An increase in electricity demand?

Given the dish on the roof, I wonder if the van is some kind of communications hub, possibly to allow crews to communicate where mobile coverage may be poor? Comms gear tends to sometimes need a fair amount of cooling

Yes, I expect a significant increase in load and some local power cuts as a result of this gas supply failure.

The DNOs only allow ABOUT 5 amps or ABOUT 1Kva per home that has a gas supply. This rather inadequate sounding figure has in fact a good record under normal conditions.


However under present conditions with cold weather and no gas supply over a significant area, I foresee problems. If each home adds on average an extra 2Kw of space heating, then the total load is TREBELED !

I hope that someone has ordered some large generators. And thought about how and where to connect these. Connecting a generator to the LV busbars in a substation will relieve the load on the transformer, but wont help the LV mains leaving the substation.

So far as possible, generators need to be connected at or near the far end of LV street mains, in order that the cable loading may be reduced. In many cases LV mains from different substations can be interconnected via link boxes set in the pavement. One approach is to link together two substations via a link box AND connect a large generator to the link box.

This means that the main is being fed from both ends.

Generators used thus must of course be suitable for synchronising with the public supply, but most large transportable ones are so designed.

The van pictured now (the large one with the 2 heat exchanges above the cab, not the small one that accompanied the article yesterday) looks ike a mobile control centre. I do not know the specifics of the kit out,  but I strongly suspect  that yes it contains some comms, but is also can serve as rather cramped meeting room, a wash room and  first aid post, tea drinking facility and at a real push, a perhaps a few people could sleep uncomfortably in it. Such things can be augmented by caravans and containers that have telescopic sections  that unfold to make rooms and other facilities. Any organisation of any size with a patch that covers areas that are out of town needs this and any Scottish utility will need the ability to handle incidents that are miles from anywhere.

The air con will be mainly for sunny weather,  and meetings with lots of people,  and means you do not need to waste fuel to run the van engine just for cooling. There may well be a small generator as an auxilliary power supply  that may or may not share a fuel tank with the main engine, so that you can do more than you can with batteries and a big inverter.


I agree, issuing folk with plug in heaters is likely to lead to substation overheating, though as the whole point is that weather is cold,  maybe a transient  overload to 200% might be acceptable, though voltage is likely to droop. The complete solution will have to involve blankets and more clothes.

Interestingly a large part of the delay seems to be due to problems associated with  having air in the system and re-starting from a  flat system, rather than the failed regulator itself, as each meter has to be visited, turned off, and then presumably after re-pressurisation each house will need to be checked, and maybe purged, before restarting, and a shortage of folk with the right qualifications to do this.

Air in the system is only part of it. One of the risks is an appliance without a “flame failure device” fitted on either a burner or a pilot light, and the liability involved with unintentionally filling a property with unburnt gas. Each property has to be visited and the main gas valve secured in the “off” position. Only then can gas be re-introduced into the pipe network. Once the mains have been filled and purged with air, each property needs visiting again, to turn the main valve back on and complete safety checks. 


Regards,


Alan.

BBC news reports state that a number of power cuts occurred overnight in the affected area.

Reason not given, but overloading of LV cables and transformers seems a reasonable supposition.

Residents are asked to "be mindful of their electricity consumption"


As has already been said, the real answer has to involve blankets and warm clothes !

If it happened here I would currently be changing our hot water cylinder as it does not have an immersion heater boss, never mind an immersion heater and I would not fancy trying to retrofit a boss given the age of the cylinder. Some things are best left well alone!


The alternative would be to drop an electric boiler in alongside the existing gas boiler, but given the age of our heating system I cannot foresee that ending well either.


So plan C would be to rip the basket gas fire out and burn something in the old fireplace, though we do live in a smoke control area, not that many of our neighbours respect it.


Andy B.