Following Twitter’s restrictions on API usage there will now be significantly fewer tweets than before, going to under 50/day across the 9 accounts. The new schedule is below, explaining the hours of generation referred to by each tweet.
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7:05 - Overnight (22:00-7:00) Generation
9:30 - Forecast tweet (Wind Only)
11:20 - Daily Chart -
Jan 1st - Previous Year
1st Feb-Dec - Previous Month
Mondays - Previous Week
All other Days - Previous Day12:05 - Morning (7:00-12:00) Generation
(Skipped on 2nd &16th of month)17:05 - Afternoon (12:00-17:00) Generation
(Skipped on 2nd &16th of month)22:05- Evening (17:00-22:00) Generation
2nd & 16th of month
12:05 - Trend Chart
2nd - Last 7 years
16th - Last 3 years17:05 - Day (7:00-17:00) Generation
The Mastodon account will remain unchanged and still provide hourly updates and the full array of charts that were previously on Twitter.
A list of all accounts and both Mastodon/Twitter schedules can be found here: https://andylawton.com/gb-grid
Future of the accounts
I’ve mentioned previously that Twitter’s API changes and their handling of them have demotivated me in terms of the development of these accounts, but while I can still justify the costs of maintaining the accounts I have no intention of shutting them down.
There are upcoming changes to the energy data feeds API and a decommissioning of the existing one. I fully intend to keep everything maintained to make use of the new data feeds.
Possible improvements
Embedded Wind - There is ~6.5GW of embedded wind that is currently not included in any of the accounts figures, the National Grid does now provide estimates and forecasts of this generation. In the future, I’d like to combine these with the metered figures.
Solar - The Sheffield Solar project has helped significantly in providing a fuller picture of grid energy sources. Their work with the National Grid means the national grid now provides this data themselves, I will probably switch to their data sources. A days ahead forecast, similar to the one on the Wind accounts is also planned.
Combined Grid Account - While the accounts are at the tweet cap (47/50 a day), treating this account as a new app should be possible. This would be a new single account showing statistics of the grid as a whole.
If anyone has suggestions for other improvements to this suite of accounts or what you’d like to see on a combined account, feel free to get in touch and let me know via this website or social media. Though I make no promises on any future changes.
Support these accounts
The servers running these accounts and storing the data costs money, while I intend to keep the accounts running regardless, any support towards these costs will be greatly appreciated.
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