Will the lights go out?

[Workingman]

For the third time this past few months we have been "reassured" that we are not in danger of blackouts this winter...... so why are we being reassured so much?

This time it is the National Grid itself doing the comforting arm round the shoulder bit.It says that spare capacity is at 4%, but that could drop to 2.8% if we have a bad winter. All will be well.

There must be a few squeaky bums about, 4% dropping to 2.8% is not a huge margin of spare capacity. The energy companies have been quite lucky, so far. I have only had the heating on for a few hours this October, but if we have another 2010 - 11 type winter that will increase dramatically, and not just in my home.

For some strange reason all this reassurance does not reassure me one jot.

[cromwell]

For the third time this past few months we have been "reassured" that we are not in danger of blackouts this winter...... so why are we being reassured so much?.

This is exactly what is worrying me!

This time it is the National Grid itself doing the comforting arm round the shoulder bit.It says that spare capacity is at 4%, but that could drop to 2.8% if we have a bad winter. All will be well.

There must be a few squeaky bums about, 4% dropping to 2.8% is not a huge margin of spare capacity. The energy companies have been quite lucky, so far. I have only had the heating on for a few hours this October, but if we have another 2010 - 11 type winter that will increase dramatically, and not just in my home.

I remember that winter. I was de-icing the car one morning with the temperature at -15 c.
We keep umming and ahhing about getting a log burner because at least that way you can be sure of some heat if the electric and gas fail on you.

[Kaz]

What is pretty worrying is that in the 70s when the power cuts happened, well life went on! Shops opened by candlelight - I can distinctly remember being in Debenhams in Staines lit by candles - and people just got on with it! Nowadays the shops would all be shut for Health and Safety People coped with shortages with pretty good humour - would that be the case these days?

[cruiser2]

I can remember the winter of 1963. The temperature never got above freezing for over two months. We were all electric at the time. After the first power cut I went and bought a Primus stove.
This meant we could heat water and soup so could have hot drinks and food.
Also remember 1940. We had moved house in September 1939. The snow drifted up the side of the house so that it covered the bedroom windows on the first floor. We lived in the country and it took my father over six hours to walk to thew nearest shop to buy yeast and other food. This meant my mother could bake bread.

[TheOstrich]

.... People coped with shortages with pretty good humour - would that be the case these days?

It will be interesting to see, Kaz - "community cohesion" is still there, by and large, but perhaps not what it was ....

[victor]

no P.C's .no tablets .no mobile s -wont be able to charge batteries--how will people survive?

[pederito1]

Can anyone believe a government reassurance, must check my generator.

[Suff]

I have a 6kw petrol generator. I had to buy it when the local substation was hit and destroyed by lightning and it took more than 48 hours to get it back up again.

My central heating, currently disconnected since the boiler move, is wood burning and I can run the pump from either the generator or another inverter I have which runs from battery which the car (diesel) can charge.

I also have a wood burning stove which has a back boiler connected to a cast iron radiator. But that's still in progress for reconnection and I need a pump to keep the water moving due to a pipe reduction (cost of copper pipes in France is horrendous).

The biggest risk for us in France is that Russia will play with the gas supply, forcing most people onto electricity and overwhelming the fairly skimpy supply. But supply is not so much of an issue as 75% is provided by nuclear. That brings different issues. We have problems in hot dry years keeping enough water in the rivers to keep the nuclear power plants online.

My next big project (well other than renovations), is the off grid solar farm I want to build. Mrs S is becoming more and more enamoured of that as each day goes by.

I also remember the 70's well and all the power cuts. But we can never go back there. Stock taking, ordering and stock control management is now done by computer and by bar code. It's simply not even possible to tell you how much the items cost or to take the money for them without power. Whereas stocktaking took days with teams of people, today it takes hours with one or two. Allowing people to become so expensive that firms can't afford to pay them for such mundane things as stock taking.

Well, if they do start running out of power, then the government will be forced to do something about it. Otherwise they'll just keep on muddling along until there is a real outage...

[TheOstrich]

All set here .... just counted and we've got 20 night-lights and about 10 Asda creme brulee glass pots for them to sit in ... 4 boxes of matches back from when Master O was smoking ..... an assortment of torches (must check batteries) .... we'll probably buy one of those battery operated dome light thingies from Argos, and a few Yankee Candles ..... gas hob can presumably be lit by matches for heating water and pan cooking ..... got a tartan rug in a drawer under a bed somewhere, from memory .....

Anything else?

[Aggers]

I don't see how they can reassure us when we don't know what sort of weather we are going to experience this Winter.

In our retirement apartments we only have electricity, and paraffin heaters are banned.
Also most of the residents here are not capable of getting warmth through meaningful exercise.

Let us hope the assurances we are being given are well-founded. (which I, too, doubt.)