Are you all prepping for power cuts?

[User112]

BBC reported the other day about possible power cuts this winter due to gas shortage. Other than having a few torch light and candles, are you all prepping with anything else?

So we are expected to be happy with living like it was in the 70s. Neatly wiping out all of the gains in standard of living since then.

One of the few people at work who is supporting the business continuity plans for a national power outage/rolling blackouts is someone who came recently from the National Grid. They are very actively involved in the planning and urging us to have plans including a total blackout.

Some of the assurances I've seen around the UK's energy security focuses on the interconnectors with Europe and the importing of energy. Given they have potential issues (eg France and the nuclear power plants) and the guidance being given in other countries I'm uncomfortable with them being used as security and the reason not to plan for something described by our own government as a reasonable worst case scenario.

There's a difference between "probably won't happen" and "guaranteed not to".

If it's a probably then we should be taking sensible, proportionate precautions.

For organisations (particularly those the public rely on) then that involves business continuity plans and building in resilience. For individuals it involves a risk assessment and taking action where the risk outweighs the work and cost involved.

The current cold snap has inspired me to pull out our camping stuff and take out what might come in handy if we lose power or have brown outs. We do a fair few multi-day hikes and bike-packing trips but it’s all over the house so in a box in the spare room we now have:
2 head torches
1 bag tea lights
1 torch
2 4-season sleeping bags are down from the loft
1 shortwave radio and batteries
powerpacks
water purifier drops
water filter bottle
2 foil blankets - well, you never know.
1 tiny Primus backpacking stove
1 Jetboil - these boil water in 60 seconds which is great when you are trying to save camping gas
4 gas canisters
about 8 Firepot meals - these are dried meals in a bag. We use them a lot when out in the hills overnight - not cheap but have all the calories you need, make you feel full, and they are delicious. Our favourites are the dhal and spinach, orzo bolognaise and mushroom risotto. Other half also loves the pork and beans.
Also have a few bottles of water under the stairs and the usual tins in the kitchen.

Hopefully we won’t need it. If we do, it’s there. If we don’t then it’s all put together for easy organising the next time we go camping.

Don't be a drama llama it was a temporary thing due to the unions. Have you seen the news recently the strikes are way more far reaching than the ones in the 70s

In the 70s the shops stayed open. We had tea lights on the counters. The tills had a little handle at the side so you could manually ring up the price of the goods. Life rumbled on. Today everything stops dead without energy

@justasking111 so you don't think there have been any advances in standard of living since the 70s?

In the power cuts of the late 70's I was 8 years old. I'm now in my 50's and disabled. I've currently got Covid and absolutely cannot get warm (despite having my luxurious central heating on and wearing 3 layers) I'd feel well and truly fucked right now if I hadn't prepped and got a load of logs in for the wood burner (plus head torches etc) in case the power went off.

My mother is also now almost 80 and I have to prep for eventualities with her too (she had cancer, raynauds and also currently has Covid) She has a gas fired Aga, but again I've had to prep for her including warm layers, cashmere gloves and many other things.

There's nothing wrong with thinking ahead. And there's nowt wrong with hoping we aren't plunged back into the 70's again without adequate back up.

Silly question.

The difference back then was central heating wasn't as common but an open fire was. Ditto paraffin heaters. We were more adaptable. We weren't living in caves in the 70s. We were the bridge generation I suppose. We bought second hand furniture, saved up for everything and owned it outright. Council housing was much easier to get. Renting was much easier and cheaper. The NHS was working much better. Buses and trains plentiful, clean and on time.

Mobile phones, computers, electric cars, underfloor heating, solar and wind power are fantastic forward steps. BUT they need energy.

I'm definitely not an energy expert, so this is all from reading up over the past few months, and might be subject to correction from others. But my understanding is: We've a european energy crunch, it's not as bad as it could be, but it's not great.

Mainland Europe has been storing as much gas as it possibly can since it was cut off from Russian gas and has taken measures to slow use of it too. A lot of LNG has headed over to Europe on ships too. So there's been a lot of work to mitigate issues. Thankfully November was very mild which has helped things. It's a great pity that the Uk have so little storage capacity.

France have had major problems with its nuclear power stations after finding corrosion issues with some. So a number are shut down. They are warning of potential blackouts in France, which would clearly have knock on effect of them being able to export to us if we needed it. The most likely scenario is that traded electricity in either direction becomes incredibly expensive.

Thankfully Norway has had heavy rain, so their hydro reservoirs have been restocked (to what extent I don't know) so the threat of them not being able to export electricity has rescinded

Onto more comfortable territory for me to talk about, Over the next week at least and perhaps into extended time, we are under a slack low pressure with cold weather. Temperatures below average for December. Wind generation will be low. Solar might pick up a bit, but inevitably at this time of year it can't pick up much slack. So we are going to be very reliant on fossil fuels and using gas quickly. Northern europe looks cold too.

I can't see into the future, but I think we are at a significantly higher risk of rolling blackouts than in previous years, but it's better than it might have been. Perhaps the demand flexibility scheme will help avoid such things.

Your oil fired boiler won't work in a power cut though
True, although I thought this was about gas cuts. I was replying to a message about gas

Energy usage was 19,% below average last month, energy bills perhaps. If enough of us are more energy aware through the winter frugality may be very helpful

We won't see gas cuts, any cuts will be electricity cuts.

That's a very good point, as well as November being very warm, people are self restricting energy use due to cost.

They can’t cut the gas since then they have to go house to house doing safety checks when it comes back on. But most of the electricity we use in the UK is made with gas. Electricity they can cut

I'm with kitten. There has been a higher risk than usual and it would be sensible to think about what that would mean.

For those who thought we were talking about a gas crisis: gas is also used to provide electricity. If there was a pinch on gas, the leccy will be turned off first as that can be done without house to house reconnections that would be needed if gas was cut off. Domestic gas usage will therefore fall as our ignition needs power to work and we can be reconnected once gas is available with relatively little difficulty.

This is a really useful thread about the international gas market, and explains how it works, where the risks are, and what the experts are concerned about.

Spoiler: it may be worse next winter.

Analysis of gas markets

That is a useful thread MsNightingale, thanks for sharing it!

Thank you.

Thank you.

And thank you!

Didnt realise there were 3 of you who replied.

I was also a child in the 70s and early 80s. I remember lots of homework done by candlelight and paraffin lamp. I remember the open fires heating 2 rooms and the rest of the house being freezing. I remember the gas bottle cooker that DM bought second hand to be able to cook more than 1 kettle on the parrafin 1 ring stove to feed her family of 6 DCs under 10 years old. I remember the coal being delivered for the fires at the start of winter, and many, many days spent helping DF with collecting fallen trees and stacking logs (and later, splitting those tree stump rounds with an axe - when my feet grew large enough to fit some steel capped boots) for those fires. And also helping DF grow a lot of veg and some fruit in the garden.

Lots of those things are still possible. But lots are not. We now live in the city with far less growing space than where I grew up and no access to fallen trees to cut/season. DM has not yet passed on her paraffin lamp and they are not easily bought anymore.

But we have far better insulated houses and also better tools and resources if there are problems. Like portable solar panels to recharge battery banks so we can still power our phones and ipads, or that we can charge them from our cars. Like better candle holders that are totally surrounded to keep smallies safe. Like rechargeable torches and torches that take smaller batteries and use LED lights so last a lot longer. Hand cranked radios are available.

It's more that we have a different mindset to back then - our parents had grown up in the "make do and mend" era, so had the problem solving skills to cope with the hardships of the 1970/80s. And an ability to entertain themselves without the tv and electronics when necessary (reading, radio on batteries, crafts, cards, board games, neighbours sharing tea and chat, etc). Not all, but many areas still were very much communities and involved in each others lives or knew each other well enough to work together when necessary.

We just have to find our own way to muddle through the current issues. Plan ahead is not a bad way to go on I think, to hope for the best while preparing for the worst.

So while I am concerned at the potential for major problems, I am less worried than I was 6 months ago for the immediate future. But I have made sure that I have things fairly readily available - just in case. And we are trying to do our part by using up whatever solar power we make on sunny days for laundry and heating water etc, generally not doing laundry/using dishwasher etc in evening peak hours, doing more line drying and drying on the indoor airer than using the tumble dryer than normal winters, being even more efficient in doing lots of things in the oven when it's turned on.

This year, Ireland has updated it's "Be Winter Ready" campaign as usual (See here).

We've also received a booklet to the house about reducing energy consumption as part of the "Reduce your Use" campaign. (See here)

While both of these ARE available in Irish for any interested people😉, they are generally in english on these sites so may be helpful for some here.

Thanks @BiddyPop

They're Also in Ukrainian and Russian.