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.
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? 😂
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? 😂