Less reliance on cable link until cause is known
Wednesday 28th September 2011, 2:29PM BST.
A FAULT on a French overhead line might have caused Monday evening’s power cut, but the French transmission company, RTE, is still investigating.
Guernsey Electricity managing director Alan Bates (pictured) said that although the utility had re-synchronised with the French grid at 9.40pm on Monday, it was on a limited import capacity until the exact cause was established.
He said the last island-wide blackout was in 2003 and, prior to the cable link being installed, power cuts had been much more common.
Mr Bates re-emphasised the importance of Guernsey Electricity’s £30m. capital investment programme in securing supplies while coping with increased demand.
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There were similar power outages at the same time all over the world due to “increased solar activity” There’s your cause!
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Guernseasider, glad not me alone about power of solar flares! Was this just a warning?
Yes, loads of activity but nothing like 1859 yet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
Just goes to show how valuable written down paper is, so think 2x about computer/IT reliability!
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I’m REALLY surprised that with Guernsey’s many hours of sunshine that not more is generated through P.V cell technology and sold back to the Guernsey Grid? Perhaps if more people went for P.V cell technology and could store it on their own property in Batteries then these Power cuts wouldn’t affect them? In this day and age do we need to be relying on others so much when we can actually do so much for ourselves in the first place?
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Why is it in this day and age we cannot supply our own electricity. If we join up with the UK our electric prices we go sky high. It’s about time we made use of the fact that we are surrounded by the sea and started to get our power from there
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Blow-in-Boy
PV generation costs are probably two or three times the cost of buying electricity from the grid (more if you decide to have batteries) and the surplus sold to the grid gets less than half the retail price.
Still really surprised?
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Blow-in Boy,
nice thought but the price you get paid for supplying electricity back to the grid is very low, making payback a long haul.
Then of course you have the other issue to overcome …… planning permission
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Totally agree Soph.
I get the magazine “How It Works” every month, and this months’ special is all about SOLAR STORMS. The edition just before the Japanese Tsunami hit was all about Tsunamis. I think the team at “How It Works” can see the future!
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There are many PV arrays around the Island, planning permission is usually never refused nowadays. Just a shame that as Jamie said the price you get paid feeding back into the grid is extremely low, something like 6p, whereas in the UK it’s something like 60p. Better feed in tarrifs need to be brought in.
Still, having a PV array will cut your elec bills by quite alot.
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