Running out
Our youngest daughter’s gas supply has been cut off because a water main burst and flooded the gas pipes. She uses gas for heating and cooking. More than three thousand homes in her area have been affected. The water must be pumped out of the pipes and household appliances must be checked to ensure that they are safe to use. The gas supplier states:
“We first need to turn off supply at every impacted property, then remove all the water that flooded in, and only then can we safely reintroduce gas to the network. We will need to make a return visit to every property to turn supply back on and check everything is working okay.“
As a result, people are using more electricity. Now people are being asked to limit their use of electricity because supplies are running low. This creates many problems, for families, schools, businesses, and institutes which do not have stand-by electric generators.
Our daughter does not live in the boondocks. She lives in London.
It is hard to ascertain the facts behind the all-too-often political statements about the availability and stability of current and future energy supplies in the UK.
Such lack of clarity on the subject is leading to a growing number of people seeking independent power. This could be supplied from individual household backup electrical generators and batteries. There are already backup generators in a number of large establishments in the community.
EDF, one of the biggest suppliers of electricity in the UK, has stated that there will be sufficient energy because of solar panels on house roofs. This is, at best, an overly optimistic and unquantifiable view.
Meanwhile, our daughter and her family, friends and neighbours continue to shiver through the days, waiting for the gas to be reconnected and life to return to normal.
Perhaps this demonstrates that energy is a scarcer commodity in the UK than we have been led to realise. In a nod to the past, maybe we should become accustomed to the regularity of brownouts and power cuts.
Post script: The gas was reconnected late on Sunday morning!
Power supply gets shaky for a umber of reasons. a power outage makes for very uncomfortable conditions.
ReplyDeleteI feel so sorry for your daughter and all affected families. Hopefully there is someplace to go for showers and cooking?
ReplyDeleteEnergy supply is iffy everywhere it seems, here in Australia the infrastructure of poles and wires is all very old and needs much repair which the government won't pay for because supplies have been privatised and "those" people don't care for anything but their profits. Meanwhile breakdowns are common and to "save" power people are finding themselves in "brownouts" where the power is cut for a specified time during heatwaves so there is no airconditioning or even fans during those hours which are usually just when people need them.
I wonder about the use of electric generators, wouldn't they cause a problem when electricity supplies are low?
I wonder too about all the "renewables" the governments are pursuing, costing who knows how many $$$ and none is a reliable source of base supply power, relying on weather conditions instead, sun and wind.
Of course it happens during the cold spells; and not to mention the ability to cook your food etc.
ReplyDeleteHopefully the situation gets resolved sooner rather than later.
We live in an all electric house so when the power goes off for any reason (hurricanes, winter storms, etc.) it leaves us in a bit of a pickle. Fortunately, we also have a fireplace and a plentiful supply of firewood for backup.
ReplyDeleteGas is best for cooking and heating in any case, because it is cheaper and more functional than electricity, even if gas is not literally non-renewable. So if your daughter doesn't have batteries or roof solar panels, she should send her current electricity bills to her normal gas company, until gas is running again.
ReplyDeleteI had solar power installed last year. This year, the rebate will be reduced to 0.05 cents per kilowatt, which is negligible. As a result, I will need to invest in a battery, which will incur significantly higher costs.
ReplyDelete