they need it for data centers?
Oh what the absolute fuck.
If you actually go to the power company's own damn website (i.e. the primary source), it's actually some sort of (ill-advised IMO) sales promotion thing, not the dire warning implying brownouts or whatever that all the headlines are spinning it to be. British media should be fucking ashamed of itself.
Whilst not quite the daily mail or telegraph levels of egregiousness, the independent is another paper owned by an ultra wealthy.
A good amount of the wealthy's wealth is often in oil
It's in their interest to promote anti environmentalism
It's therefore in all of our interests to ignore such papers on these issues
When I searched to find the primary source I ran across articles by The Guardian etc. too. It might be a news wire service thing 'cause they're all reporting it the same.
Doesn't seem plausible to me, in the winter we get less than 8 hours of daylight in the UK and it's often cloudy, it's completely dark well before the time the eclipse happens in December/January. In August when we get 15+ hours of daylight, what is an extra shadow (it's not even total in the UK) going to really do?
Guesswork: there is too little battery storage and during winter time, fossile fuels are burned as planned.
I also don't know about UK's NPPs, but other coutries plants suffer from too low and too warm rivers causing cooling issues and therefore having to reduce output drastically. Could play a role, too.
But yeah, it seems stupid to not be prepared for a predicted scenario.
In all honesty I think it's a publicity stunt, and a really bad one to be pulling at this time when clear transparent messaging about climate change is needed (Octopus Energy position themselves as a green energy provider). But if they're really not prepared for it, it reflects badly on them too since the eclipse could be predicted from thousands of years ago.
Well, its about all solar pannels producing energy in one second, and none in the next. And when the overall netload is lower, its easier to balance out these peaks.
Solar currently only generates 30% of UK grid electricity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom
For a region that clouds over and rains quite often, you’d think the grid could handle an hour without sunshine during an eclipse. What do they do every night when the sun goes down? Does everyone across the UK just turn everything off? 😂
Maybe Oscar and Nepo should visit any competent Grade 2 science class. It’s an eclipse not the apocalypse. The gods won’t switch off the sun for two hours. Except for <10 minutes at local maximum, it’s more akin to a very cloudy day than the End Times
should visit any competent Grade 2 science class
But does that increase clicks?
There’s a reservoir in Wales whose purpose is to run water through turbines when electrical demand spikes. It usually sees action during breaks in high-profile football matches, when a significant proportion of the country put their kettles on to make tea. Surely they’d be topping it up before the eclipse.
when a significant proportion of the country put their kettles on to make tea.
Do you have a source for this? Because that's amazing.
It didn't used to be just big stuff like football. Because broadcast TV here was both popular and only a handful of channels, it used to be something that happened during every episode of EastEnders or Coronation Street.
This is known as TV pickup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup
Glorious.
I'll do exactly as I'm used to, because at that time our solar panels will have our battery fully charged and will last until morning.
But apart from that, the electricity spot price is actually expected to be pretty low here (Denmark) during the solar eclipse Wednesday, The spot price is projected to be 40% higher Tuesday afternoon and evening. Probably because there is more wind Wednesday.
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