7 ms·

U.K. National Grid status

138 points by cormullion 12y ago

coob 12y ago
CCGT = Gas, in case anyone was wondering.
- Goopplesoft 12y ago
  Note the radial gauges have a tooltip to let you what they mean/represent. This was the one for CCGT: http://i.imgur.com/4kzFr2M http://i.imgur.com/4kzFr2M
- chippy 12y ago
  To extend - not gas as in petrol / gasoline but actual gas (natural gas, synthesis gas)
- CHsurfer 12y ago
  It's actually specific to combined cycle gas turbine plants where the waste heat from the GT is used to generate steam and eventually additional energy. This is opposed to simple cycle GTs where the mechanical output gas turbine is the only source of energy to the grid.
  - philjohn 12y ago
    Sounds like the "big brother" of the condensing gas fired boiler you find being fitted in the UK these days.
cfontes 12y ago
This is awesome, thanks. Is it actually up to date and accurate? I wonder if wind player a major role somewhere where they really have a lot of turbines. Like Netherlands or Germany perhaps. Would be really interesting to be able to compare different countries with the same sort of data.
- ElliotH 12y ago
  It seems to change when you refresh (about every 5 minutes) and uses a reliable looking data source.
- Arnt 12y ago
  FWIW, wind power occasionally peaks above 80% of total electricity usage in Denmark. Long-term average is 25-30% and rising IIRC.
  - wcoenen 12y ago
    It's important to note that wind power in Denmark only works at that scale because they can export it to Norway and Sweden. Those neighbors can absorb variable power output while load balancing their grid with hydroelectric dams. Hydroelectric is currently the only economical "grid-scale battery", and it is not available everywhere. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/1735 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/1735
- keithpeter 12y ago
  "Would be really interesting to be able to compare different countries with the same sort of data." Wondering about history and raw data sets. Excellent looking site for getting students interested in stuff like power generation
- diarmuidie 12y ago
  You can see Ireland's real time wind generation here: http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/ http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/wind... and total demand is here: http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/systemdemand/ http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/syst...
- nnain 12y ago
  Yes it is up to date. The info/about section is a great read -- he talks about the reason he created this site, the source of the data and also explains the software stack: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/about.html http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/about.html
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
vilqqu 12y ago
State of the Nordic Power System (Click 'Table' for more information): http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom The data seem to be a few minutes old, and doesn't have history (which would be nice).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- kalleboo 12y ago
  It's interesting to see all the export/import flows, like exporting to Germany yet importing from DenmRk. I guess it's due to price sifferences?
  - miahi 12y ago
    The imports and export are changing all the time, depending on the production or demand of each country, to keep the production and consumption in balance. It's sometimes easier/faster to import power when you need it (when there is a demand spike) than start your own generators to match the demand with internal production. Then when the other country has a demand spike, you pay them back with your production. In many cases no actual money change hands, these are kept as "power debts" that will be paid later. It can also be easier/cheaper to import power for one point near the border than transport it from farther production facilities.
  - PeterisP 12y ago
    The price differences are less important there rather than the total system balance - locations of supply and demand, and the exact current amount of supply and demand at each location at each moment. In a connected power system, if power 'needs' to get from A to B, it won't only flow through the direct connection, but along the longer loops as well, which often creates 'transit'. For example, in that map from NO5 to SE5 through Denmark, and from NO1 to NO3 through Sweden. This is normal and pretty much unavoidable - it's more efficient to optimize the flows to reduce total system losses, and then just try to bill everyone fairly. You can't simply set a specific flow amount (well, you can force it to 0) to some country and keeep it there without mucking up the rest of the system, unless high voltage DC links are used to connect separate power systems.
nnx 12y ago
Interestingly, there is also a version to watch French's grid http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ It looks like France is exporting to neighbouring european countries (including to the UK), the equivalent more than the UK's total current nuclear supply (~7.89GW). I had no idea it was possible to transport such power by submarine link (2GW power to the UK).
- nly 12y ago
  It's also a d.c. link. Remember it's only 34 kilometres between the closest points. The current inter-connector is currently 70km, with the planned second connector longer at 230km (but with a reduced capacity of 1 GW) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel http://www2.nationalgrid.com/About-us/European-business-development/Interconnectors/france/ http://www2.nationalgrid.com/About-us/European-business-deve...
- debrice 12y ago
  Somehow ironic that Germany stopped their own nuclear plant to buy energy to France (mostly nuclear)
  - chestnut-tree 12y ago
    Also interesting to note is that the UK and Germany top a list of the EU’s most polluting coal-fired power stations. These were the findings from a recent report by environmental campaigners. The report called "Europe’s dirty 30" looks at CO2 emissions from coal power plants in the EU. From the report: "Germany and the UK are the self-declared climate champions of the EU. However, Germany uses more coal to generate electricity than any other EU country, while the UK comes third in absolute coal consumption for power after Poland;" Here's the 10 most co2-polluting thermal power plants in the EU according to the report 1. Bełchatów, Poland 2. Neurath, Germany 3. Niederaussem, Germany 4. Jänschwalde, Germany 5. Boxberg, Germany 6. Drax, United Kingdom 7. Weisweiler, Germany 8. Agios Dimitrios, Greece 9. Brindisi Sud, Italy 10. Lippendorf, Germany The full ranking of 30 power plants is in the following report (3.1 mb) http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/dirty_30_report_finale.pdf http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/dirty_30_report_finale.... Or you can read the summary from this Guardian report http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/22/germany-uk-poland-top-dirty-30-list-eu-coal-fired-power-stations http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/22/germany-u...
mpunaskar 12y ago
I work on collecting (ETL) data of European power data sources and supply them to clients via web service (in almost real time). For the client i work on - wrote cloud based distributed ETL system to collect data from approx 100 importers and exporters of power, gas, wind, nuclear. Its quiet possible to collect this data in real time as EU regulations asks each of them to provide data on their websites. For some of the websites - i use selenium which is much better than using webrequest via http/s
- eisa01 12y ago
  Do you have a link with more information about the service?
  - mpunaskar 12y ago
    My client argus media sells this data via product called fundalytics. Get in touch with sales. We scrape power and gas data from various sources - we are also working on to get fertlizers , bio fuels and other data from across globe.
regularfry 12y ago
More data than you could possibly want, if your browser can cope with it, is published here: http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wglb 12y ago
The frequency one would scare me a bit--it is 49.960 as I see this. So long as you can control the entire grid from a central point (not possible in North America, I think--much more complex) it is probably ok. Otherwise, a generator that lags in phase becomes a motor.
- robin_reala 12y ago
  What would you expect the tolerances to be on grid frequency?
  - mschaef 12y ago
    Well within a fraction of a cycle/second. One of the big reasons is that a generator's mechanical speed is directly tied to the electrical frequency. This includes the prime-movers that actually drive the generators. Many of these large machines don't react well to operating far from their design speed, which can cause huge issues.
  - wglb 12y ago
    .01 cycle was my memory of a threshold from some years ago. Part of the problem is lower frequencies don't meet as much impedence in inductors (e.g., transformers), and another part is that interconnects can have control system stability problems keeping them synced.
- sanityinc 12y ago
  There's literally a single person who adjusts the whole power grid according to second-by-second fluctuations in power which result from half the nation boiling water for tea after the most popular TV shows finish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA
  - abritishguy 12y ago
    That was actually really interesting
- abritishguy 12y ago
thisjepisje 12y ago
Here's a nice video about the UK national grid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_ZySE_jg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_ZySE_jg8
Silhouette 12y ago
Fascinating, thank you for sharing. As I write this, it appears that the UK grid is running around 30GW, of which about 55% comes from local fossil fuels, 29% nuclear, nearly 10% imported from France and Holland, and a mere 5% or so from the major (non-nuclear) renewable sources. There is an interesting note that coal (only 15% right now) is still the largest contributor to the UK grid overall, but used more in winter because running hours are restricted for environmental reasons so they do more in winter when it's more profitable. I am surprised (and, honestly, disappointed) to see that so little of the total is still drawn from clean, renewable sources after all the concern about both fossil fuel supplies and environmental effects in recent years. Having just been on holiday to a country not a million miles away where they have essentially no native fossil fuels and so almost everything is run on relatively clean renewables, it's clear that we still have a long way to go.
- lifeisstillgood 12y ago
  Which country runs almost entirely on renewables? I am assuming nuclear is not a renewable in this case?
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    Iceland. Its unique situation gives it a lot of geothermal, but there's quite a bit of hydro as well. Of course most of us are in much bigger countries, often with higher population densities, and not sitting on such convenient geography, but it was more the different mindset that I noticed than any specific technology. Try and put up a new onshore wind farm anywhere in the UK, and every NIMBY and countryside group for a hundred miles will turn up to complain. Propose a new nuclear power station, and it'll be 200 miles, even though not far away in continental Europe there are nuclear power stations that could pose just as big a threat here if anything catastrophic happened. No doubt the same people will be the first to complain if they can't afford a guaranteed 100% electricity supply and have to put up with rolling blackouts in a decade or two. (If you're in the UK, I encourage you to do the maths and consider the geopolitical situation; that isn't as implausible a future as we'd all like to believe.) Meanwhile, it looks like Wikipedia has several whole articles about the remarkable achievements of the Icelandic in this area (though I think the figures we heard while there were actually slightly better than even what is cited there): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Iceland
billpg 12y ago
One data point I'd like to see is the wholesale cost of electricity throughout the day. (Very interesting page. Thanks.)
brownbat 12y ago
UK's load balancing has some quirky features that always fascinated me, like the fact they require a unique calibration for the end of each episode of Eastenders, right after which millions of households put the kettle on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/people/teatimebritain.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/people/teatime...

138 points by cormullion 12y ago

coob 12y ago

CCGT = Gas, in case anyone was wondering.

Goopplesoft 12y ago
Note the radial gauges have a tooltip to let you what they mean/represent. This was the one for CCGT: http://i.imgur.com/4kzFr2M http://i.imgur.com/4kzFr2M
chippy 12y ago
To extend - not gas as in petrol / gasoline but actual gas (natural gas, synthesis gas)
CHsurfer 12y ago
It's actually specific to combined cycle gas turbine plants where the waste heat from the GT is used to generate steam and eventually additional energy. This is opposed to simple cycle GTs where the mechanical output gas turbine is the only source of energy to the grid.
- philjohn 12y ago
  Sounds like the "big brother" of the condensing gas fired boiler you find being fitted in the UK these days.

cfontes 12y ago

This is awesome, thanks. Is it actually up to date and accurate? I wonder if wind player a major role somewhere where they really have a lot of turbines. Like Netherlands or Germany perhaps. Would be really interesting to be able to compare different countries with the same sort of data.

ElliotH 12y ago
It seems to change when you refresh (about every 5 minutes) and uses a reliable looking data source.
Arnt 12y ago
FWIW, wind power occasionally peaks above 80% of total electricity usage in Denmark. Long-term average is 25-30% and rising IIRC.
- wcoenen 12y ago
  It's important to note that wind power in Denmark only works at that scale because they can export it to Norway and Sweden. Those neighbors can absorb variable power output while load balancing their grid with hydroelectric dams. Hydroelectric is currently the only economical "grid-scale battery", and it is not available everywhere. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/1735 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/1735
keithpeter 12y ago
"Would be really interesting to be able to compare different countries with the same sort of data." Wondering about history and raw data sets. Excellent looking site for getting students interested in stuff like power generation
diarmuidie 12y ago
You can see Ireland's real time wind generation here: http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/ http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/wind... and total demand is here: http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/systemdemand/ http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/syst...
nnain 12y ago
Yes it is up to date. The info/about section is a great read -- he talks about the reason he created this site, the source of the data and also explains the software stack: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/about.html http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/about.html

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

vilqqu 12y ago

State of the Nordic Power System (Click 'Table' for more information): http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom http://driftsdata.statnett.no/Web/map/snpscustom The data seem to be a few minutes old, and doesn't have history (which would be nice).

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
kalleboo 12y ago
It's interesting to see all the export/import flows, like exporting to Germany yet importing from DenmRk. I guess it's due to price sifferences?
- miahi 12y ago
  The imports and export are changing all the time, depending on the production or demand of each country, to keep the production and consumption in balance. It's sometimes easier/faster to import power when you need it (when there is a demand spike) than start your own generators to match the demand with internal production. Then when the other country has a demand spike, you pay them back with your production. In many cases no actual money change hands, these are kept as "power debts" that will be paid later. It can also be easier/cheaper to import power for one point near the border than transport it from farther production facilities.
- PeterisP 12y ago
  The price differences are less important there rather than the total system balance - locations of supply and demand, and the exact current amount of supply and demand at each location at each moment. In a connected power system, if power 'needs' to get from A to B, it won't only flow through the direct connection, but along the longer loops as well, which often creates 'transit'. For example, in that map from NO5 to SE5 through Denmark, and from NO1 to NO3 through Sweden. This is normal and pretty much unavoidable - it's more efficient to optimize the flows to reduce total system losses, and then just try to bill everyone fairly. You can't simply set a specific flow amount (well, you can force it to 0) to some country and keeep it there without mucking up the rest of the system, unless high voltage DC links are used to connect separate power systems.

nnx 12y ago

Interestingly, there is also a version to watch French's grid http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ It looks like France is exporting to neighbouring european countries (including to the UK), the equivalent more than the UK's total current nuclear supply (~7.89GW). I had no idea it was possible to transport such power by submarine link (2GW power to the UK).

nly 12y ago
It's also a d.c. link. Remember it's only 34 kilometres between the closest points. The current inter-connector is currently 70km, with the planned second connector longer at 230km (but with a reduced capacity of 1 GW) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel http://www2.nationalgrid.com/About-us/European-business-development/Interconnectors/france/ http://www2.nationalgrid.com/About-us/European-business-deve...
debrice 12y ago
Somehow ironic that Germany stopped their own nuclear plant to buy energy to France (mostly nuclear)
- chestnut-tree 12y ago
  Also interesting to note is that the UK and Germany top a list of the EU’s most polluting coal-fired power stations. These were the findings from a recent report by environmental campaigners. The report called "Europe’s dirty 30" looks at CO2 emissions from coal power plants in the EU. From the report: "Germany and the UK are the self-declared climate champions of the EU. However, Germany uses more coal to generate electricity than any other EU country, while the UK comes third in absolute coal consumption for power after Poland;" Here's the 10 most co2-polluting thermal power plants in the EU according to the report 1. Bełchatów, Poland 2. Neurath, Germany 3. Niederaussem, Germany 4. Jänschwalde, Germany 5. Boxberg, Germany 6. Drax, United Kingdom 7. Weisweiler, Germany 8. Agios Dimitrios, Greece 9. Brindisi Sud, Italy 10. Lippendorf, Germany The full ranking of 30 power plants is in the following report (3.1 mb) http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/dirty_30_report_finale.pdf http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/dirty_30_report_finale.... Or you can read the summary from this Guardian report http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/22/germany-uk-poland-top-dirty-30-list-eu-coal-fired-power-stations http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/22/germany-u...

mpunaskar 12y ago

I work on collecting (ETL) data of European power data sources and supply them to clients via web service (in almost real time). For the client i work on - wrote cloud based distributed ETL system to collect data from approx 100 importers and exporters of power, gas, wind, nuclear. Its quiet possible to collect this data in real time as EU regulations asks each of them to provide data on their websites. For some of the websites - i use selenium which is much better than using webrequest via http/s

eisa01 12y ago
Do you have a link with more information about the service?
- mpunaskar 12y ago
  My client argus media sells this data via product called fundalytics. Get in touch with sales. We scrape power and gas data from various sources - we are also working on to get fertlizers , bio fuels and other data from across globe.

regularfry 12y ago

More data than you could possibly want, if your browser can cope with it, is published here: http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

wglb 12y ago

The frequency one would scare me a bit--it is 49.960 as I see this. So long as you can control the entire grid from a central point (not possible in North America, I think--much more complex) it is probably ok. Otherwise, a generator that lags in phase becomes a motor.

robin_reala 12y ago
What would you expect the tolerances to be on grid frequency?
- mschaef 12y ago
  Well within a fraction of a cycle/second. One of the big reasons is that a generator's mechanical speed is directly tied to the electrical frequency. This includes the prime-movers that actually drive the generators. Many of these large machines don't react well to operating far from their design speed, which can cause huge issues.
- wglb 12y ago
  .01 cycle was my memory of a threshold from some years ago. Part of the problem is lower frequencies don't meet as much impedence in inductors (e.g., transformers), and another part is that interconnects can have control system stability problems keeping them synced.
sanityinc 12y ago
There's literally a single person who adjusts the whole power grid according to second-by-second fluctuations in power which result from half the nation boiling water for tea after the most popular TV shows finish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA
- abritishguy 12y ago
  That was actually really interesting
abritishguy 12y ago

thisjepisje 12y ago

Here's a nice video about the UK national grid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_ZySE_jg8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC_ZySE_jg8

Silhouette 12y ago

Fascinating, thank you for sharing. As I write this, it appears that the UK grid is running around 30GW, of which about 55% comes from local fossil fuels, 29% nuclear, nearly 10% imported from France and Holland, and a mere 5% or so from the major (non-nuclear) renewable sources. There is an interesting note that coal (only 15% right now) is still the largest contributor to the UK grid overall, but used more in winter because running hours are restricted for environmental reasons so they do more in winter when it's more profitable. I am surprised (and, honestly, disappointed) to see that so little of the total is still drawn from clean, renewable sources after all the concern about both fossil fuel supplies and environmental effects in recent years. Having just been on holiday to a country not a million miles away where they have essentially no native fossil fuels and so almost everything is run on relatively clean renewables, it's clear that we still have a long way to go.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Which country runs almost entirely on renewables? I am assuming nuclear is not a renewable in this case?
- Silhouette 12y ago
  Iceland. Its unique situation gives it a lot of geothermal, but there's quite a bit of hydro as well. Of course most of us are in much bigger countries, often with higher population densities, and not sitting on such convenient geography, but it was more the different mindset that I noticed than any specific technology. Try and put up a new onshore wind farm anywhere in the UK, and every NIMBY and countryside group for a hundred miles will turn up to complain. Propose a new nuclear power station, and it'll be 200 miles, even though not far away in continental Europe there are nuclear power stations that could pose just as big a threat here if anything catastrophic happened. No doubt the same people will be the first to complain if they can't afford a guaranteed 100% electricity supply and have to put up with rolling blackouts in a decade or two. (If you're in the UK, I encourage you to do the maths and consider the geopolitical situation; that isn't as implausible a future as we'd all like to believe.) Meanwhile, it looks like Wikipedia has several whole articles about the remarkable achievements of the Icelandic in this area (though I think the figures we heard while there were actually slightly better than even what is cited there): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Iceland

billpg 12y ago

One data point I'd like to see is the wholesale cost of electricity throughout the day. (Very interesting page. Thanks.)

brownbat 12y ago

UK's load balancing has some quirky features that always fascinated me, like the fact they require a unique calibration for the end of each episode of Eastenders, right after which millions of households put the kettle on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/people/teatimebritain.shtml http://www.bbc.co.uk/britainfromabove/stories/people/teatime...