I think we killed it :(
At least I don't get any data plotted anymore when loading the site.
I agree it's neat, but I dislike that the plot legend has the text at an angle with poor contrast and in the "wrong" order compared to the plot colors. I'd also like a better color scheme with more distinct colors. I'm also not s fan of fading out the colors with time.
Same issue here on the latest version of Chrome. Seems our hug of death might have spread to the official data source too as I just get a blank page there as well.
Neat looking visualization. Sorry for the nitpick but personally a straight line (rather than circular) plot 00:00 - 24:00 will help see the peaks and compare high-low better. The time could you also show by time of generation rather than local. (it is weird to see peak solar at 0200 hrs )
This polar plot has a few things going for it. I disagree with what you said because I think this presentation more clearly shows the peak. The peak is the point where the colored area intersects the circumference. On a timeline you are forced to guess at the peak.
The other thing that's perfectly obvious on this graph is the comparison with 24 hours ago.
Personally I quite like the polar coordinates, though it's a pity that by convention, a watch face only holds half a day, as we would otherwise have a nice mapping of generation time to a watch-face equivalent.
My nitpick is that this is ultimately a stacked bar chart, so as with cartesian stacked charts, it obfuscates some of proportions, in particular the very interesting cyclicity of renewables. The author has wisely put the higher-variance variables first, mitigating the problem somewhat, but not completely, as can be seen by comparing to the gridwatch UK equivalent.
No, we built a simple traffic light on top of it. [Red/Amber/Green] to indicate how much electricity is wind generated, and so if its a good time to charge your electric car, etc..
Most grid operators have displays like that. The California ISO has one.[1] PJM's is the most elaborate; search for "eData Guest view" to view it. It's too much information at first, but click on the "Big Picture" tab, then change one of the smaller panes to "Wind", and one to "Load", and you can see current load and how much wind power is contributing. Note the 5:1 variation in wind power over a day, across most of the northeastern US. "LMPs" shows the wholesale price of electricity at various points in the system. (It costs money to transmit power, so it's not the same everywhere.)
You can view the PJM's network issues by clicking on "Constraints" or "Emergencies". Typical message today: "As of 17:10 on 11.20.2015 a Post Contingency Local Load Relief Warning to maintain WARD 115 KV at 106 KV in the PN area has been issued for Transmission Contingency Control. Additional Comments: Pre-contingency voltage too high for caps at Mansfield and Niles Valley" Minor problem, already handled. If you really want to understand all this, PJM has lots of training materials. Start with "PJM 101".[2] Anyone running a big network or "cloud" may find it useful to see how a very large power grid is run. The main control room in Valley Forge, PA usually has less than 10 people.[3]
It's a neat tool however please keep in mind that Spain is actually a very big importer of energy.
Earlier this year a major construction project has ended: a double 65km tunnel below the pyrenean of 1000MW capacity. It doubled the previous existing capacity.[1]
Spain is a very large importer of energy, ENTSOE data for October is 525GWh FR->ES [2] Since the energy mix of France is roughly 75% Nuclear, in reality Spain relies much heavily on nuclear than what is displayed.
Based on ENTSOE data, Fraunhoffer built another very nice data visualisation of import/export of electricity between Germany and its neighbours [3]
European electricity networks are very tightly interconnected, and although I don't have a source at hand, I remember being told that preventing a domino effect between countries has been a massive feat of engineering. Basically, the fear of every energy provider/network is something similar to the blackout that happenned in northern america in 2003[4]
As a side note does anyone know what "balearic exchange" refers to? I guess something the Baleares islands, but my google-fu failed me
Spain is a net exporter of electricity; its net exports were 3406 GWh in 2014 (vs. total consumption of 243,530 GWh). It imported 5963 GWh from France and sent 2395 GWh back; For Portugal it was 6345 GWh imported vs. 7247 exported, and there was an exportation of 5839 GWh to Morroco (vs. 3 GWh of importation).
Exports and Imports vary depending on the season. From January to April, when the most hydro power is produced, Spain is a net exporter to France and a net importer from Portugal. The rest of the year, the balance is mostly reversed. The export to Morroco is roughly stable all year.
In 2014, Spain's nuclear power plants produced 57,376 GWh. Assuming all energy imported from France (5963 GWh) was from nuclear plants, that would add 10.4% to nuclear-source electricity, for a total of 63,339 GWh, or 26% of consumption (vs. 23.6% if you don't count French imports).
The HVDC line between the mainland and Mallorca is used to send power to the Balearic Islands (the big ones being Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza). There's already a Mallorca-Menorca line, and they plan on building one to Ibiza.
Select "alle Quellen" on the left side to get a finer breakdown and then "Import Saldo" on the top right for adjustment for imported or exported power.
Oh, didn't realise since I'm in GMT+1 (actually, I'm in Spain, but well.) In any case, solar is pretty visible with the color choice and, well, it's actual presence.
Interesting that Hydro is dropping to almost zero at times. I would have though at least some of it would be always going to maintain flow of rivers etc.
It's possible that this is pumped storage. A lot of hydro stations are demand-based, they're used to compensate for renewables. So in the graph I would interpret that as the reservoirs being refilled during periods of low demand (the amount of electricity this takes is a lot). From the official REE graph it looks like pumping usually takes place overnight and is powered by nuclear.
You can just bypass the turbines to maintain the flow you want. That's one big advantages of Hydro: whether you have a run-of-the-river or a reservoir plant, you can adjust your power output to the demand very quickly.
wiki says they're using superheated water for storage, lasting 30mins and the salts are under consideration - sounds like a serious improvement, do you have more info?
The scheme includes energy generated from waste, biomass, hydro, wind, solar and co-generation. Since hydro, wind, solar have their own categories, that part of the graph would correspond to waste, biomass and co-generation.
I agree it's neat, but I dislike that the plot legend has the text at an angle with poor contrast and in the "wrong" order compared to the plot colors. I'd also like a better color scheme with more distinct colors. I'm also not s fan of fading out the colors with time.