Graph of the Day: Half-time and hydration breaks lift grid demand in England and Norway World Cup game

The grid operators appeared to be well prepared and just as well – it seems that the so-called hydration breaks and half time breaks caused significant increases in demand in England, and Norway, as football fans raced for their kettles to may a cup of tea or coffee.

Such boosts in grid demand in major sporting events are not uncommon, but have been keenly watched in England because of the scale of interest as their football team seeks to win the World Cup for the first time since 1966.

On Saturday night, UK time, England lined up against Norway, a close match that went to extra time before England sealed the winner.

The most detailed chart came from an Oxford student and energy market analyst Alex Albinski, who posted it on LinkedIn, noting that demand was already higher than usual – million and millions of TV sets in use – and there were surges in demand of up to 290 megawatts (MW), which came in the first hydration break.

Half time saw a surge of 269 MW, and the second half hydration break a smaller surge of 119 MW (it was getting late in England).

Albinksi says he pulled the demand data from the National Energy System Operator every minute, synced to match moments.

“The biggest peak happened just before extra-time started, as people grabbed a drink. A +612 MW jump against the underlying trend, roughly a mid-sized power station’s worth.”

That was confirmed in a separate post from NESO, which not only noted the changes in demand at the various breaks, and full time (which signalled another break before extra time), but also in Norway. See charts below.

“In Norway, after kick-off, demand had fallen by 2.9% by half-time. 🇬🇧 In GB, demand dropped by 2.8%. Maybe our habits aren’t so different? 🚣,” NESO wrote in its post.

One energy analyst commented that Norway had also sold 1.4 Gigawatts throughout the match, enough to power between 10 and 20 million TVs.

NESO is expecting more demand fluctuations on Wednesday night (UK time), when England face Argentina in the semi-final. “May the best team win on Wednesday… unless it’s Argentina. No hard feelings. 🤭”

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