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According to the BBC, reports abound on social media that the UK's energy grid is to see a fall then a surge during the eclipse on the 20th March as people stop what they're doing and go outside to watch the event.
The National Grid, however, says that it is an entirely manageable event from their end, as the UK only generates 1GW of power from solar at this time of day. Amazingly, the fall is expected to exceed the dropoff from loss of solar capacity (1100MW vs. 850MW), post eclipse to surge by just 950MW which is still less than the total solar capacity (5GW). The math bears out NG's statement, as does practically the entire history of power distribution in the UK, which has seen large swings in power demand on an hourly basis and the Grid managing to cope just fine.
Previous Major Event Surges:
- 1990 West Germany v England World Cup Semi-final: 2,800 MW
- 1999 Solar eclipse: 3,000 MW
- 2002 England v Brazil match: 2,340 MW
- 2013 Andy Murray wins Wimbledon final: 1,610 MW
- 2014 Great British Bake Off Opening Episode: 650 MW
- 2015 EastEnders murder revelation first episode: 500 MW
It should be noted that these power surges did not generate any significant problems worthy of reporting anywhere. The last actual power crisis in England occurred during the 1984 coal strike, when baseline generators actually ran out of fuel.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Nuke on Saturday March 21 2015, @12:46PM
Just to be clear (UK power station engineer here), the surges are not people turning on their TVs to watch the football match or whatever; the TV is always on anyway. The surge occurs when the football match finishes because at that point everyone goes and puts the kettle on to make tea or coffee. I am guessing that in the case of the solar eclipse, everyone combines it with a morning coffee break that day, rather than thieir coffee breaks being randomly distibuted.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MrNemesis on Saturday March 21 2015, @02:34PM
Was going to chime in with the same thing; apparently the british love for tea is strong enough that we have some of the fastest and therefore most power-hungry kettles in the world; 3kW kettles are very common and even the cheap ones will easily pull 2kW, something that I don't think is even possible in a US kitchen. Obviously fifty thousand of those all turning on a the end a TV show or during half-time uses a metric crapton of energy.
To mitigate this, enter nifty pumped storage stations like Dinorwig [wikipedia.org] that can go from standby to full power output with the space of 20s. They had to build it inside a mountain since it's one of the few viable sites for pumped storage in the UK and it happened to be slap-bang in the middle of Snowdonia National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty. The power station is open to the public so I'd recommend anyone planning a holiday in north wales to check it out.
Back on topic, maybe this is because I ignore social media but I didn't hear any doom'n'gloom stories in the news about solar power dropping through the floor and the UK being sent back to the dark ages; like TFA mentions it was still in the morning on a typically cloudy winter/spring morning so load from our relatively meagre solar installations would be a drop from the bucket. And when people go back inside from viewing the eclipse, they won't all do so at the same time like is common with TV events. Boffins at the national grid take all of this stuff into account when estimating demand. In a nutshell, why was this news?!
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 1) by Pr. L Muishkin on Saturday March 21 2015, @08:12PM
In Scotland you can also find Ben Cruchan on the banks of Loch Awe. I went there for a visit back in the '90s and would recommend anyone visiting Scotland to add it to their itinerary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruachan_Power_Station [wikipedia.org]