Although it's 20 years since I did any work in the sector (and IANAEE), my
recollection is that the England & Wales power grid is just that -
integrating power stations (generators) nationally at 132kV - which is not
the way the US electricity supply system works. Thus the concept of
"brown-outs" whereby power cuts spread sequentially through a city as system
overloads spread is unknown over here (we just have black-outs!), and
significant resources are deovoted to maintaining system integrity.
Although there are interconnectors to both France and N. Ireland they are DC
interconnectors, to ensure that phase and frequency problems on one grid do
not affect any other.
The lower-voltage local distribution networks are owned by the "retailers"
you describe, Jon, but National Grid does not own the main power generation
plant, except for pumped-storage hydro-power in Wales, which is kept on
"spinning-reserve" with gensets spinning and synchronised with the Grid,
ready to start generating essentially immediately as soon as the tap is
opened (conventional fossil-fuelled power stations cannot provide anything
like that response time).
National Grid is indeed required to be neutral, and huge effort went into
the design and specification of the pooling and settlement systems which NG
runs behind the scenes, attempting to set a market price for each kWh of
electricity generated, both "now" (the spot market) and in the future. Not
only is the system technically integrated, it's also commercially
integrated, in that each generator has equal access to the grid, and to the
distribution networks, even where they are owned by competitors. Is that
another difference from the US market?
If you really want to see some of what is going on behind the scenes,
http://www.bmreports.com/ can tell you the wholesale price of electricity
hour by hour - and a lot else too.
Piers
-----Original Message-----
From: Jon Mitchell [mailto:olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 25 February 2010 23:26
To: 'Olympus Camera Discussion'
Subject: Re: [OM] Purchase of new camera case successful
Hi,
Apologies for answering my own questions. Not such an "American" trait in
broadcasting any more though - it's spreading fast. Not that that's an
excuse ....
Not sure about moving supplier though. They all get the power from the same
place. I think of it as a wholesale arm of the National Grid selling the
power to any of the retailers (they are bound, I believe, to give them all
the same deal). The retailers then sell it on to you. That's progress for
you !
--snip
--
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