This R4 news story about a solar eclipse potentially disrupting the electricity supply...

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MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
...it's bollocks, surely?

Yes we use a lot more solar generated power these days but... the big penumbra and the brief blackout isn't going to be any worse than thick cloud cover... and thick cloud often lasts far longer than a fleeting eclipse.

Has the Beeb run out of news and are resorting BS instead?
 

TVC

Guest
...it's bollocks, surely?

Yes we use a lot more solar generated power these days but... the big penumbra and the brief blackout isn't going to be any worse than thick cloud cover... and thick cloud often lasts far longer than a fleeting eclipse.

Has the Beeb run out of news and are resorting BS instead?
I think night lasts even longer.
 
I love solar eclipses. very strange and confuses plants and animals - and people, too, except they were forewarned.

I suspect the electricity grid will be ok. But the eclipse will be seen (at least partially) across the whole of the 48 states, so this is presumably something new. Obviously they take night into account, but maybe every solar panel in the US getting less or no light at an unplanned time might be a problem.

BTW, don't you love google. I remember at least 2 eclipses in my life time so ... google?
  1. Melbourne, full eclipse Melbourne 23 October, 1976
  2. London, partial, August 11, 1999
The second was a month after I got my first digital camera. Here is a photo I took of the light coming through the trees onto concrete. You don't realise that the dappled light is all sunshaped until the source takes a different shape.
eclipse.jpg
 

Tim Hall

Guest
Location
Crawley
Radio 4 might get a shock when a phenomenon called "night" arrives.
There's an excellent story by Asimov (I think), set on a planet which orbits a binary star, so that night is unknown and there is no need, it seems, for artificial light. Anthropologists trace the rise and fall of civilisations, which seem to always end in fire. Meanwhile, an eclipse or some other astronomical phenomenon is on its way and people don't know exactly what's going to happen. Stuff called "darkness" falls. There is panic. Then people find out how to create artificial light with burning torches. They don't live happily ever after.
 

machew

Veteran
During a 2015 solar eclipse that passed over Europe, 80 percent of Germany’s sunlight was cut off. For a country whose electricity is 40 percent powered by solar, it was hit hard. But despite the dramatic seesawing of solar production, the eclipse came and went without major disturbance. Germany stabilized its grid and electricity supply by dialing up its fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro power, while also asking four energy-hogging aluminum smelters to dial down their power use temporarily.
 
OP
OP
MontyVeda

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
During a 2015 solar eclipse that passed over Europe, 80 percent of Germany’s sunlight was cut off. For a country whose electricity is 40 percent powered by solar, it was hit hard. But despite the dramatic seesawing of solar production, the eclipse came and went without major disturbance. Germany stabilized its grid and electricity supply by dialing up its fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydro power, while also asking four energy-hogging aluminum smelters to dial down their power use temporarily.
How does Germany cope when it's cloudy?
 
OP
OP
MontyVeda

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
I'm sure it's entirely feasible for a country the size of Germany to be blanketed in cloud... just google pictures of the earth from space.

msg-4_first_image_august42015_f2.jpg


...and let's not forget, the penumbra of an eclipse moves a lot quicker than a weather system.
 

winjim

Smash the cistern
A few years ago we visited the "Hollow Mountain" in Scotland. It's a hydroelectric energy storage facility built inside a mountain like some kind of Bond villain's lair. When there's spare capacity in the electricity network, usually at night, they use it to pump water up into the reservoir. Then at peak times they can use that stored energy to drive the turbines. So it smooths out fluctuations in supply and demand.

I reckon it could cope with a solar eclipse.
 
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