Didcot Power Plants

Sectional view of a flywheel rotor

An important advantage of the Culham site for the JET facility has been the vicinity of the Didcot Power Plants. This huge enterprise with coal power plant and combined cycle gas power plant, with total installed electric power of 3400 megawatts, is located only some 5 kilometres (3 miles) away from JET.

However, when the UK public’s electricity consumption hits a peak, the National Grid operator can quickly inhibit the pulsed operation of JET in order to prevent overload of its power plants. Our scientists, being naturally very curious people, have tried to find out when these periods of “JET blackouts” are likely to occur. To our surprise, the intervals of TV advertising spots that are broadcast in the middle of highly popular programmes (eg Coronation Street, football finals etc) are common causes of delays in JET’s evening operations. Presumably adverts cause millions of viewers to switch on their kettles all at the same time!