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[palsch]

And in Britain the grid will be offering companies money to cut use.

My guess is that this is as much about safety margins as actual supply. The grid's margin compared to peak demand has been shrinking nearly constantly since privatisation. The only projections I saw last decade that didn't involve blackouts this decade involved building nuclear plants at an advanced speed, vast off-shore wind (on-shore simply couldn't meet demands) or importing substantially from France and the rest of Europe. All but the first required around $10bn investment in the grid to adjust to the different type of load expected.

[Sheb]

The had an article in the Economist recently about "virtual utilities", companies that make deal with large electricity users, and free up peak demand by selectively turning off some systems (Thing cutting the AC for half and hour that kind of stuff). Quite a smart idea actually. The cheapest source of energy is the one you don't use.

[Helgoland]

That's why I'm a fan of consumers buying their electricity directly at the stock market: Together with intelligent meters, it could help make demand meet supply. Think a fridge turning itself off for half an hour during midday or the evening, or an aquarium heater and pump, etc etc.

[miauw62]

Not really, if the power fails, so does internet.

As tragic as a lack of internet is, there's plenty to do that doesn't need internet.

[Sergarr]

That's why I'm a fan of consumers buying their electricity directly at the stock market: Together with intelligent meters, it could help make demand meet supply. Think a fridge turning itself off for half an hour during midday or the evening, or an aquarium heater and pump, etc etc.

Cue somebody monopolizing all the electricity and turning the prices way up.

[10ebbor10]

Electricity in Belgium is practically a monopoly, so ...

The chance for abuse is significant though. Just bypass the intelligent meter, and you have unlimited free power. As there are no more utilities controlling clients, this could be problematic. You probably have to set up a nationalized utility to avoid that problem.

And in Britain the grid will be offering companies money to cut use.

We're doing that already, IIRC. I think we even went a step further, that we're paying companies to utilize their on site generators to provide power to the grid.

Hell, they're seriously considering shipping in giant Powergenerator ships (capacity 200 MW) to make ends meet.

[vagel7]

Electricity everywhere is basically a monopoly. It wasn't until two years ago or so that the market here was opened up for competition. This means that people can buy it from other companies or directly from the stock market and actually a lot more people are taking the stock market option, then you would imagine, because it is automated.

The problem of course is that only the old company has a good enough infrastructure and network of cables so you are still paying them a small fee to use their electrical network to get the electricity to your house.

[Sheb]

What do you mean by "buying electricity from the stock market"? Like, people actually buy stocks into electricity producers in exchange for power?

[10ebbor10]

I assume they're buying them from the wholesale market, ak, directly from the producers.

IIRC, In Belgium the grid is a nationalized Monopoly, and most of the power generation is as well. Most of the capacity is GDF Suez/Electrabel, and then you have a few independent producers, mostly renewables, though some simply sell Nuclear power than Electrabel is forced to sell them (In order to avoid anti-monopoly regulation).

[Dutchling]

Polish town erects statue of urinating Lenin.

[scrdest]

Polish town erects statue of urinating Lenin.

Not a town - an independent artist as a part of an art festival. And the local idiots religious right idiots took offence, claiming it 'promotes communism' *facepalm*.

[FearfulJesuit]

mfw

[smjjames]

Ukraine, what the heck are you doing?

Haven't seen any other reports yet, but if true, what the heck is Ukraine doing? It could just be a case of how abiguous (not sure if that's the word I'm trying to mean) and porous the border is. Like someone said earlier, there are towns which the border goes right through.

Or maybe they were just forced to go around through the border.

[10ebbor10]

There was something in the newspaper about 3 Russian tanks invading Ukraine earlier.

Possible relation to that video that got posted here?

[smjjames]

From the article, it sounds like they were forced to go around whatever tactical situation they were in and through the border. Unlike the three tanks, they didn't stick around in Russian territory.