Britain's largest battery is actually a lake
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- čas přidán 4. 11. 2018
- Dinorwig Power Station, otherwise known as Electric Mountain, is a pumped-storage hydro station in Llanberis, Wales. And yes: it's Britain's largest battery. Here's how it works, and why some of the things you think you know about TV pickups might not be so true any more.
Thanks to all the Engie team! More about them: www.engie.com/
Camera op: Ryan Priestnall
Editor: Michelle Martin (@mrsmmartin)
I'm at tomscott.com
on Twitter at / tomscott
on Facebook at / tomscott
and on Instagram as tomscottgo
"...this rainy bit of Wales". Well, that narrows it down a little. :P
Just thought I'd mention, it's just north of Snowdonia. Dinorwig neighbours to the North of Snowdon. (You can actually see it from Snowdon if you take the path from Llanberis.)
I mention this here because Snowdonia is *a rainy bit of Wales* compared to the rest XD
It's not as if Wales is that large
@@batt3ryac1d It covers an area about the size of Wales
As a resident of Wales, I can confirm @@Timpilgrim's statement to be accurate.
There are two bits of Wales - the rainy bit and the bit that's about to be rainy.
This is one of my favorite channels on CZcams
I was not expecting to see you here.
Robby baby
hello there rob
Why is Rob Scallon here?
Guess this is just a great channel
I know right! He's awesome!
'a swimming pool every second'
I thought that's US customary unit, never knew British also use it!
We don't usually. It's normally the double decker bus or the blue whale
@@warren1134 Or the volume of a football stadium
The Olympic sized swimming pool is a US unit, not a swimming pool
Actually we use Olympic Swimming Pools. They're almost the same but they're defined in terms of Football Fields to make the conversion easier.
@@warren1134
Or Wales. We used to dabble with the Belgium as a unit of area but that's subsided post-Brexit.
Electric Mountain sounds like the name of a place in a Pokémon game.
Sounds like a landmark name in a kid's Minecraft city
Sounds like an attraction at a theme park
Or some place in Middle Earth to avoid
Reminds me of Eddy Grant song ;)
There is Blush Mountain from Sun, Moon, and their Ultra variants, which has a power plant, does that count?
Ha, I saw the email "Britain's largest battery is actually a lake" and I knew it was going to be this!
I worked there for a while, feels like some kind of bond lair.
How do you work at these sort of things?
probably by having a related job and working for that specific company, if it is owned by one
Why couldnt they use gravity to pump the water back into the top and basically have free energy??
at BitcoinJake09 Beceause gravity only brings things closer, it can’t repel things away.
Yeah, I've been in there on the tourist tour, also been in Cruachan Power Station in Scotland, well worth visiting one of these if in the area. Very cool places.
Electric Mountain just sounds like a Disney ride.
Disney call the people who think up their rides Imagineers. They have nothing on the imagination of the engineering geniuses who imagined and brought this to actual reality.
Or a 70s band name.
Or a Sleep song name
Electric mountain 2: Electric boogaloo
Could be a scifi/horror movie
I was in charge of removing the last major bit of rock (in the draft tube valve gallery for those of a technical bent) in 1979 as a student engineer. Amazing place and even more awe inspiring when it was an empty hole with no machinery!
Was it interesting see it full of machinery when you had already seen it empty?
a student engineer put in charge of removing a giant piece of rock? some ballsy employers
@@JBG-AjaxzeMedia not really. The miners were very skilled and did most of the work. I just marked out the centre line, level line and they knew the blast pattern. Some blasts weren’t very accurate anyway as the rock (slate) varied in hardness, so you had to go back and take a bit more out anyway. Putting stuff in (concrete, steel, machinery) was much trickier!
Amazing job you have sir :)
wow really?
you are really lucky.
When 'Engie' was under that guy's name, I thought that was Tom's pet name for an engineer.
Same, I went “ahaha engie-neer”
@@dothmotherknowyouwearth tf2 intensifies
@@qaday123 BUM BUM BUM
[MEET THE ENGINEER]
Same
It's a world-wide company hahaha! I worked for them! :D
Fun fact, Dinorwig is so powerful that it can perform a "black start". In other words, it can bump start the *entire* UK National Grid.
That is no small feat, very impressive. I know some of the big outages they had in the states in the 80's took days to get everything back in order.
Wow for real looks big but didn’t think it was that big
Wow
@@mnikhk During a black start only the powerstations are being fed electricity. So you don't need all that much power output, but the problem is that you do need that power output. That is the chicken-and-egg problem of starting a power plant. You need power to start the power plant before the power plant produces any power.
Hydro is often used to provide the black start capability to electricity grids, because starting it up can be as easy as opening a (very big) valve and it can ramp up to full output quickly. So this plant and others like it provide the power to start other, bigger, plants like natural gas, and then finally big coal plants. As the power output from all of them slowly ramp up the power is then diverted to the actual consumers in the grid and area by area power comes back on.
It's not so much the power output, it's the ability to start outputing power at the correct frequency without having the grid to synchronize to.
I remember begrudgingly going on a geography field trip with my school to this place, back in the mid 90s. And now, here I am, over 20 years later, watching a CZcams video about the same thing, willingly and happily.
I did that too in 2006. I found it awesome at the time
You weren't ready
Field Trip = no lessons* for the day. This = almost a whole lesson still left plus the rest of the day.
*trip write-up no included
yeah, kids are literally stupid. I remember I absolutely hated learning in school and now all I do for fun is learn about things. Every day is filled with regret over the countless opportunities for education I let slip by me. But that's life for ya, you don't know what you have until it's gone.
20 years ago I couldn't even spell teacher. Now I are one!
As a costarican (my country produces 90% of electricity by dams) i cannot imagine pumping up a reservoir just to cover on demand peaks, but as an engineer, I'm way more impressed of stopping such a huge flow of water in 10-30 seconds. The guys who designed the relief valves and system surely had the most funny and stressful job of the project.
Not all countries are "energy rich". Where I live we also use pumped storage energy to help us cope with peak demands.
I mean, tbf most major European nations could happily have dirt cheap electricity available in huge quantites but that wouldnt help with climate change.
I dont want to be rude but you guys have like 3 hydroelectric dams....
I live in Quebec, we produce so much damn hydroelectricity we could pull the plug on half of new york if we wanted. It's also state owned so we have the cheapest electricity in north america and everyone profits. We got 681 dams
@@thejumper7282 it’s a small country to be fair.
Hydroelectricity is genuinely such a phenomenal invention. Here in Quebec, the entire province runs on hydro, powered by the St. Laurence river for major areas like Montreal and surrounding suburbs.
you forget the james bay dam as well ... most of that power is sent to quebec ... yet it sits in Ontario ...
Is that the reason the river is so low, now?
"How can a youtube video have this much production?" Is what i ask myself everytime i see a Tom Scott video.
If you want insane levels of production, watch Captain Disillusion.
@@em.1633 oh, i wanted to say the same words, but you typed them 21 hours ago
@@em.1633 Captain Disillusion Is Great, One of the best about Visual FX and his videos takes a lot of effort and skills that nobody have (except the professionals). But people like Tom bring us very High quality video where the "video" itself Is just a little part of the job. Overall there is more on a Tom's content than on a Captain one. But this is not critic to Captain, simply they have different targets.
kurzgesagt has some videos with more then 1000 hours put into them.
Rosida Andriyana alright go back to jake paul’s channel
UNESCO has chosen Thomas Scott of Britania as a World Heritage Site, congrats
I saw your comment in some music video too.
I saw the title: Britain's Largest Battery Is Actually A Cake.
Have to say I did a double take.
Always has been.
so...the cake was a lie?
cake is a great battery, you store energy while cooking and get it back while eating
🎂
Don't you mean you did a double cake?
Thank you, Tom! I watched this video just a week before my Advanced Human Geography paper for CIE A Level and one of the questions I was given in that paper was: "‘Producing energy from renewable resources is not the answer to meeting energy demand.’ How far do you agree?". I mentioned this lake as one of the case studies to support my argument. I got an A grade in Geography and I got my best mark from this paper.
I love it when someone speaks off the cuff in a way that's articulate, efficient, and describes their point well. I loved this video, Kevin did a brilliant job explaining it.
You see it a lot in these videos, the guests are always very well selected!
Niagara Falls has something kind of like this, only they don't need to use pumps to fill it. They have large reservoirs, and and night they divert water from upstream into the reservoir, which they can draw down during the day. This helps with higher daytime electrical usage needs, but also helps with daytime tourists, as they don't want to divert so much of Niagara Falls to use for electricity that it disappoints tourists.
funny where i seem to bump into woodworking youtubers!
Lots of us are nerds as well as woodworkers... ;-)
Wordsnwood (Art Mulder) there was a proposal to build a system similar to the Niagara falls one in the Scottish Highlands but it was Lobbied out of existence by people concerned it would spoil the view for tourists, the same way every big renewable energy plan is
I live an hour away and never knew this! Thanks!
Wordsnwood (Art Mulder) of course! People find it very hard to believe that they are able to divert the water entirely, completely draining Niagara Falls, and it’s completely true! They’ve done it before and there’s talk of them doing it again.
Seeing that massive lever lifting as if weightless honestly gave me chills
Are you not ready to prove you’re worthy?
it gave me an erection
>Electric Mountain
>Hats labeled "Engie"
_More Gun intensifies_
You're surprised that people in Wales label things in Welsh?
@@gwishart it's a reference to tf2
@@gwishart engie is a french company, it has nothing to do with the welsh language mate.
The sound of engies turtling intensifies.
Tf2
I have a ton of potential energy. If only I used it for anything.
Relatable.
NoT hOw PoTeNtIaL eNeRgY wOrKs LiKe BuT oK.
You aren't my teacher anymore Mr. Dolan!
No fap November. There’s a lot of “potential energy” you’re not the only one
@@tykuresa22 if only there was a way to harness all that potential energy going to waste this november
I had heard of water hammer, I had also heard of hydroelectric batteries before, but I never thought about the challenges that the combination of those two would pose...
Anyways, truly fascinating!
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The lake is just for show, the real power source is the Balrog :-)
That's what I was looking for
YOU SHALL NOT.... wait buddy can u heat up my pool?
nah thats just joking, we all know the real power source is within ourselves
@@gloriascientiae7435 What are you? A proffessional Motivator ^^
The real power source was the friends we made along the way.
I visited there around 25 years ago for GCSE Geography! One of the facts I still remember about the place is that the main turbine/pump room is so big, that you could fit the entirety of St Paul's Cathedral inside it. Bearing in mind it's underground, inside a mountain, that's one massive manmade cave.
If this video has piqued your interest in water hammer and how, in large systems like this especially, it needs to be mitigated there's an amazing video by Grady on the youtube channel Practical Engineering that is wonderfully informative!
I was going to mention Grady myself, his video on the topic is indeed interesting and was my introduction to the concept as well.
@@Weetile Considering Tom has published a guest video by Brady before I'd say it's relevant.
@@Weetile Doesn't hurt. Grady's channel is Super Super educational and Thomas isn't someone that doesn't want to educate the masses.
Weetile Independent recommendations aren't "advertising"...
@@Weetile what's wrong with directing people to other useful, educational videos?
Especially when the audience is already interested in such things?
I went there for a school trip just after it opened, and thought it was awesome. Still do.
They probably said when I went but its been a couple years. When did it open?
@@hannahlack1061 Wikipedia says 1984. I visited sometime 87 to 89, not quite sure. It was still shiny and new then, anyway.
This has to be the immediate way to solve the intermittency problem of windmills and solar. It's easily understood, and notwithstanding the enormous engineering challenges (which are at least well understood) it's do-able right now.
Scotland and Wales surely have a lot of potential here to boost their economies.
if you want to learn more about Water Hammer I would recommend watching Grady's video on Practical Engineering called "What is Water Hammer?"
The sound at 2:43 is really cool. It sounds like it's straight out of a sci-fi movie or something.
Then you never worked with machines. Or lived near one
To whoever wondering; when I was there they told me the reason it’s underground is because it is in Snowdonia national park, which means they have to build in a way so it won’t take away the beauty from the area. The solution was to dug it down, and it is the largest underground space made by mankind. The largest hole, or space if you will, inside the mountain can fit Salisbury Cathedral in it!
The Salisbury cathedral with its world-famous 123 metre spire?!
Nearly all the large powerstation in Norway is built the same way.
I hear the Russians love it this time of year.
Most of the hole was already there, since they built it in a quarry.
@@ThePavoReality Well everybody knows that now, so I guess it's famous?
I've known about this for years but it's Tom Scott so I guess I'm here for the next 4 minutes
I went here a couple of years ago and the sheer size of the place amazed me. The valves are absolutely enourmous and to think they can move so fast at a moments notice is incredible.
For the Scottish viewers wanting to visit such a place there is Cruachan Power Station, Lochawe, Dalmally PA33 1AN
Ed R its also home to a pine martin, and a pair of ospreys. So another reason to visit
That is a proper power station though, not just a Peak Load Balance Station like Dinorwig is. It is a damn sight bigger too. Neither of them are batteries though.
"It's not rain, it's a battery charger" - British saying
"Lovely weather we're having" -British saying, Facetious.
2MW wireless charger.
Hell yeah, huge battery, and kind of never degrades as long as you maintain the mechanicals and the water level.
And all in a country a load of people dunno abt
Erosion?
You could say the same for your car battery if you kept topping up the acid.
All electrical systems - no matter whether connected to the National Grid or independent require regular expert mechanical maintenance (or do you think nuclear power stations, solar panel farms, and wind turbines look after themselves?)
As for the water level - it's Wales!
I don't think I've ever visited Wales and it's not rained at least one point in the day. Considering it's described as 'a rainy bit' of Wales, I should guess that it is one of those regions of the British Isles that receives a peculiarly high degree of rainfall (like Eskdalemuir in Scotland and practically all of Ireland.
It's quite probable that, unless climate change really makes significant changes to the British climate on a permanent scale (ie, we turn into a desert or frozen tundra), then I think we can be fairly sure that the liquid water level in this particular 'battery' will be just fine.
Also, I'll be surprised if the water in the lake used in this battery is not more, much much more than required for daily operations. I doubt very much that the lake drains completely with each manoeuvre. So, more than enough water.
Also, don't be such a downer. You sound like my son, for goodness sake. Think about your mum and dad for a moment and how it feels for them to hear you being so negative about nothing at all. It drives us mad.
next episode : Germany's Fastest Fan Is Actually A Microwave.
I dont think there's ever been a "things you might not know" that i do know
Electric Mountain would be a good name for a British power metal band.
It's the name a festival in the Alps for electronic music, but metal sounds nice :P
I am so grateful for the works of all of the engineers and workers there. So glad we have you
Went on a school trip here years ago and was fascinated by the simplicity of the operation. When an idea just works!
If you find a Balrog down there, remember to hook it up to a geo-thermal generator for added power.
Balrog from a common person perspective: Run away, is a demon!
Balrog from an engineering perspective: And now, we connect the Balrog-1 thermal generator to the grid. Clean energy at a little cost. Nice!
Gosh engineers are flipping clever
*flipping*
Never get bored of this - been a number of times and will return once it opens again in 2019 - always fascinates me. Thank you for giving me another insight into its workings!
Anyone else hear of this through Citation Needed...gotta love learning things from every Tom Scott series. Anyways, great video, and an amazing power storage system.
Next week's episode:
Britain's largest lake is actually a battery
Tom Hadler ahaha
@@herlinjm Not if you can't turn it into electricity "just by flicking a switch"
@@herlinjm The lake is an accumulator ("An accumulator is an energy storage device: a device which accepts energy, stores energy, and releases energy as needed"). I'm not sure your water bottle and your saliva are.
I was expecting a huge hole filled with acid.
I'm a bit underwhelmed.
Cool bilingual safety signs, though.
Benoit Bvg what is the top language?
@@demawoods2679, Welsh. Things in Wales tend to be dual language.
@@demawoods2679 Welsh/Gaelic i presume.
@@benoitbvg2888 Welsh is not a Gaelic language. The Gaelic languages are Irish, Scots Gaelic, and Manx. Welsh is a cousin: the other side of the Celtic family, along with Breton and Cornish.
I was expecting a lake with metal on the sides and an electrolyte liquid in the lake
I remember when I was 6 my dad took me here when we were on holiday and I remember how amazed I was because I had no idea this was possible that mountain completely changed my life and got me so interested in engineering it made me become an engineer and amazes me still today.
I've been there and I didnt even realise until a minute in wtf that brought back some old memories
Rain the most British thing ever.
ever been to the netherlands? we have some great rain down here
@@ducttaperd G E K O L O N I S E E R D
but no mountains
@@rollstuhlmeister true true
mgames Z E G M A K K E R
water you on about mate
*ba dum tss!*🥁 😂
*NUTT*
Don’t be such a drip
It is a big "leeky" bucket that makes money .. a Monster liquid asset ;-)
nice wetter we're having, innit?
How the hell are these videos so entertaining. Literally always happy to watch one.
There's something like this in Missouri USA called the Taum Sauk Hydroelectric Power Station. It's used for the same purpose in very nearly the same way. Owned AmerenAE, if I recall. Years ago there was a catastrophic failure of the upper reservoir which caused the devastation of homes and an entire national park. It's an interesting tale.
This an absolutely spectacular video Tom. It is both really cool and really educational. Please never stop making videos like this.
I love these random videos so much! Keep up the good work !
"Random"
One of my favourite channel on CZcams. Thank you
Thanks for this video Tom, you always have a great way of explaining things and me understanding.
I recently started working at an energy company that has diesel engines, gas engines and batteries that also provide fast response for National Grid as well as STOR - seeing this video really made my day as I'm still trying to get to grips with how it all works.
Grady from Practical Engineering has some great videos on Water Hammer!
Ha Denmark's Largest Battery Is Actually Norway.
Sofus :-D !!!
Nice prof pic
@@beatrix1120 Thanks, the little guy has been dead for many years :(
@@Sofus. nice battery, I personally love it.
Sofus
“Norway: the left testicle in the frigid sea penis that is Scandinavia”- John Oliver.
It is north of snowdon and the little town of llanberis. It is also next to the national slate museum if anybody wants to take a look
Very well filmed, on par with a TV show/or better than a news segment
Discovered your channel last week been watching the backlog since. Amazing stuff really interesting
Two Jiggawatts! Great Scott!
1.21
Enough to send you back to the future.
THANK YOU SO MUCH for all the work you have done to educate the masses.
That is truly amazing. Thanks Tom and all involved, I'd never heard of that place.
Electric Mountain... Isnt that where Zapdos is?
@@Weetile The mountain IS a power plant...
I mean
He’s on Mount Thunder in mystery dungeon. Soooo, I guess?
@@KameKame27 zapdos irl confirmed
Power Station
Go back to the depths the underworld trump
As an ENGIE employee myself, was super hyped to see Tom do a piece on Dinorwig! Need to have myself a visit some time...
Your videos are by far some of the best on CZcams. I'm so happy to see your views and subscriptions continue to increase. Keep making videos, please!
You should have your own TV programme. Very informative, well done.
This looks like the coolest place on the planet!! I want to work there!!!
Dang. All it takes is one video to remind how freaking awesome Tom Scott is.
I remember going here as a kid! We were meant to go up mount snowdon that day but the weather didn't allow it and thank god for that! This place was way more awesome than some mountain!
I remember hearing about this place at school. Nice to actually see and hear about it. Thanks!
I've recently watched one of your older videos (The Problem with Renewable Energy (and how we're fixing it)), and the new video fits so seamless to the message of the old video, except for the fact, that you've predicted a completly diffrent solution how we should deal with storage problems and renewable energy.
Anyway, great video, keep going!
*+thegreenmadow* The thing is that it takes minutes for a hydroelectric dam to kick in and start generating power, by which point the grid imbalance would have already tripped breakers and caused issues, which is what the large spinning steel turbines help mitigate.
One possible solution is to have computerised batteries handle the spikes of energy consumption in between the times while the hydroelectric dam valves open or close (which takes time to mitigate the water hammer issue).
Electric Mountain takes like 10-30 seconds to kick in, as per this very video (when I went to visit they said it averages at 18 seconds) and provides power at such a level that its use is easily predicted and accounted for.
I love how you can see how cool Tom feels when he says “Electric Mountain”
Fascinating facility! Thanks Tom!
I wish your videos were longer. I bloody love them.
We used to have a cottage on the other side of this mountain, near Marchlyn Mawr lake.
One time we went for a walk up that way and got kicked out quite quickly by security, I'd imagine the lake can be quite dangerous when the water is being drained.
*+Tom Scott*
Wow Tom, thanks so much for sharing this. I love this stuff. You keep sharing little bits of what keeps our world running and although this is in the U.K.
it's still relevant to other nations of the commonwealth (New Zealand, in this case), and I just love the engineering of such spaces. My dad (deceased) worked on the Roxburgh Dam here in New Zealand and I have visited a lot of hydro projects here. From a time when governments built such places and we, as taxpayers and citizens, were proud of such achievements. Now corporations make money off the back of such efforts and I dread to think what would happen if they were left to give a maximum shareholder return at the lowest price they deem possible. (sigh)
Nice Production , Mr. Scott... Do keep up the good job
A couple years ago we went on holiday in Wales and stayed in Llanberis which is right next to electric mountain. It was a really cool experience in there and the insight came in use when I was studying A level geography.
Honestly the most impressive part of this place is that someone found a use for wales.
*The sun is a deadly laser battery*
Not anymore there’s a blanket
+@@Weetile He's still around.
Weetile What, did you unsubscribe? He's still releasing music regularly
I know it's a quote, but the sun is more akin to a generator than a battery.
You could make a religion out of this...
My God, Scott, your videos are getting outrageous -- in the best possible way. Well done.
I LOVE it! Hats off to this engineering project that I never heard of before!
They do tours through this. I dragged my long suffering partner through it a while back. To me, it's genuinely interesting. Engineering at its finest.
That's a long partner!
@@jahinzee what is a long suffering partner ? is he talking about his pheenis ?
they Did
Wow that's shocking
ba dum tsk
I knew of this system already but have never properly looked into it, really nice to see some of the inner workings.
What I love about this power station, is that for other renewable sources, like wind and solar, they're not always constant, but in north Wales, it's always raining at least three times a week
Surely seven times!
"Great Scott!" - Doc (Back to the Future)
1.21 gigawatts!
I like how Tom referred to a swimming pool as if it were a standard unit of measurement.
Another excellent video... i'd never heard of power stations like this before (well, i'd heard of hydroelectric, but never where it pumps it back up at night)
Tom you're an absolute legend love your videos and the way u explain things so perfectly. Plus you find the most fascinating topics. Love it
If you ever feel useless, hold a minute of silence for all solar panels in Britain.
And aquamans boat and sonics car
You don't need direct uv rays to produce energy, although you can produce a lot more for that matter
0:37
Kevin Dibble
Engie
oh wait never mind I thought that was a misspelling of engineer but then I saw his helmet
Astrobot probably engineer in welsh
@@alyx6427 no its a company
You saw his helmet? CZcams is family friendly.
Fascinating as always.
Dinorwig is such a cool place. It gets bonus points because the National Slate Museum is next door (nowhere near as dull as it sounds, trust me), there are some awesome ruins in the old quarry workings above AND there's a lovely castle on the opposite shore. I could spend hours here. :)
"In a rainy part of Wales" Joke's on you, Tom, all of it's rainy.
Rainy bit of Wales, slight tautology there I should think :p
the setup of exposed piping and heavy machinery, and crude mountain rock, reminds me a bit of TF2 and it's level design.
you know, circa 1970's technology, underground bunkers, missile silos, turbines and control rooms..... hell, you even have Engies
Fascinating stuff! The Dinorwig surge pool can be seen on google maps just down the mountain, to the SW of Marchlyn Mawr