For British members of ECN, and anyone else who can receive BBC television by whatever means, there is a TV show coming up next week entitled "Blackout Britain."

It's billed as an investigation into the state of Britain's power system and will supposedly reveal how vulnerable we are to blackouts.

I have no idea how technical or otherwise the report will be, but it might be worth a look (if only to wait for mistakes and poke fun at the TV journalists! ).

BBC-2, 7:30 p.m., Wedenesday, December 10.

Any of you outside the U.K. but with access to digital satellite, note that BBC is now free to air, so you might be able to watch it as well:

Astra 2D, 28.2 deg. E, 10773 MHz horizontal, SR 22000, FEC 5/6, SID 6302.

Thanks paul will be looking at that, im sure it will be very intresting!

look forward to disscussions later!!!!

my astra is set at 19.2 deg east. is that a different astra, or comes that because i am more eastern than you?


edit: i can view BBC world on astra digital. is that what you're talking about?

[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 12-04-2003).]

I have no link to reference, but hopefully in the UK they won’t try the brilliant scheme a US utility apparently had...conveniently reporting your home power outage via the internet {?!?}

andy:
Yeah it's a different Astra cluster aimed primaraly at the UK & Ireland.

The satellites are EutelSat's EuroBird 1 & Astra 2A,2B,2D are all recievable with a single sky minidish from the same point in the sky:
28.2° East

Astra 2D in particular is extremely narrowly focused on the UK and Ireland and is used to carry all of BBC's UK television services (including all regional versions) (and also RTE (Ireland) Radio [TV is encrypted and on Eurobird 1]) in the clear but you could have difficulty recieving them outside of their intended broadcast area. Most of the encrypted Sky digital channels on 28.2° E have a much wider footprint



Channel listing:
http://www.lyngsat.com/astra2d.shtml


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-04-2003).]

Andy,

Sorry, I didn't mean to mislead by omission. Yes, the Astra 2D beam that carries domestic BBC signals is a narrow beam aimed at the British Isles, so you'd need something a little larger than the average sized mini-dish to receive it in Germany.

BBC-2 is not the same as BBC World. BBC-2 is one of our domestic BBC channels, although sometimes documentaries originally made for BBC-1 or 2 eventually find their way onto the worldwide services.

The Astra cluster at 19.2 deg. E was where many British satellite viewers were aimed when using analog transmissions. It has always been a complaint that many of our services were scrambled whereas RTL and most of the other German-language channels were free to air.

Reminds me of a project my father was involved in some 20+ years ago in a big building. It was only after he was called in to cost the job that he noticed somebody had designed the elevator wiring such that the alarm system was just tapped from the main elevator supply.

Hey Paul,
Was your father an Electrician?.
I must say, even though I will not see the actual show, I'm with James S and I also look forward to the discussions on this one.

No, he wasn't an electrician, although like myself, he gained an interest in all things electrical at an early age which stayed with him all his life (I'll post a couple of stories sometime! ).

My long-suffering mother often put up with technical discussions over the dinner table!

At the time of this elevator alarm mix-up Dad was the cost and quantity surveyor for Thorn-Benham, the company installing the heating and ventilation plant in the building.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-07-2003).]

OK, who saw the program tonight? It seemed a little slow to get going, with rather pointless "reconstructions" of what happens in a blackout, but after that it did raise some interesting points.

I recorded the show, and I have a suggestion for anyone who is interested in seeing it. Add your name to this thread, and each of us can mail it on to the next person in turn (in order of postings in this thread, to be fair).

That way anyone who wants to view can see it, and each of us will only have to pay one lot of postage to forward it to the next person.

Sound OK everyone?

*** Please note: Tape is VHS 625-line PAL format, recorded standard play.

No comments? Did nobody else over here see the show?

Paul,

I am interested to see the documentary - I just didn't want to be the first, and have to have you send it across the pond before our European correspondents got their tupennyworth (Euro0.01?) in. Being PAL possible here in the USA, I can take you up on your offer. I was following with interest your recent answers to UK/US video problems on the General Section. If you're still fine on the offer, I'll email you an address off-list. The second global customer will naturally have it mailed from me.

[when will I learn to spell?]

[This message has been edited by Hutch (edited 12-16-2003).]

Actually saw a few mins of the documentary and then had to rush out. Seemed pretty to be saying that the system was runnning extremely close to capacity all the time and that they were bringing mothballed stations back on line to keep up the supply.

Ireland's demand's been growing at a phenomonal rate over the last few years and because of on-going deregulation of the power industry legislation was actually preventing the ESB (the main nationalised powercomany) from expanding capacity as it had too much market share. However, private operators were not building anything like enough capacity fast enough to keep the system going and we actually did reach crisis situations on a few occasions yet didn't loose power.

The government had to override EU directives on competition and just give the ESB the go-ahead to expand exsisting power plants a.s.a.p.

ESB also had to hire large power generation ships and moor them in harbours at stratigic locations around the grid and we were quite litterally sucking every drop of power out of the Northern Irish system that we could buy.

The Irish grid is pretty much totally isolated it has a relatively low capacity interconnector to Northern Ireland and as yet no connection to the British grid so we really can't import that much power.

NIE (Northern Ireland Electricty) has recently opened a DC connector to Scotland.

Eirgrid, our now seperate grid operator, is likely to go ahead with larger DC connection to the UK from the Dublin area.

ESB's also been desperately trying to remove really heavy power users from the grid where possible by working with Bord Gais (The national gas company) to push CHP (Combined Heat and Power) systems in industrial setups. These small CHP setups can sell their excess power back into the grid.

There has been a substantial increase in capacity over the last 1-2 years but it's still not exactly it comfortable levels and demand is still rising rapidly.

This xmas period will actually be a good test of wheather the crisis is over or not!

From www.meldrum.co.uk :



Le plus ca change, le plus c'est la meme chose!

As I said, the documentary seemed a little slow at the beginning, but they did raise some interesting points later, including a look at coal/gas vs. upcoming methods such as wind power.

I'll get the tape on the way to Hutch. Anybody else who wants to see it, please post here, then contact the previous person with your postal address.

I'm also interested seeing this documentary, I live in the UK, but I forgot all about it and ended up missing. It was kind of stupid of me not to reply sooner, as I live in the UK...

If your fine with sending it back over here, I could email you my address.

On another note, I saw a program about the blackout in August on the Discovery channel, I could possibly add this to the tape if anyone is interested.

Thanks!

RyanJ, email me an address using this button and I will forward it on to you once I've received and watched it.

Paul,
What did the documentary focus on?.
I missed it.

The tape is on the way to Hutch in Nevada, although it might be a little slow as it's in the Christmas mail. My apologies for the delay in getting it out, but I've been so busy that I just haven't had time to get to the post office before.

Trumpy,
One of the main points was the change since deregulation and how little spare capacity we have in the network now. They then went on to look at how future needs might be met.

Paul, djk,
Is Hydro-electric generation used in the UK or Ireland at all?.

Yes, there are hydro stations in the more hilly regions of the U.K. -- Scotland & Wales mostly.

I can't speak for the UK but hydro is in Ireland. In the early days the Shannon Scheme Hydroelectric system produced almost all of Ireland's electricity requirements it now barely produces 1%.

Windpower is fast becoming the main source of renewable energy here and some very large off-shore windfarms are under construction at the moment. These have the advantage of no visual impact, as they're just off the horizon and uninterupted wind.

Airtricity, one of the wind power companies, has planning permission for over 300MW of onshore windfarms. ESB itself has similar scale developments underway with 180MW online

Airtricity's also currently building the "Arklow Bank wind farm" 200 turbines offshore with a capacity of 500MW http://www.airtricity.com/opencontent/default.asp?itemid=397&section=WIND+FARMS/

The hydrostations are quite small
Turlough Hill Hydro (Pumped Storage) - 292 MW
Liffey Hydro - 38MW
Ardnacrusha (Shannon Scheme Hydro) 86MW
Erne Hydro - 65 MW
Clady Hydro - 4MW
Lee Hydro - 27MW
Total hydro: 512MW
However, if you exclude pumped storage it's pretty small.

Total generation capacity (of the ESB only, there are other generators) is close to 5,000 MW


Ardnacrusha/The Shannon Scheme built by ESB and Siemens in 1927 actually goes down as one of the IEEE's milestones in Engineering worldwide.

Click below for info
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/milestones_photos/shannon1.html

Windpower is being pushed very hard by the Irish Government at the moment as we are WAY off our Kyoto protocal and most of the power in Ireland's being generated fossil fuels.

ESB fossil fuel generation: (there are also a number of private generators using combined cycle natural gas mostly)

Natural Gas (mostly combined cycle i.e. gas turbine followed by normal steam system) 1926MW
Coal (one station) - 915MW
Oil (2 stations) - 860MW
Peat (2 stations) 210MW*
Peat was used as we were totally reliant on imported fossil fuels until the discovery of natural gas here in the 1970s. However, its being phased out as it's now considered very ecologically damaging to harvest peat for fuel as it destroys unique bogland (marsh) habitats.
There is also small scale renewable power production using methane from landfills and sewage treatment systems. We will also see, rather contraversially, municipal waste incinerators coming on-stream in the not too distant future.

(There is MASSIVE public opposition to any form of incineration of waste here coupled with MASSIVE public opposition to the creation of new landfill sites which is pushing Ireland's waste management system into total crisis as there is litterally no where to put waste anymore. Recycling is relatively low and the local athorities have reacted by massively increasing waste charges on the "polluter pays" principle and have even resorted to exporting municipal waste!... As of 2004 there is also direct tax on all sorts of packaging of food items etc which will be itemised on your supermarket / shop receipts. There are also very tight limits in most areas on how much waste will be accepted e.g. in Cork one standard "wheelie bin" per week is all that will be accepted. If you want to throw-out anymore you pay about €200 for a small "mini-skip".) Major recycling efforts HAVE to come on stream or we will just no-longer be able to function.


[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-27-2003).]

Hydro-Electric power is the main source of power generation in this part of the world.
There are several Hydro power stations within a 30 minute drive of Inverness. The local power supplier is called Scottish Hydro-Electric, now part of Scottish & Southern Energy Plc, but in pre-privatisation days was The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board.
If you are interested the following link will give you some information on hydro power in North Scotland. www.scottish-southern.co.uk/pftg/default.htm

Sweden receives about 50% of it's electricity from hydropower. I've forgotten how much installed capacity there is, but it must be something like 10 GW.

Thanks Paul, I received the tape today in the post so I'll be down in the hole (PAL TV/Video in the basement) to watch it. Shortly thereafter it will be on its way back to RyanjUK.

It will be interesting to compare postal rates beween the UK and US. I was a little shocked to see how much you paid paul - I owe you a couple of pints!

Thanks again,

Hutch

An interesting and thought provoking documentary. Firstly it was good once again to see another quality product come out of the BBC. Admittedly at first, they were getting the human element on things - who was directly effect etc. - but soon got down to the nitty-gritty which is the privatisation of the electricity supply.

Good pre-1990 engineering sense said that a 30% over capacity was a good number in the electricity generation capacity. When privitisation came in, the bean counters (that plague every industry by-the-way) cut this safety margin back and back in the quest to maximize profitability. This was brought on/forced by an artificially reduced production price based on the fact that extra capacity was not required and could be closed/mothballed, i.e. excess is not economic. Cyclic argument. A just-in-time principle being applied to an essential commodity.

Industry-wide a base level of 20% capacity was thought prudent but the UK generating companies took that down to 16.5% and then the brown hit the revolving.

At least they all got it back up and running within a couple of hours but …

All eggs in the “gas” basket is another disturbing feature of this article. The gas from the North Sea will not run out – as a geologist I feel happy stating this, it will just become more difficult to extract/locate and other sources will become cheaper before the last Therm is pumped out. The industry, and thus country, then become vulnerable to external sources of energy to fuel to power stations. Wind power may be a noble goal but it is not without its downside – not least its visual and noise pollution. In MW per sq.km it is pretty weak.

Power and energy are strategic assets for a county and only history will judge whether handing this responsibility entirely over to the stock exchange was a good idea.

The tape is on its way now to the next recipient in the list Ryanjuk - give us a shout when it arrives please.

The next person who wishes to view it should contact Ryanjuk for forwarding. It is recommended viewing.

Off shore wind farms can't be seen, other than from a ship. You can install MUCH bigger turbines giving you more efficient operation and offshore winds are much more constant and less gusty.

See www.airtricity.com


Also try this: http://www.eirgrid.ie/EirGridPortal/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=Capacity%20Margin%20Forecast

Doesn't the reserve capacity look rather low?

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 01-11-2004).]

Glad you enjoyed it Hutch. As you said, it was a little slow to get going at the very beginning, but once it got down to the "nitty gritty" is raised some interesting points.

That seems to be the main problem. We've seen similar problems with telephones, railways, and many other industries.

Paul,
Spare capacity and Electricity Grid is never spoken in the same sentence these days!.