Lenzie during the power cut (This is in special night mode so it was a lot darker and note the snow (children won’t know what snow is a nd the glow from nearby conurbations)
At around 9:05pm tonight as I was pouring a drink … the lights went out. In October when Didcot had problems I said:
I just didn’t think we would be suffering a power cut!
After two failed attempts the power finally came back on at 10:20.
Your power reliability appears exceptionally good by the standards of an area which experiences really severe weather (Eastern Canada). What we don’t have to worry about, though, is inadequate generation capacity. Our “interruptions” are local or regional, and usually involve transformers failing or trees across the distribution line. One learns to be self sufficient, and our emergency measures people advise that every household should be ready to look after itself for 72 hours. If Scotland adds many more windmills, you may have to prepare similarly.
Tony.
Anthony, we’ll never know whether this was bird mincer related or not. Because the last time when a large part of the highlands lost electricity in what was clearly a wind related issue the government just lied through its teeth. I looked at the graphs was clearly an electrical network struggling with the wind and the unforeseen fall in wind during dropping demand was clearly the final straw.
They just claimed it was nothing to do with wind – even though wind was clearly a huge contributor – and everyone else in Scotland just accepts this bullshit.
So, whilst a transformer problem is a real possibility, the simple answer is that we will never know and we will never get told the truth. And the only way to tell, will be when there are so many problems that a correlation cannot be denied.
The one merit of bad (snowy,icy) conditions is that windmills don’t like them, so we really don’t suffer much from them (windmills, I mean). Additionally, there aren’t any operational subsidies in my Province, so far as I know, so we are never likely to get the usual plague of subsidy farmers here either. Just the propaganda is quite enough.
Tony.