WHAT’S THE PLAN?

Thoughts on the Grid from Dave (part 2)

Troubles ahead

The old AGRs , 8 of them, will be unlicensed by 2028, that’s 5GW of base load gone. They are already getting past it, trouble with the graphite core bricks cracking and last month 4 were offline due to a steam valve rupture on the eldest, caused all to be inspected. Of course we all know about it as it was all over the media, aye right.

Electric vehicles

Vehicular traffic is back to pre pandemic levels and we were seeing more battery powered cars in traffic, lately range restrictions and lack of charging points have seen a downturn. Not helped by the chancer introducing vehicle excise duties to luxury cars, backdated.

The batteries are around the 60kW capacity and require a 30amp source to charge them, the charger is in the car. That’s an over night charge if at home at 35p a unit, motorway charging is double that, a kW will take you about a couple of miles, depending on the vehicle.

The Tesla heavy truck has a 1000kW battery and has a range of 500 miles , it is said.

Currently there are around 500,000 on the road.

I live in a street of 60 homes, everyone has a least one car, some have more. There are about 6 electric vehicle sources, not nosy but they stand out.

Each house is at present heated by gas, their pump consumes around 500W when running the circulation pump, each house has a 100 amp mains connection and the grid can handle the load as not all houses will be consuming maximum demand, diversity allows for the load.

If we moved to 60 electric cars in the street, charging overnight, the whole street will require rewiring , new meters, larger diameter cables, new protection and an upgraded grid transformer.

Just one street of a small city.

Heat pumps

The use of natural gas , a fossil fuel, is to be phased out and heat pumps installed in each home, currently priced at £15k with a £7k grant, so around £1m to upgrade the whole street and a time scale of 2 to 3 years.

Companies and staff to complete the work? Have you seen any courses being pushed from your local college?

Now the good news. Heat pumps work really well at heating houses…in the summer, not so well in the winter. Pity we live in a cold climate. Global warming will help.

Remember the hot water tank we used to have for washing, that was thrown out with the gas combi boilers, well you will need to install an immersion heater and tank again, heat pumps aren’t good at heating homes and water to 40 degrees C. at the same time. Pity.

They use electricity to run them, essentially a refrigerator working in reverse so more electrical load on your grid transformer.

The heat pumps come in two forms, air sourced and ground source.

The air source type look like an air conditioning unit with air fans that are said to be carefully positioned due to the noise.

The ground source type have a long pipe that gets buried in your garden to pick up the heat. They need a hefty 4kW supply to heat a small house , that will give about 8-30kW of heat into your new radiators.

Electrical power is currently four times the price of a unit of gas, gas boilers are about 70% efficient.

I’m sure your government will level up the pricing. Energy is a Reserved Matter.

Fossil fuels

We will still be using diesel fuel for transport, aircraft , busses, rural trains and ferries.

The two new ones being completed at Port Glasgow are to use natural gas or diesel, for the next 25 years.

The container ships that deliver our requirements from the far east will be still using fossil fuels, possibly back to wind in the future.

So from the title ‘What is the Plan?

Our politicians have been busy with Brexit, asylum seekers, water companies, PPE, far too busy to plan ahead.

Busy blowing Syria up.

Running down the NHS for privatisation.

Selling off utilities.

Cutting services.

Global warming is spun as a scam.

What’s the plan? Seems they do nothing, that’s the midget’s plan, same as his buddy Johnson’s, keep stirring the pot as they play out their pantomime at Westmonster.

I’ve missed lots, feel free to add your own experiences, maybe we can get Scotland to a more sensible place.

Part three to come.

**********

And to cheer you up…

Seen in the Clyde :

(Thanks to Hetty)