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Do you know where the night demand comes from? I expected to see a bigger drop at night
by jonatron 7y ago
Do you know where the night demand comes from? I expected to see a bigger drop at night
- robhawkes 7y agoI 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 7y agoAnd people on economy 7 tariffs heating storage heaters, although in the summer months that wouldn't be usual.
- saalweachter 7y agoI expect that if solar becomes a dominant source of electricity, time-insensitive industrial uses (eg, aluminum smelting) will happily become daylight operations.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoAluminium 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 7y agoIn 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 7y agoIn 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 7y agoUK 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 7y agoThe 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 7y agoTo 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 7y agoWow. 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.
- 24gttghh 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]