https://unop.uk/your-planet-needs-you/ https://unop.uk/your-planet-needs-you/ If you want to get involved start here: https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/
aembleton 8y ago
If you look at Electricity Map [1], you can see a real time view, as well as the inter-connectors. As I write this, the UK is importing 3% from Belgium, 4% from France and 3% from the Netherlands. Belgium and France aren't burning coal, but I think the Netherlands is. 1% of Belgium's electricity is also imported from the Netherlands. 1. https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...
hjek 8y ago
Not surprised by the 40% gas figure. Fracking sites are popping up all over the country here. It's sad. But I wonder where Drax, the largest CO2 emitter in the UK fit in there? As far as I'm aware, they burn coal and wood only.
- poooogles 8y ago
  They still burn peat AFAIK as well.

jonatron 8y ago

Do you know where the night demand comes from? I expected to see a bigger drop at night

robhawkes 8y ago
I can't find firm material on exactly what explains the night usage — I'm sure the National Grid have details on this somewhere. Even so, the price of electricity reduces at night and so industry uses it a lot during that time. A lot of people leave appliances on overnight too, like washing machines.
- philjohn 8y ago
  And people on economy 7 tariffs heating storage heaters, although in the summer months that wouldn't be usual.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  I expect that if solar becomes a dominant source of electricity, time-insensitive industrial uses (eg, aluminum smelting) will happily become daylight operations.
  - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
    Aluminium cells can only be powered down for 4-5 hours before they become very expensive bricks. They can be (and they already are) used to smooth out grid fluctuations, but not on the scale of day to night.
    - DoctorOetker 8y ago
      In theory, could the cells reside in a high temperature resistant vacuum flask (Dewar flask)? Made from quartz perhaps? It might need supports between the inner and outer walls, causing heat to leak, and hence multiple layers of vacuum with supports to be required for containing the heat...
mhandley 8y ago
In some part, what you're seeing on the demand side is underestimated during the day, due to solar not being centrally metered, and offsetting some of the true demand. As the mouseover on the solar gauge says, you can see this in the demand drop around noon.
philjohn 8y ago
UK has some tariffs with a cheaper electric charge at night called Economy 7. This is used to heat storage heaters for properties without gas central heating. Industrial load will also play a factor, as will lighting homes during the dark hours.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  The biggest industrial users - those on half hourly metering - also get discounts to move usage offpeak, and there's some tariff options that turn off or restrict those highest users during peaks. Partly so the grid don't have to keep waking up Dinorwig. :)
  - ljf 8y ago
    To save others googling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station - cheers for the interesting read!
    - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
      Wow. When notified in advance, Dinorwig can go from 0MW to 1800 MW power delivery in 16 seconds. Unprepared, looks like it takes a couple of minutes.
      - myself248 8y ago
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McByJeX2evM Absolutely breathtaking inside that place.
        louthy 8y ago
        Rimmer: We can’t afford to take any chances. Jump up to red alert. Kryten: Are you sure, sir? It does mean changing the bulb.
    - 24gttghh 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

Angostura 8y ago

Don't forget to mouse over the dials for a handy explanation of the data.

belorn 8y ago

An interesting relation in the production of wind vs burning gas. You can easily see how gas is used to fill in when the wind is not blowing.

theBobBob 8y ago
Gas is often used for load balancing, even before renewables became more widespread. Some types of gas generator plants can be spun up to full capacity in a matter of minutes. Nuclear on the other hand is the opposite. It takes considerable time to spin up or down but is great at providing a very high, very steady baseload.
- mrpopo 8y ago
  > Nuclear on the other hand is the opposite. It takes considerable time to spin up or down but is great at providing a very high, very steady baseload. Not correct. Nuclear power is pilotable, even if not as much. It's used as a base load because it's more profitable.
  - i_am_proteus 8y ago
    Also, that's nuclear as built. Pilotable nuclear reactors can be built, otherwise nuclear-powered ships couldn't accelerate.
  - theBobBob 8y ago
    Just read up a little bit and didn't know how controllable the output of a reactor is. I guess I was thinking more about spinning up from zero.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - imtringued 8y ago
    It is possible but since the fuel costs are insignificant compared to the construction cost of the plant there are no savings to be gained by shutting the plant down. Generating less electricity means slower amortization.

phillc73 8y ago

That's a very useful site! Clicking the little France icon top left switches to the French equivalent. At the moment ~92% nuclear and ~11% hydro! What really depresses me is looking at the Australian electricity generation mix: https://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/australian-electricity-statistics/ https://www.energymatters.com.au/energy-efficiency/australia... There is a ridiculously high amount of black and brown coal here.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Check out https://www.electricitymap.org https://www.electricitymap.org to see a real time electrical generation/consumption mix map of the world, including past 24 hour historical data per grid operator. Great Britain: https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem... No affiliation, just a huge fan of the folks at Tomorrow who put it together. If you don't see your local geography supported, contributing a scraper is possible via their Github repo [1]. [1] https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#adding-a-new-country https://github.com/tmrowco/electricitymap-contrib#adding-a-n...
hunta2097 8y ago
Wow that really is depressing. Why doesn't Australia use the massive potential of Solar? They must have million square miles to spare which has year-round (very strong) sunlight? Even at relatively low yields, it would be huge. Edit: just realised it's 0200 there and it's a live graph! It looks like solar made up almost 10% in 2018 - most of this is small-scale rooftop systems.
- gen220 8y ago
  It's probably related to the fact that they're the top exporter and a top-5 producer of coal. The "Market" means you use what's cheap, and coal must be very cheap to purchase (and burn) there. Further, setting up solar panel infrastructure is high up-front capital expense, and the Australian banks that might finance such expenditures are notoriously risk averse, and likely have plenty of assets tied up in the coal industry, so they'd have no interest in disrupting it. Toss in the idea that cheap coal probably equals cheap electricity, whereas solar would be relatively expensive (most countries get with now-mature solar industries circumvent this by subsidizing nascent solar generators). That's a killer recipe for maintaining the status quo.

kleim 8y ago

(who may be using coal?) Australia and Germany?

jsingleton 8y ago

There are loads of great resources that display this data. https://www.electricitymap.org/ https://www.electricitymap.org/ provides a global map view. https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alex.rogers/gridcarbon/ https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alex.rogers/gridcarbon/ has apps that calculate the carbon intensity. https://carbonintensity.org.uk/ https://carbonintensity.org.uk/ is my current favourite. It's an API that provides GB data broken down regionally and with a forecast powered by ML. I wrote more here: https://unop.uk/your-planet-needs-you/ https://unop.uk/your-planet-needs-you/ If you want to get involved start here: https://climateaction.tech/ https://climateaction.tech/

aembleton 8y ago

If you look at Electricity Map [1], you can see a real time view, as well as the inter-connectors. As I write this, the UK is importing 3% from Belgium, 4% from France and 3% from the Netherlands. Belgium and France aren't burning coal, but I think the Netherlands is. 1% of Belgium's electricity is also imported from the Netherlands. 1. https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=GB https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...

hjek 8y ago

Not surprised by the 40% gas figure. Fracking sites are popping up all over the country here. It's sad. But I wonder where Drax, the largest CO2 emitter in the UK fit in there? As far as I'm aware, they burn coal and wood only.

poooogles 8y ago
They still burn peat AFAIK as well.