Britain has started burning coal to generate electricity for the first time in a month and a half, after the heatwave made solar panels too hot to work efficiently. The Telegraph has the story.
One unit at Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power plant in Nottinghamshire started producing electricity for the first time in weeks on Monday morning, while another coal-powered plant was warmed up in case it was needed by the early afternoon.
The National Grid turned to coal to generate electricity as a rush to turn on air conditioning and fans across the country during the heatwave led to a spike in demand.
High temperatures over the weekend also reduced the amount of energy generated from solar panels. Output on Sunday was almost a third lower than a week earlier, despite temperatures climbing above 30 degrees Celsius across large parts of the country.
Solar panels are tested at a benchmark of 25°C. For every degree rise in temperature above this level, the efficiency is reduced by 0.5 percentage points.
The temperature level refers to the solar cell temperature, rather than the air temperature. In direct sunlight, the cells can easily reach 60 or 70 degrees.
Alastair Buckley, professor of organic electronics at the University of Sheffield, said: “Both days were largely sunny in the morning, so a good part of the reduction in output will be due to the efficiency reduction from higher temperatures on Saturday compared to Friday.
“Compared with a cool cloudy day, the cells might be a maximum of 25% less efficient.”
Supply was also lower because of depressed wind speeds, which hit turbine output, and some gas power plants being shut for maintenance.
Worth reading in full.
It’s reminiscent of how wind turbines have to be shut down when it’s too windy. In our renewables future, it seems only Goldilocks will have power.
To add to the absurdity, Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station was due to be shut last year and is now scheduled to be closed next year.
And what will we do then?
I’m not sure they’ve thought this through.
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