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Darling, leave a light on for me
The National Grid has told Al Gore and the Live Earth organisers that they can't request people go and switch off their lights for a symbolic moment during the concert because, erm, they don't know what would happen:
A National Grid spokesman said they were "keen" for another symbolic idea.
"The organisers had this idea and behaved responsibly by discussing it with us," he said.
"We are used to dealing with surges in demand, as it happens every day around certain TV programmes.
"But it's very difficult to forecast exactly what would happen in terms of demand. We would have had no idea how small or large it would be."
"The organisers had this idea and behaved responsibly by discussing it with us," he said.
"We are used to dealing with surges in demand, as it happens every day around certain TV programmes.
"But it's very difficult to forecast exactly what would happen in terms of demand. We would have had no idea how small or large it would be."
We're sure that's what they're worried about, and not the thought that people switching off their electrical items for five minutes would cost them and other electricity companies hundreds of thousands of pounds of lost revenue if multiplied by hundreds of thousands people.
We'd like to suggest a symbolic idea for Al, though: How about we all turn our televisions off when Madonna comes on stage?
4 comments:
To be (slightly) fair to them, I suppose if everybody turns their lights off at the same time, they'll all turn them back on at the same time too. I'm no electrician though.
for some reason the only surge i can imagine is that simultaneous exclamation from parents up and down the country of "don't you touch that bloody light switch!"
Do they really have no idea what would happen if millions of people switched off an electrical appliance simultaneously?
Couldn't they just check what happens when Grease Is The Word starts?
Of course, they could arrange the mass switch off to happen during the day, minimising the effect. OK, so it's a poorly thought through idea, of little practical benefit, but that doesn't seem to have out off anyone else involved in this event...
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