robhawkes

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31.
by robhawkes 3y ago
This is something I need to look into further but it's currently under construction and being tested. I'm pretty sure they have issued "down for maintenance" notices that I need to take into consideration and supersede a
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Thanks fellow ex-WoodMacker! I'll keep an eye open
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Awesome! Just wanted to say that I love what you're doing with GridStatus – I've been keeping an eye on your work on Twitter.
34.
by robhawkes 3y ago
That's a great point and something I'm not making clear on the map. I've decided to use wind speeds at 100m on the map but there's an argument to offer data at multiple heights, particularly when looking at shorter onsho
35.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Sure is! I'm limited by the way the generation is broken down in the source data [1] as it doesn't make any distinction for tidal generation – though I'd argue that's probably a very small amount in the UK. Hydro is alre
36.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Thanks! All the Deck.gl parts are thanks to the work by Jan and WeatherLayers. The countries layer is using this dataset from MapTiler [1] which is also the service I'm using for all the base maps and vector tile data. I then used inte
37.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to be spending some time soon on the UX so I'll add this to the list to look at.
38.
by robhawkes 3y ago
This looks great! Is it publicly accessible anywhere? I couldn't find it. I'm hoping to expand beyond GB and Ireland would be a great next step if the data is publicly available.
39.
by robhawkes 3y ago
This is a good point – I'm not currently accounting for solar in the aggregate and I'm lumping everything else as "non-renewable" which is true but not ideal as it's not all fossil fuels. I'm going to look at h
40.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Here you go: https://www.solar.sheffield.ac.uk/pvlive/
41.
by robhawkes 3y ago
This could be for a number of reasons, such as: - Wind speeds are from GFS forecasts and cover quite a wide area - The realtime generation data from the balancing system isn't 100% precise and is averages over a 30-minute period - Some
42.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Solar isn't an area I'm that familiar with but we have no issues generating plenty of electricity from the sun in the UK. There's a great site [1] that calculates total solar generation around the UK using a mix of real data
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by robhawkes 3y ago
I live in North Wales so can confirm it's pretty windy here and we have a few onshore wind farms around here too. We've also a few decent-sized wind farms just off the coast like Gwynt y Mor. The Scotland thing is interesting as t
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by robhawkes 3y ago
This is amazing, thanks for the detail! I'll set aside some time to have a proper dig through the Electricity Map sources – looks like it will help me expand my map beyond GB.
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Hey! So the Home Mini visuals in the app aren't something I'm personally involved in but I'll make sure to pass on the suggestion for you.
46.
by robhawkes 3y ago
One of the most interesting findings from building this was to see just how important a distributed wind energy system is. The new offshore mega-projects like Dogger Bank are going to make a huge difference, and more onshore development wil
47.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Thanks! So I don't have solar data yet but I plan to first add aggregated solar using something like Sheffield Solar. Long term I plan to predict solar generation at a project/individual level using weather data and generation mod
48.
by robhawkes 3y ago
Absolutely! I chose FPN data as it's the best available to me in near realtime but as you say, it's not reliable. This is partly why I've been collaborating with someone on a prediction feature that tries to guess generation
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Thanks for sharing! I'm looking to add more countries to the map so I'll dig into the data behind this one.
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Yeah, sorry about that! Turns out the Elexon API I use for the generation data doesn't like being on the HN front page. Lesson learnt that I should add a proxy store between their API and the map.
51.
by robhawkes 3y ago
The Elexon API is down again unfortunately. Lesson learnt that I should be storing this data myself in future to avoid it taking down the entire map.
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by robhawkes 3y ago
That's a classic visualisation and for sure an inspiration with my map! The wind data and animated wind layers are from WeatherLayers, which I highly recommend – great people behind it and very easy to set up. https://weathe
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by robhawkes 3y ago
There's a few like that but Electricity Maps is a good one https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
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by robhawkes 3y ago
It's back now… I'll keep an eye on it.
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Unfortunately yes. I'm working on a fix but it looks like the API I use for the generation data wasn't able to handle the influx of visitors. Not much I can do right now but I did upgrade my Vercel account to get a longer timeout
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by robhawkes 3y ago
Good question! Dogger Bank is still under construction but I decided to include it on the map for now (it's a constant work in progress). If you click the little "sparkle" button on the right of the map you can see an estimat
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Show HN: An interactive map showing live wind farm generation in Great Britain(renewables-map.robinhawkes.com)
245 points by robhawkes 3y ago|85 comments
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by robhawkes 4y ago
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it
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by robhawkes 4y ago
That's me! Thank you for the nostalgia. ViziCities was such a fun adventure and something that I'd like to pick up again at some point, or at least some sort of successor. The ecosystem for spatial visualisation on the Web has cha
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by robhawkes 4y ago
I spent the past few evenings writing about how I strive to be a generalist rather than an expert, and how hyperfocus permeates every aspect of my life in both positive and negative ways. I'd love for you to read it and share your own

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