The export to France looks to be 2GW max. High CCGT usage looks more to be associated with low wind for the last 2 weeks

The export to France looks to be 2GW max.

Yes, but there are also connectors to the Netherlands, Norway & Belgium.

High CCGT usage looks more to be associated with low wind for the last 2 weeks

I could agree on high, it's the flat (not changing with demand) that puzzled me.

  - Andy.

It is not obvious in the rolling graphs but if you download the data, I think that coal has been doing a daily cycle as well, maybe they'd rather shed coal before gas so gas is less wobbly  also it looks the day/night demand variation has not been so noticeable - perhaps the hot weather  having an effect ? I must admit I'd expect an inverse to the day night solar peak but it is not obvious.

The export to France looks to be 2GW max.

It seems that the interconnector to France is now 4GW - 2GW plus two 1GW - and seems to have hit 3GW export quite regularly.

   - Andy.

I just pulled the gridwatch data down, aggregated it to hourly, daily and monthly max/avg readings and looked at wind and solar. This is unchecked data apart from removing a few obvious outliers on some readings.

Wind has had quite a few periods since Jan 2021 where average daily output fell below 2000MW for 3 or more days.
The worst was March this year, 21-28 where the shortfall** (average annual output of 5,588MW minus spot average) summed up to around 757,783MWh

To store that shortfall from good days prior would need 83 Dinorwigs or 56 million Tesla Powerwall 2 battery units.

** Crude shortfall calculation. I'm aware National Grid may not need that shortfall to keep the lights on, because it will be highly dependent on demand and other sources and timing. But I don't have a better metric.

Solar's not very promising either: This is gridwatch reported solar generation. So no idea if this is limited to commercial solar farms or includes domestic or other Feed In.

But either way the peak monthly-average-output is 2500MW which is not that inspiring and winter output is around 15% of that.

3 nuclear plants closed in the last 2 years totalling 3GW. I'd say this winter is going to get dicey. 

Funny you say that - a recent BBC podcast highlights that our import from France is becoming export on more days than not, due to a lot of their nuclear plants being offline at once,  and Norway's hydro-power we like to import when the wind does not blow is a bit short on reservoir levels.

'tight' is putting it nicely.

Mike

mapj1 said:

'tight' is putting it nicely.

Now's the time to buy your thick winter clothing before panic buying leads to empty shelves.

Actually seen people on Twitter saying they were buying up "preppers" supply packs of food (choose between camping chow and some dubious looking boxes cleared out of some army quartermaster stores somewhere marked "WW II Special reserves" :)
Seems a bit excessive, but keeping the kitchen well stocked with tinned and dried foods and flour to cover a week or two might be perfectly prudent. I do that generally and it did come in handy when 2020 lockdown started and there was panic buying.