I had one of my usual glances at http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ to see what the status was. I note that he has added a French Grid page.

What I find interesting is the very different daily profile to the UK daily power demand curve.

UK goes up at 0800 (approx) level all day, then risies to an eveing peak at 2000 then declines.
The French curve has a distinct morning peak then declines to an afternoon dip with a bit of an evening bumb.

So I would suggest that each nation has a differnt curve according to its climate and culture.

I now speculate that the Spanish curve would show a distinct drop at 1300, reflecting the lunch time close down or siesta followed by a bigger and longer evening demand than one would see in the UK curve - they stay up later after their afternoon nap and dine later. (Typically shops are shut 1300 to 1800 and open 1800 to 2100).

The implication for solar power (PV) in Spain is maximum supply at the time of minimum demand - about the best way of screwing up a grid and baseload that any man could devise.

Has anyone got any data (accurate or anecdotal) on different national demand curves ?

Have I noticed anything interesting about how a "one size fits all approach" might not work ?

Nic, below is the demand for Spain.

https://demanda.ree.es/demandaEng.html

And I should have added that if you want more information, such as capacity and breakdown of energy types, then you can find it here: http://www.ree.es/en/activities/realtime-demand-and-generation

Nic, why ask the question if you don't want to know the answer?

huh?

In this part of the Limousin many people have invested in non electrical heating. Perhaps because power cuts are fairly frequent although better these days. The main alternatives are wood burners, gas or oil in large tanks, or gas or oil room heaters. Bottled gas is used for cooking, and is available at almost all filling stations. Oil is available at supermarkets and DIY stores during autumn and winter.

Wood burners are not a low cost investment and come with their own risks, we know of three house fires in the last two years caused as a direct result of wood burners. Domestic electricity is not straight forward, as I recall there are various limits you can choose for maximum power demand. The higher the limit the greater the charges, but I could be wrong on that. There may be cultural difference as the people round here go to great efforts to use water collected as rainfall or from wells rather than connecting a hose to a tap and using mains water at a few centimes a cubic metre, putting in a bit of effort to save a few pennies seems no longer part of the British make up but is very strong here, foraging is an all year activity and seasonal crops and where to find them as talked about as the weather.

I don't have any demand information though.

David,

Thank you for that link.
I am just an ordinary curious man - I am not researching for a paper or article but you have very kindly placed a data source where others can find it.

The siesta (as I hypothesised) is clearly visible !

Is this not the scientific process -
Casual observation (an apple falling from a tree, for example)
Leads to a hypothesis
Then data gathering
and the proof or disproof of the hypothesis.

You link proves that the Spanish do not work in the afternoon !

Further to my observation of the Spanish trend,

After a casual scan of some random dates, the afternoon dip is less in the mid summer. Air conditioning ?

The afternoon dip appears to most pronounce in the temepreate months (Spring, Autumn) where one uses neither heating nor conditioning.

I just find this delightful trivia.

Another thought; There is a one hour time difference between France & Spain and the UK. If the UK was to change to CET (central European Time) , What strain would this place on the Channel connector that feed French power to the UK ?
Or conversely - if Spain was to use GMT/BST (as Portugal does and Spain logically should) would there be a benefit to European power transmission ?

Nic

Thanks for coming back. Sorry about my third comment, I was beginning to think I had wasted my time.

I have viewed their site many times without realising the demand downturn during the afternoon. So your theory appears correct.

If you are interested in delving further into the Spanish electricity industry the link below goes to their system report for 2013 and is in English. Apart from all the renewables in the system I think the most interesting detail is the capacity (102GW) verses maximum demand (40GW). Compare that with our own measly excess capacity of about 5GW.

http://www.ree.es/sites/default/files/downloadable/preliminary_report_2013b.pdf

Well worth a read, especially from the renewables perspective. It gives pause for thought.

Martin A
Not being blessed with a well, but 1000 litres is about 100 of my watering cans, an few centimes a day at 5 cans per day or three weeks worth; supplemented by water from rain capture and domestic use.

We only have a single heated towel rail as heating, and avoid using an electric kettle or running anything major when the oven is on. Most lighting is LED now, the old halogen 50W spotlights in the kitchen consumed a lot during winter months. In the last 12 months we've only exceeded 9kW once. I suspect most French households rarely venture into 12kW territory and beyond.

I agree with your assessment of the reason as EDF spent a couple of days upgrading the supply to our hamlet after months of random power cuts. Even in rural France people want the latest labour saving white goods. Whereas EDF need to smooth the load a bit. It's perhaps a model some of the UK big 6 should consider following.

Not sure this answers Nic's question but it is interesting, for me at least, getting other views on aped ting to a different regime.

Thanks to all for your comments.

I am just an ordinary man having a bit of casual musing and conversation.
However I think there might be something in your kind responses that would be of interest to those that consider these matters for a living.

For me, I have leads to a more interesting conversation in the pub.

Thanks again for comments. There is something here worthy of study.