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?

Headline news today. Three coal fired stations coming online. Charge up your electricals, tonight might see issues.

grid.iamkate.com

Demand this morning is very near what is being generated. Cold in the South of England, was -5 when I woke up. So not surprised that the coal stations are being powered up today.

nannynick
as well as the coal-fired stations ready to go online. There are many independent CHP units that can go online with the flick of a switch. Many have been feeding into the grid on and off for the past few months.

What really annoys me is I found out from a gas engineer recently, that 15 years ago they were been told and trained up to deal with domestic CHP units because at the time that was the future and what was being pushed for, rather then just normal combi boilers or even worse now heat pumps exchange.

imagine if the incoming government at the time hadn't pulled the scheme, there would have been lots of households making there own heat and electricity and feeding the grid too. But I suppose that would have meant less control and profit for the big energy companies..........

Micro-CHP sounds good to me. We also have lots of water in many areas, yet we have very few micro hydro systems. Rivers and streams can drive water turbines / Archimedes' screws to generate power. More investment in community power systems would be great, especially those that are hydro/solar/wind.

Thanks for the reminder - DD had borrowed my bank recently and I had used my lanterns over Christmas so I keep forgetting to make sure they're all charged up again.

Tonight they are repeating the big switch off, but for 90 minutes instead of yesterday's hour.

Going to recharge my devices now.

Refill flasks later and top up my coffee cups. (I bought an extra one as a present but it's so good I am going to use it for myself, I bought a dark pink one as it would be less knickable, chief culprit might die if they use pink stuff, apparently)

I wonder how much it reduced the demand.

At 7:30pm, demand was 45.9GW and we generated 40.8GW so had to import 5.1GW.
Demand at 4:30pm was 42.4GW, 5pm 43.6GW, 5.30pm 44.5GW, 6pm 44.7GW.

Recharged my head torches that I use for my magic lanterns

@bellinisurge what an excellent name for them.

I'm in London an got an email yesterday about unlikely but potential power cuts and to be winter ready. Never got one before. Same info as here: https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/news/make-a-plan-to-be-winter-ready

I received one too, as if I were on the priority register, but I'm not