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Last edited 06 Jan 2023

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TV pickup

1 What is TV pick up?
2 High demand
3 Managing demand
4 Demand data
5 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] What is TV pick up?

TV pickup describes a surge in the demand for electrical power that occurs in synchronisation with television transmissions, or breaks in popular transmissions. In simple terms if a popular television transmission has a break at a certain time, a large number of viewers will take the opportunity to do a similar thing, which might be turning a kettle on or opening a fridge. This individual action, with a relatively high but short energy demand, is multiplied by a high number of viewers and causes a spike in the electrical demand on the grid for a short period.

[edit] High demand

The largest ever TV pickup for the UK National Grid is said to have been end of 1990 World Cup semi-final when England lost in a penalty shoot-out against West Germany, which it was reported had 26.2 million viewers. The total TV pickup demand was 2800MW, which at the time was the equivalent to 933,000 kettles being switched on at the same time.

The pressures on the National Grid from the phenomenon of TV pickup have gradually decreased since then and although the World Cup game between England and Colombia in 2018 had only 10% fewer viewers the pickup demand in MW was less than half.

[edit] Managing demand

The reason for the reduction in TV pickup involves a number of different factors, one of which is that viewing habits have changed significantly since 1990 with many more people viewing programmes on other devices and at different times rather than on a television broadcast at the same exact time. The other significant reason is that the National Grid ESO (Electricity System Operator), which is the organisation that moves electricity around the country via the grid, increasingly uses software and prediction tools to plan for and manage electricity on a second by second basis. The suite of tools used to do this are referred to as the Balancing Mechanism, which their website refers to as

"essentially a marketplace for electricity, which allows us to access sources of extra power in real-time. If our forecasts predict high demand, we can keep a number of power stations on reserve, ready to deliver additional electricity if needed. Pumped storage hydroelectric power stations can be particularly useful in this situation, with their reservoirs able to drain quickly and deliver power at short notice."

An example of a non sporting event that the National Grid energy balancing team would have prepared for was the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011, which was watched by 24.5 million people and created a pickup of 1600MW. The team and mechanism would have had to allow for the likely increase in demand at the end of the ceremony but also during breaks or pauses during the programming in which kettles or fridges may be used in unison.

[edit] Demand data

Today the National Grid ESO manage and maintain the National Grid ESO Data Portal which is an Open data platform from Great Britain’s Electricity System Operator. The Data Portal has been built using CKAN (Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network), a leading open-source data management platform, with the intention of providing a clear and intuitive user interface, with navigation and search features as well as rich metadata with each dataset. This offers powerful Application Programming Interfaces (API) for all suitable datasets, on-screen visualisation and data manipulation tools for external users, to support the understanding of the data. For more information and to get involved visit the National Grid ESO Data Portal directly here.

Demand is also reduced at peak times by pricing mechanisms, and their is potential for smart devices to be turned off or down during high demand, such as fridges connected to the internet of things.

However, new peaks are being created by electrical vehicles, with a large number of people arriving home at the same time after work and plugging in vehicles to recharge.