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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It’s OUR NHS – do get it right!
What do these coal-fired plants do the rest of the time, I wonder? Are they just switched off and the workforce reduced to playing cricket in a carpark with weeds growing out of the tarmac? The idea that you would shut down the plants that actually do work because one’s energy strategy is based on the whims of wind and solar is just plain stupid. And there’s no stupid like the stupid of cutting off your nose to spite your face. If they shut this plant down next year, what will they do if and when we have another heatwave? Oh…I get it. They’ll introduce summer power cuts so we start getting used to not having power. Less noticeable in summer, eh? The water in the pot will just get an incy-wincy little bit warmer and us frogs will continue to swim around regardless of just how much hotter the water is becoming.
Germany was niot so daft as K politicians, despite being at the forefront of Net Zero mad claims. They did not dynamite their closed stations but instead mothballed them and many are now open again.
My (middle-aged) German friend recently complained that Germany doesn’t have enough windmills and blamed the Bavarians who don’t want them spoiling their mountain scenery.
I don’t think we can rely on the German people resisting the madness.
Is he insane? They have about 35,000 turbines and want to have about 55,000. Who in their right mind would cover a beautiful country like Germany in 55,000 industrial turbines, when a few Nuclear plants tucked away in a corner somewhere would give all the electricity required 24 hours a day every single day rather than the part time diffuse energy that wind provides, giving Germany the highest electricity prices in Europe all for WHAT?
The Boche was daft enough to close its nuclear power plants, though.
Do they have mothballed coal stations? I thought they were building additional ones.
“…the plants that actually do work…”
Ah, “work”. What a quaint idea.
I prefer the modern idea of pushing against immovable objects in the name of TheScience™ .
And that is exactly why power prices will only ever go up in the countries that rush headlong into Net Zero. You’ll always need 100% backup, which will be able to set the price when it is needed. It is pointless having “cheap” power 95% of the time if the 5% when it isn’t “cheap” you are paying $10,000 per MWh.
When Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station is closed it will be destroyed with grinning Ministers proudly photographed as in the past. There goes our security and how happy they will be.
That is just too funny. Thanks for the laugh.
Useless ecological disasters, entirely gaia unfriendly.
Heat wave?
A few nice days of 25-30 C and suddenly the land is on fire, the oceans are boiling and Saint Thunturd has turned into burnt toast. Good Christ. What a society.
A friendly reminder: While were technically not quite there yet, this season is still called summer and not heatwave.
I’m in my 60s and remember, every year about this time, it gets hot.
Has anyone else noticed?
The extra CO2 is making my garden grow well. Not had a display like this from our roses before. Excellent.!
In other words, 0.33% of the peak power demand was satisfied by burning coal (according to https://grid.iamkate.com/ ). Perhaps not an attractive headline, though. Those of us that are used to solar PV are familiar with the reduced efficiency as temperature rises, but the largest variations are down to cloud cover.Overcast, calm, but hot days are probably the time when back up sources are required from time to time.
It’s not just about power.
You misunderstand a few things. The Grid must operate at 50Hz +/- less than 1Hz. Solar and wind are in any case not good at maintaing Grid frequency whereas fossil fuel are because they have mechanical batteries (flywheels) and also have steam turbines which have moving parts – hence there is a lot of inertia in the system.
As more power is drawn from the Grid, the machines supplying it have to work harder the effect of which is to slow them down, and potentially go below the threshold frequency.
Speed of generator can easily be maintained in coal, gas, stations just by adding more fuel.
This cannot be done with solar and wind. Since so much of the UK Grid is supplied by wind and solar, the gas installations which keep the Grid running, struggle when wind and solar drop out. Hence the need to bring coal online as the available gas was probably close to the limit.
In your house, if the demand exceeds by 0.33% of the load protected by the mains fuse – your lights go out. In the case of the Grid, it shuts down and will be a pig to restart.
”Don’t blame scientists for what went wrong with Covid – ministers were the ones calling the shots.” Is that the faint whiff of an attempt at a reverse ferret?
I do appreciate people like Simon Goddek who call out the haters and lie-spreaders by sharing those old internet receipts so that we will always be reminded of just how bloody nasty and fraudulent many people were, who even seemed to relish the misery they were responsible for causing. Here’s today’s offering;
”Devi Sridhar is a prof. and chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh and has been one of the biggest WEF-shills.
She’s been pushing for Zero Covid right from the beginning and has been wrong about almost everything she said and predicted.
Besides writing this shameless piece of opinion (https://bit.ly/43BvlOd) let me remind you of statements she made on Twitter within the last two years.
April ’20: “Face masks (which protect others) now becoming mandatory in Germany […]. Makes sense given asymptomatic transmission & benefits > risks. Just make your own cloth one (don’t buy up stock that health workers need).”
March ’22: “Omicron is only ‘mild’ in a highly vaccinated/protected population where the immune system is trained. It is causing substantial death […] among the unvaccinated […]”
March ’22: “One of the biggest mistakes UK made […] was delaying in vaccinating 5-11y olds. Letting kids just get infected (often twice) – when a safe & effective vaccine was available & widely used in the States – was bad decision. Caused preventable illness & time off school.”
https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1668636365825753089?cxt=HHwWgoC-xeL7l6guAAAA
He’s right there;
https://twitter.com/p_beejal/status/1645090983745339393?cxt=HHwWgoC21ZPixNQtAAAA
Whenever there’s a relatively long dry spell, especially with Easterly or Southerly winds coming off the European landmass rather than the Atlantic it’s noticeable how cars get covered in dust. No doubt the same is true of solar panels, I wonder how much of an effect this has on their output because I very much doubt someone goes out and washes them every few days.
If I wash my car on Monday, by Tuesday evening there is a thin layer of dust on it. So you are correct.
And our avian friends do their bit too, as do insects.
If we use coal all the time, we don’t have to worry about running out of power and we all pay less for it… just saying!!
Up until 2015 50% was from coal – now replaced with wind and of course more expensive gas back-up.
Re the “heatwave” (aka Summer) I have just have an email from our local Council to say that bin collections “may be suspended if the weather becomes too hot for our teams”. Forecast today is around 24-26 degrees.
I may have to suspend paying my Council Tax if the weather becomes too hot.
Solar panels which don’t work when it’s dark; not sunny or too sunny.
Windmills which don’t work when there’s insufficient wind or too much wind.
Yet we’re supposed to believe these unreliable, intermittent power-generators are going to provide us with cheap, reliable, secure energy.
I think it’s called Gaslighting the public (except that term will shortly be banned along with the reliable gas which we need).
I guess AirCon will be the next thing to be banned. Shame we can’t ban the CON in Westminster.
Then you will switch on your TV to hear some pretend to save the planet fantasist try to tell us that “renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels”—————-ha ha aha ahahah jeez. It would be funny if it was not so pathetic.
The argument about whether one energy technology is cheaper or more reliable than another is ultimately fallacious: it depends on the application and the circumstances. Non-renewable energy sources can indeed be cheaper and more reliable for many circumstances. However, renewables often are cheaper for supplying remote locations where installing and maintaining a grid connection is prohibitively expensive. Also, whilst intermittent, renewable energy is much less vulnerable to the geopolitical and commercial interests that dictate supply of coal, oil and natural gas: most people who own there own home can erect a solar panel or windmill to generate enough energy to power lighting and electronic equipment for many years, even in winter; only large corporates with state and big finance backing (and often military too) can drill for oil, pipe natural gas and construct nuclear power stations. Coal has historically proved a good energy source in the UK because of local reserves, the ease of storing and burning it and the more modest (but still large) capital outlays needed to mine for coal. At the end of the day, all energy options need to be on the table with individuals and businesses free to make their own choices on where they source their energy.
Coal and gas are renewable. We just get more as we need it.
We cannot however get more wind or sunshine.
GREEN———–The removal of affordable reliable energy and unaffordable unreliable energy put in its place. Wind and sun are niche part time technologies that no one would ever build without massive subsidy from government who want them used for ideological reasons. Then absurdly proponents of climate change now insist that renewables are cheaper than coal and gas. ———–Nope, that is entirely sleight of hand. If I own a shop selling red jeans and someone else owns one selling yellow jeans and I get 100% subsidy from government, then it is obvious that my jeans are going to much cheaper. Notice with everything GREEN how we all have to be coerced (or conned) into using it. No one was conned into using Coal Gas or Nuclear because they do exactly what it says on the tin. No one had to be coerced into getting rid of their cart and horse and buying an automobile. No one had to be coerced into buying a television instead of keeping listening to a radio. The people know best how to spend their own money and they would never spend it on smart meters wind turbines solar panels and electric cars. They have to be conned or bribed into it, with irrational fear about a phony climate crisis as the carrot.
Too Sunny Solar Panels don’t work
Too windy Wind turbines don’t work
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
I do object to the message communicated by the picture of – presumably – a coal fired power station’s chimneys at the head of this article. Those large stacks emit steam, not smoke from combustion, and the lighting with areas of deep shadow makes it look dirty. Such images have been used to demonise coal power despite the UK developing it to become a very clean form of energy – far cleaner and more environmentally friendly than burning woodchips at Drax for example!
Will, you keep referring to “the heatwave”; which heatwave was this? Here in Norfolk we’ve had three or four pleasantly warm days so far – today being about 22C – of which one (June 10th) was very warm but certainly not uncomfortably so. How does this constitute a “heatwave”?
It cheers my heart to see people talking seriously about coal again as a key part of the energy supply mix. The Daily Sceptic leading the way as always.
What it shows is just how fragile the Grid is and how vulnerable it is (ironically) to changes in weather being so dependent now on generating modes that are at the mercy of the weather.
Those in charge are mad.