So we are running out of gas?

[Naughty Nigel]

I was interested and somewhat concerned to hear that we could run out of gas later today owing to the spell of unusually cold weather.

BBC Report - Gas supply fears as cold snap continues

Energy analyst Peter Atherton said the supply shortage was "potentially quite significant".

If suppliers are not able to meet demand, "they will ask certain people to stop using gas", he said.

First in line would be gas-fired power stations, then large industrial and business users.

"The last to get cut off is the domestic consumer."

That is comforting, but if we cannot use gas to generate electricity where will our energy come from?

From my reading of the situation even at mid-morning the grid is close to capacity with a total load in excess of 48 GW. The few remaining coal fired power stations are running at capacity (11.2 GW) but nuclear is running slightly below capacity at 6.8 GW; probably owing to maintenance works.

It seems that gas fired power stations are running at significantly reduced capacity (less than 50%) to conserve gas.

What happens when we all plug in our clean, green, eco friendly electric cars?

GB National Grid Status

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

The big fuse blows !

Quite possibly! How long would that take to rewire? (I doubt if they have invested in MCB's yet.)

On a slightly different topic, have you seen that gas flame in the BBC report? Does that look healthy to you?

I do hope they have a CO detector fitted.

[The Technician]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

But its windy so should be getting loads of leccy from those big wind mill things that never move :-)

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

But its windy so should be getting loads of leccy from those big wind mill things that never move :-)

But they stop working if it is too windy.

Currently generating around 10.5 GW, or 10.6% of demand I see.

[Walti]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

A lot of the gas fuelled power stations (number of power stations not capacity) are deliberately quite small and are used more for grid balancing than pure generation, as they're fairly responsive (i.e. they start up and shut down a lot faster than the coal fired stations) so as demand increases they "should" be used less as the bigger power stations get ramped up to full output.

Reducing gas consumption here probably has little overall effect on the electricity grid, other than to make it less CO2 friendly.

The bigger worry is actually the capacity of the grid itself to move the power around, this has been in the very high 90%s several times and this could cause localised power cuts it it gets up to 100% and then tries to go over that, though this is still improving as industry becomes "greener".

My current tracker shows:
12:35 GMT
48.9GW total

Gas 14400 MW
Coal 11200 MW
Wind 10600 MW
Newkiller 6400MW
The remaining 12 and a bit percent coming from France 1500MW, Biomass 1400MW,Holland 1000MW, Solar!970MW, Storage 850MW and Hydro 550MW.

and 378gCO2/kWh (which is far better than the 500's it runs at when we're fully coal!

[Otto]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

Gas is not much use without electricity since virtually all gas boilers have electronic controls, and central heating systems require electricity to power the water pump. Everything is interconnected these days! I'm low on heating oil and while I have some on order it's likely that there will be delays to deliveries because of the road conditions.

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

A lot of the gas fuelled power stations (number of power stations not capacity) are deliberately quite small and are used more for grid balancing than pure generation, as they're fairly responsive (i.e. they start up and shut down a lot faster than the coal fired stations) so as demand increases they "should" be used less as the bigger power stations get ramped up to full output.

Reducing gas consumption here probably has little overall effect on the electricity grid, other than to make it less CO2 friendly.

The bigger worry is actually the capacity of the grid itself to move the power around, this has been in the very high 90%s several times and this could cause localised power cuts it it gets up to 100% and then tries to go over that, though this is still improving as industry becomes "greener".

My current tracker shows:
12:35 GMT
48.9GW total

Gas 14400 MW
Coal 11200 MW
Wind 10600 MW
Newkiller 6400MW
The remaining 12 and a bit percent coming from France 1500MW, Biomass 1400MW,Holland 1000MW, Solar!970MW, Storage 850MW and Hydro 550MW.

and 378gCO2/kWh (which is far better than the 500's it runs at when we're fully coal!

Thank you. That is interesting information.

It is interesting to see that Nuclear is running quite a lot lower output than usual, possibly owing to refuelling or breakdown. Either way it seems like remarkably bad timing.

[MJ224]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

What happens when we all plug in our clean, green, eco friendly electric cars?

GB National Grid Status

Mine is charging as I write. Don't want to run out of power if the grid goes down..............

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

.....and 378gCO2/kWh (which is far better than the 500's it runs at when we're fully coal!

A question for you. I presume this figure relates to KWh generated at power stations rather than KWh delivered to domestic properties, where transmission losses amount to about 12%?

Also, how many KWh does it take to drive an electric car one Kilometre, and would this equate to more than 160 grams of Co2 per Kilometre?

[pdk42]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

I blame Brexit.

[Jim Ford]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

I thought the thread referred to Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

This forum will never run out of that!

Jim

[Zuiko]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

Gas is not much use without electricity since virtually all gas boilers have electronic controls, and central heating systems require electricity to power the water pump. Everything is interconnected these days! I'm low on heating oil and while I have some on order it's likely that there will be delays to deliveries because of the road conditions.

That was my immediate thought. I can at least light my gas oven and hobs using a match.

[Otto]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

We have no gas here in the Upper Dales but my oil boiler needs electricity to run the burner as well. My house is old enough to have functioning fireplaces though, fortunately!

[Walti]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

A question for you. I presume this figure relates to KWh generated at power stations rather than KWh delivered to domestic properties, where transmission losses amount to about 12%?

Also, how many KWh does it take to drive an electric car one Kilometre, and would this equate to more than 160 grams of Co2 per Kilometre?

Yes the figure is for generated power, but for Co2 emission calculations transmission losses are ignored! So if I use 100kWh, it's 100*whatever todays figure is!

Not calculated the electric car question...

So:

Looking at the Nssan Leaf information (at random) it takes 7.5 hours to recharge the car at 7kW so 52.5kWh the battery is 40kWh, so the efficiency losses while charging are interesting!

The car is supposed to do 168 miles per charge.

So 52.5kWh @378g/kWh = 19,845 g Co2 / 168 miles = 118gCo2/mile

However.... the idea you can have a solar array and battery storage system at home to power your car could potentially take that to 0 (Hello Tesla Power wall)

Edit: Oh... AND the losses are an average of more than 12% (can't remember the figure off hand) - but can easily be up to 30% dependant on geographical location of the user!

[Naughty Nigel]

Re: So we are running out of gas?

So 52.5kWh @378g/kWh = 19,845 g Co2 / 168 miles = 118gCo2/mile


Edit: Oh... AND the losses are an average of more than 12% (can't remember the figure off hand) - but can easily be up to 30% dependant on geographical location of the user!

So if you multiply 118g Co2/mile by 30% that takes us to 153.4g Co2/mile which is close to what many bigger cars produce. (I think my 3.0 litre Jag is 159 gams.)

I also suspect the claimed (calculated) 76% efficiency of the Leaf's batteries is a little optimistic as most such batteries need to be charged with around 1.6 times their rated capacity to achieve full charge.