So I was chatting to someone today about the national grid (I am now officially middle-aged) and he told me about the Andy Murray effect that is apparently a known phenomenon to those in energy circles. During the Wimbledon final, no-one was boiling their kettle or cooking or whatever they should be doing at 5:30 which meant a massive overcapacity (from the forecast blue line) and nearly sending the grid into meltdown.
And now you can impress your friends with this fact too.
by uke_warrior
7 comments
This is ace. The favourite one I witnessed was one day working in central Manchester in 2005 ish in a call centre. All new calls suddenly stopped coming in… and then we found out we couldn’t make calls out! Boss starts panicking and emails BT. Turns out Take That tickets going on sale knocked out _all the phone lines_. Boss said we just had to have a little…patience
I wanted Roger Federer to win
I was there on centre court! Never heard the crowd so loud!
Guessing the [mountain full of water](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jx_bJgIFhI) in Wales got quite the workout there
Sadly your friend has over sold the “meltdown” aspect. The grid is balanced aiming for 50Hz, the other line is the ‘best previous day’ so the demand shape can be plotted. The big dips are managed in real time by reducing / increasing plant output. The charts with the system frequency overlaid are much more representative of how well the regular sporting ones are managed. Things such as royal events are much harder to forecast. Doubly now due to renewable generation.
Will never forget that Wank of Glory. A real tear jerker. You could see the relief on Murray’s face as years of pressure and tension were released.
The phenomena is called TV Pickup