Anyone without power today?

[Deleted member 174758]

The storm rolled through last night leaving the "tops" (in the Pennines) with a light coating of snow - the first this year. It left us and our neighbours with another issue - we have no power for second time this year. I'm glad we have gas, so at least we can make hot drinks and food, but I am left wondering if Boris the Bozo's plan even condidered those rural and semi-rural communities like ours which lose electricity one, two or three times a year every year as we do.

 

[just pumps]

It may be a light coating of snow where you live but it has shut roads and motorway.

 

[bernardgreen]

""Wind turbines are spinning but the power isn't going anywhere because the cables have been torn down by falling trees""

Probably as lot of winf turbines have had to be shut down, brakes hard on, to prevent then over speeding

 

[Deleted member 174758]

""Wind turbines are spinning but the power isn't going anywhere because the cables have been torn down by falling trees""

Probably as lot of winf turbines have had to be shut down, brakes hard on, to prevent then over speeding

Well our problem isn't that - we are still supplied by an overland supply on wooden poles with a transformer up a pole at the end of our street. It seems that with every bad storm the wires get KO'd by the wind. It has knackered Christmas or New Year five or six times in 25 years.

Get what you say about wind farms, though - round here these "great saviours" don't turn (or don't turn fast enough to generate power) about 1/3 of the time, and turn too fast (meaning that the gearboxes auto-disengage so they don't get smashed - and again no generation) about another 1/3 of the time, so they aren't what you could call dependable. Not my estimation, but a comment from a Vestas engineer who we had a chat with whilst on a walk (there are quite a few wind farms in the Pennines)

Edit: Power just restored - not bad this time, 10 hours. Last time it was 40 hours and we had to throw away a load of stuff from the fridge and freezer

 

[IT Minion]

The Scout moor farm is made up of dinky little 2.5MW turbines, and runs at around 25% capacity factor.

So only generating a third of the time seems about right. That's all they're designed to do.

For rural locations I'd be considering a big battery that can run in an island mode, and some solar panels.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Had to chuckle at the prospect of trees being blown down onto cables - at Scout Moor and others in the Pennines they bury the cables (and ran them beneath the main roads causing mayhem for months when they did so), and there is no such thing as a tree up here above above 700ft, except in the sheltered valleys because the wind would just knock them flat!

 

[conny]

Had a dusting of snow on the cars this morning and during the night the temperature dropped to minus 4 so froze it hard on the windscreens.
We get at least half a dozen power cuts through the year, sometimes lasting a few minutes but often lasting quite a few hours. Not a week goes by when we don't get a brief 'change over' cut but they usually only last a second or two.

 

[mattylad]

Those turbines up scout moor are big noisy buggers.
I did a ham radio event up there with the Norden radio amateur group several years ago, they scare the bejeesus out of you as you walk under them.

Got lost driving back down in the fog

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Those turbines up scout moor are big noisy buggers.

Quite - you can see them all from parts of Oldham

 

[securespark]

Had quite a lot of snow overnight in Stockport and it settled, but by the morning it was mostly gone.