UK power generation and powering our Motorhomes.

Nomadics

Nomadics

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I'm new to motorhome ownership.
I’m still a relative newbie Funster, but I have picked up on the general forum interest in the UK’s energy and vehicle strategy. The legislation being applied to consumer vehicle industry seems to be spilling into small commercial vehicles (Motorhomes and camper vans).

I thought I would share an insightful real time UK energy dashboard which shows our capacity, the energy mix and what we import from the undersea interconnect with our European cousins. It is useful to imagine a UK where transport/our vehicles are mainly electric, our homes are mainly electric (heat source pumps, induction hobs and electric ovens). Now imagine (or view the dashboard) on a freezing, still and very grey day. There’s no solar generation there’s no wind power, heat pump efficiency 1:1 (which means homes are not being electrically heated with no thermal gain from the heat pump, and the internal heat pump immersion style heater switches on to make up for the loss in heat extracted from the ambient air). Plus, electric vehicle efficiency drops by around 25% of what it would be above 12C. Spot the problem with our country’s energy strategy?

G. B. National Grid status

www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

1736844818480.webp
 
It’s not a problem though is it?

We know it will happen so can plan accordingly hence the start of things like battery farms.

What you are suggesting is also a worst case scenario far from reality most of the time.
 
Googlebot said:
It’s not a problem though is it?

We know it will happen so can plan accordingly hence the start of things like battery farms.

What you are suggesting is also a worst case scenario far from reality most of the time.
Click to expand...
I thought only last week NG was in danger of not being able to supply demand. Only being saved by turning on gas power stations at great expense.
 
Bolti said:
I thought only last week NG was in danger of not being able to supply demand. Only being saved by turning on gas power stations at great expense.
Click to expand...
And ... they were reporting a shortage of gas on the grid at the time. (Centrica reported UK storage down to 7 days reserves left).

Dirty fossil fuels are not the answer to fixing GB energy problems -> it just moves the problem to a "how do we import more gas" problem when the world is already struggling on that. For those not aware during 2021, our heat was actually "redirected" LNG ships that should have supplied some (Asian) countries with heat. They had a agreed price, and delivery, we overpaid to redirect the ships to us, causing power outages across Asia if you believe what was published at the time

www.ft.com

LNG ‘inequality’ bites as Europe takes supply from Asia

South and south-east Asian countries return to coal to hedge against blackout risks from gas shortage
www.ft.com www.ft.com

^ Article from FT explaining how our demand for LNG is in fact causing power cuts in Asia/Africa.


“The message from European policymakers is, ‘We handled this situation well, we avoided blackouts’,” said Michael Stoppard, global gas strategy lead at S&P Global. “But actually there were blackouts. The blackouts were in certain markets in Asia, particularly in south Asia, where the LNG was diverted away to the higher-paying European markets.”

So please don't parrot the idiots on X and say gas generation is the answer, .... it is the answer if the answer is how do we cause the far east to burn more goal, and have power cuts.
 
Googlebot said:
It’s not a problem though is it?

We know it will happen so can plan accordingly hence the start of things like battery farms.

What you are suggesting is also a worst case scenario far from reality most of the time.
Click to expand...
It is a huge problem. (Although the antiquated supply network is a bigger one......)
The UK often seems to be importing 12-15% of its electric...if other european countries also go wholeheartedly down this all electric path, will they have spare capacity to keep feeding the UK?....
And 'most of the time' leaves a little gap....imagine those two or three or four days with power cuts for older people who freeze to death in their homes.....
IMHO, the answer is a cross section of energy supplies with gas being at the bottom....more nuclear, more wind, more solar and more storage
 
I have always believed in a dual fuel situation for heating the house.
Without heat it is impossible to live for more than a couple of days in a typical UK house in the middle of winter.
Therefore you have to have a secondary source of heat in order to survive.

Currently my central heating runs on gas.
I have an emergency back up of half a dozen oil filled electric radiators.
(Which get used about every 2-3 years when a boiler fails in a property, either ours or friends)

In the future, the main heating will be electric.
I will replace the gas fire with a log burner as backup.

Personally I think relying on a single source for heat in a house is dangerous.
Although many of us have a winterised motorhome as the emergency place to live.
 
DandJ said:
The UK often seems to be importing 12-15% of its electric...if other european countries also go wholeheartedly down this all electric path, will they have spare capacity to keep feeding the UK?....
Click to expand...
Look at the dials, instead of just believing the scaremongering. They show import from France, but also export to Norway. The net import is actually quite small. Presumably the NG is making a profit on this by importing cheaper power and exporting more expensive power. Europe is a collection of quite small independent countries. In the US, no-one would think twice about an 'interconnect' between say Texas and California.
 
Reopen none productive coal mines and divert north sea gas back to our shores.
Some other countries don't give a stuff, why should we go cold and in the dark if they don't.
Global warming ......not near us it isn't

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mean while who is planning there next trip to drive around the eu on a jolly for the sake of it coz they can,leaving a foot print of tyre particals engine emissions ect ect .and all the fall out dust and gases ect from the materials/composites /paints glues plastics ect when the van was made.oh and most of these plastic vans we drive dont get recycled apart from the metal .they are filthy things really .,,,,,any way i got a national trust sticker on my van so that off sets my carbon foot print and i have done my bit........crack on
 
poppycamper said:
More disinformation!!! Only two of those lums are polluting the atmosphere... the rest are cooling towers spewing nothing more than water vapour
Click to expand...
Or is it misinterpretation by the masses? Regardless, the chimneys are releasing pollutants into the atmosphere.
 
gus-lopez said:
Should be illegal. Same as ships with fuel product anchoring offshore for prices to rise having been bought and sold whilst crossing the ocean.
Click to expand...
I am in agreement, but the UK/EU didn't want to be seen with wide ranging Blackouts after the Ukraine/Russian gas pipe disconnection.

It's nuts people not seeing that even with further exploration North Sea gas isn;t enough for domestic demand (allowing on shore shale gas would help a bit though). Burning gas really does not solve our power issues, more Nuclear combined with more wind/solar and some battery would help a lot more. The policy failure here is when we decided to not burn Coal without building Nuclear, assuming gas would alwasy be a surplus/cheap item, when its anything but that now it's the ONLY option for storage of power in large quantities today in a period of low wind.

On the subject of this the forecast for next week is very low wind in Germany and they are expencting us in power markets to be exporting to Europe all week to cover the Germans who switched off their Nuclear. . Which again pushes OUR prices higher, as the Germans won't go without and will pay ANYTHING for our power.
 
To my mind an important question is which solution is most fragile, ie dependent on the largest interlinked number of variables (climate and human) that are beyond our direct control.

It's not all just one way. Remember in 2000/01 when the fuel depots were blockaded and we didn't have diesel and petrol?

But it seems to me that most of the fragility is presently on the side of moving everything to electric. When last did we build any infrastructure on time, within budget and properly? Heathrow terminal 5? :censored: HS2? :oops:
 
autorouter said:
Look at the dials, instead of just believing the scaremongering. They show import from France, but also export to Norway. The net import is actually quite small. Presumably the NG is making a profit on this by importing cheaper power and exporting more expensive power. Europe is a collection of quite small independent countries. In the US, no-one would think twice about an 'interconnect' between say Texas and California.
Click to expand...
The dials are just a snapshot of what is happening 'Now'. I have watched the 'dials' for several years. The UK imports lots of electric (yup...we export some too)..but back to the question of many other European countries and their electric usage should they also go further down the route of EVs, electric heat pumps etc....do you really believe that they'll have spare to export to the UK?

UK breaks power imports record - Nuclear Industry Association

Record 26 TWh of power imported so far this year – enough to power 8 million homes French nuclear helps keeps UK lights on as Britain waits for decisions on … Continued
www.niauk.org www.niauk.org
 
DandJ said:
but back to the question of many other European countries and their electric usage should they also go further down the route of EVs, electric heat pumps etc....do you really believe that they'll have spare to export to the UK?
Click to expand...
One figure the oil companies don't like to publicise too much is that the amount of electrical energy required to process the extracted oil into diesel and petrol fuel is about the same as that required to run an electric vehicle for the same distance as the fuel would carry it. So actually no more power in total would be required as people transition to electric vehicles from diesel or petrol vehicles. Of course it would need to be distributed better, to EV charge points on houses, street chargers and charging stations, but that's a different question. The total amount is not the problem.
 
Ah well i guess someone will work it all out.

Meanwhile i have loads of wood and phurnacite for the wood burner. And about 700l of oil still in the tank, so bar lights, i will be ok for a wee while yet.

Certainly a nice feeling of energy security when the oil tanks full..
 
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When were all sitting in our cold homes and can’t go anywhere because the infrastructure can’t cope with demand for all the electricity we will need but the rich are swanning about in their high taxed petrol/diesel cars….🤔

In Morocco now are going to be laughing at us because they’ll be driving around in all our old cars and cheeper diesel because of lack of demand from the uk…😆🤣

This is all about $$$$$ and nothing to do with the environment…🤷🏼‍♂️

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Bolti said:
I thought only last week NG was in danger of not being able to supply demand. Only being saved by turning on gas power stations at great expense.
Click to expand...
That's debatable. The chairman of octopus has pointed out that it would have been a lot cheaper to use the scheme where consumers are paid to move their demand to a different time it's in the news today.
 
swemmy666 said:
more of this:

Sustainability and Impact is part of our DNA | Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc

www.gsenergystoragefund.com www.gsenergystoragefund.com

less of this:
View attachment 1000115
Click to expand...
Is the best we can hope for, the turning of agriculture acreage into fields of battery and energy conversion plant? It does seem an improvement over the likes of coal power at least. I just wonder about the sustainability of lithium batteries, the supply chain, recycling, and the grip on global battery production that the Chinese state has, and whether we may one day regret funding their war machine.

Through the lense of reduced UK CO2 emissions alone, it is hard to justify against battery storage right now.

One energy storage technology, well proven that in suprised we hear less about, especially given our islands great natural resource, is hydroelectric (and rain😁). Suitable sites must exist, after all we do have mountains and valleys in the UK. And I do like a spot of sailing 😂
 
Just smiffy said:
When were all sitting in our cold homes and can’t go anywhere because the infrastructure can’t cope with demand for all the electricity we will need but the rich are swanning about in their high taxed petrol/diesel cars….🤔

In Morocco now are going to be laughing at us because they’ll be driving around in all our old cars and cheeper diesel because of lack of demand from the uk…😆🤣

This is all about $$$$$ and nothing to do with the environme
Click to expand...

Just smiffy said:
When were all sitting in our cold homes and can’t go anywhere because the infrastructure can’t cope with demand for all the electricity we will need but the rich are swanning about in their high taxed petrol/diesel cars….🤔

In Morocco now are going to be laughing at us because they’ll be driving around in all our old cars and cheeper diesel because of lack of demand from the uk…😆🤣

This is all about $$$$$ and nothing to do with the environment…🤷🏼‍♂️
Click to expand...
yep like they ship out a lot of our recycling as we have to much of it and cant recycle it.out of site out of mind.and we will be going up and down the m5 on camels.sod that i would move to morocco i like it there i dont smoke but i like there fags out there good flavour
 
Nomadics said:
One energy storage technology, well proven that in suprised we hear less about, especially given our islands great natural resource, is hydroelectric (and rain😁). Suitable sites must exist, after all we do have mountains and valleys in the UK. And I do like a spot of sailing 😂
Click to expand...
The Uk doesn't have the vision or foresight to be bold and perhaps do something like this....in the Lake District, High Pennines, Welsh mountains, Caringorms etc..
 
DandJ said:
The Uk doesn't have the vision or foresight to be bold and perhaps do something like this....in the Lake District, High Pennines, Welsh mountains, Caringorms etc..
Click to expand...
There's no long term planning for power generation because of our political system.

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