Why so many Red Days???

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Those on the Tempo tariff may have noticed that over the past 15 days, 11 have been on red rate. Now, normally EDF opt for a red day when it is really, really cold. OK, we've had some frost, but we've hardly had a great freeze, so what is going on?

I've had two suggestions:

1) That the soothsayers in EDF have devined that this is, in fact, as cold as it is going to get and are just using the red days up, or;

2) That the snow conditions in the Alps have been so dire that vast amounts of power are being diverted to the hills to run thousands and thousands snow cannons to try and keep the slopes usable. Each cannon draws about 30kw, so EDF have had to find some hundreds of megawatts to keep the eco-terrorism that is the ski industry running.

Can anyone confirm either of these hypothysis or offer an alternative. I did all the laundry yesterday, so I'm not under pressure for clean socks, but I would quite like to know what is going down.

[Vindolanda]

More likely the first option. No odds on what Tuesday will be.

 

 

[5-element]

Tomorrow is red again - this means that there will be only THREE red days to come before the end of March, which is the permissible deadline for red days.

Mr. Riff-Raff, my alternative explanation is as follows:

 EDF (whose main purpose is not humanitarian, but to fill their coffers) tries to hit their Tempo customers on days when they will most obliged to use electricity. In  previous winters, this has co-incided, of course, with very cold spells. Remember that red days, all 21 of them, have to be picked between 1 November and the end of March, then there has to be a lot of speculation about WHEN red days are going to be most profitable for EDF... i.e. crystal ball gazing, and long term weather forecast.

IF they used all their 21 red days early on in the winter, they might miss the chance of making a few bob during, say, February, or even a late cold spell in March.

However, last winter was mild. "They" had waited for the cold spell that never came. So in the end, the remaining red days were almost haphazard, not on days where much power was being consumed.

This winter, it looks faintly similar. So, rather than wait until March for the few red days left, EDF decided to have 10 red days in a row - i.e., five last week, one day after the other, and maybe the same this week - which co-incides with the children being on holiday, i.e. at home, and needing to do their thing, which is more than likely to involve energy consumption.

So I now believe that this last spate of red days has to do with school holidays. They gave up with the possibility that there might be another cold spell before the end of March....

sorry this turned out rather long-winded....

[Suze01]

[quote user="5-element"]...

and maybe the same this week - which co-incides with the children being on holiday, i.e. at home, and needing to do their thing, which is more than likely to involve energy consumption.

[/quote]

Not all kids are on holiday yet.  Zone C doesn't start until next week.

Glad I got nearly all my washing done on Sunday though.