Around 1995 I was in Nuclear Electric and was asked to look into the possibility that the diesels  or gas turbines at any of the nucler stations could be offered into the standing reserve service that National Grid had recenty started.  The argument was that since the diesels or gas turbines have to be started and run from time to time to demonstrate their availability, then why not do that at a time that National Grid needed it, and get paid for it. (This approach has been taken since that by several water companies usign ther emergency diesels).  It did not take long to work out that there were a lot of technical difficulties of matching the requiremnts for testing with the National Grid requirements for startup at short notice for providing reserve.  As Michael Noppen has indicated threre would also have been significant difficulties with demonstrating to the nuclear regulators that this could be done without a commercial/safety conflict etc.  In the end it was fairly clear that the potential additional income from this activity was miniscule in comparison with the income from nuclear generation that was potentially put at risk.  So this proposal and anything like it was binned


However, we did have discussions about whether one could build a small flexible plant outside but next to a nuclear plant, and claim that the two together met whatever flexibility requirements National Grid might impose.  At that time National Grid would certainly have opposed that as a way of meeting Grid Code requirements for capability.  But the question is not entirely closed. For example, how would one treat a wind farm with on-site battery storage? 


Regards


Dave Ward

Around 1995 I was in Nuclear Electric and was asked to look into the possibility that the diesels  or gas turbines at any of the nucler stations could be offered into the standing reserve service that National Grid had recenty started.  The argument was that since the diesels or gas turbines have to be started and run from time to time to demonstrate their availability, then why not do that at a time that National Grid needed it, and get paid for it. (This approach has been taken since that by several water companies usign ther emergency diesels).  It did not take long to work out that there were a lot of technical difficulties of matching the requiremnts for testing with the National Grid requirements for startup at short notice for providing reserve.  As Michael Noppen has indicated threre would also have been significant difficulties with demonstrating to the nuclear regulators that this could be done without a commercial/safety conflict etc.  In the end it was fairly clear that the potential additional income from this activity was miniscule in comparison with the income from nuclear generation that was potentially put at risk.  So this proposal and anything like it was binned


However, we did have discussions about whether one could build a small flexible plant outside but next to a nuclear plant, and claim that the two together met whatever flexibility requirements National Grid might impose.  At that time National Grid would certainly have opposed that as a way of meeting Grid Code requirements for capability.  But the question is not entirely closed. For example, how would one treat a wind farm with on-site battery storage? 


Regards


Dave Ward