Electricity demand hits new peak
Thursday 14th January 2010, 2:59PM GMT.
Jersey Electricity shift engineer Mark Le Vesconte controls the output of the generators at the power station at La Collette Picture: ROB CURRIE (00869757)
RECORD levels of electricity were used in Jersey this week as Islanders fought to keep warm.
At 9 o’clock on Tuesday evening, the largest surge ever was recorded by Jersey Electricity.
A company spokesman said that it was equivalent to 80,000 kettles being turned on simultaneously. He said that he believed the surge was probably caused by people boosting their heating at home.
Chris Ambler, chief executive of Jersey Electricity, said: ‘We believe this is a combination of factors including cold, sleet and snow, and sustained wind which can be a significant driver of heating load.’
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Chris Ambler said: ‘We believe this is a combination of factors including cold, sleet and snow, and sustained wind which can be a significant driver of heating load.’
…. and 80,000 kettles being switched on when Eastenders finished!
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Couldn’t that be when the JEC themselves turn on Comfort Heat customers’ storage heaters?
(I doubt that every single person in Jersey turned on a kettle at the same time.)
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Err, sorry – am I supposed to be shocked, surprised or just informed by this non-information?
More property is being built and so more people will be using more electrical appliances.
I recall reading that Jersey Gas are encountering “difficulties” with getting their product to market and thus a greater share of domestic energy usage is coming from electricty generation.
Slow news day?
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Only last month our overstaffed planning department was making proposals to make electric heating compulsory in all new developments on the basis that all electric is now nuclear. Just imagine the problems the Island would have faced if all those who currently have oil or gas heating systems we legally obliged to rely on the JEC. Now this myth has been disproved lets genuinely save a bit of tax payers money and start pruning staff numbers to prevent any more unnecessary legislation being thought up.
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#2 James. That’s exactly what I was thinking!(?)
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Television programming is a known cause of sudden demand but it is usually foreseeable.
Power distribution control rooms used to buy the Radio Times and TV times for this reason. As Spring Heeled Jack says, it’s the kettles rather than the tellies. The tellies never go off nowadays!
It should not be beyond the expertise of the JEC to stagger the switch on of the storage heater demand.
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I wonder if the underlying thread to this story is that we are at virtual capacity as far as the current electricity supply is concerned.
With many new homes being ‘all electric’ the surge when comfort heat / economy 7 kicks in must be imense.
There is something comforting about having in a stock of loggs, coal or a tank of fuel oil rather than being reliant totally on teh electric supply.
Out of interest, if the French link went down, do we have sufficent power geneartion capacity at La collette. My guss is that we dont !
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