Thread by @FryRsquared

Last week, the lovely folk at National Grid showed me around their amazing underground tunnels.

Lots of pics of the trip over on my Insta, but for you Twitter - the One True Kingdom of the nerds - I've got something much more exciting.

BECAUSE THEY ALSO SHOWED ME THEIR DATA.

@nationalgriduk Okay okay okay. Let's start with a good one.

Ever heard about the electricity surge at the end of a popular tv show as we all stick on the kettle?

It's a uniquely British phenomenon and it's totally true. Here's the Britain's got talent final in 2005 as an example..

@nationalgriduk But so is the opposite. Sometimes there are big drop-offs in power too..

Ready for a game?

@nationalgriduk The yellow line is remembrance Sunday in 1999.

The x axis is time, y axis is power demand.

I'm intrigued to see if you can work out what the other two are. Both, significant national events, where the entire country paused for a brief moment..

Who wants to guess?

@nationalgriduk Answers:

Orange - the solar eclipse in 1999
Red - 3 mins silence for 9/11 in 2001

I know I'm a nerd, but I think there's something quite poignant in that. A story about how deeply moved Britain was, written only in the numbers.

@nationalgriduk Another favourite of mine - here's Christmas day in 2019.

Obviously the uptick at 230am is Father Christmas whizzing around, quickly turning on all the lights when he's leaving the presents. But what about the one at 11am? Anyone wanna guess?

@nationalgriduk It's everyone cooking their turkeys at the same time!

UGH DATA IS SO GOOD

You can't store or quickly create vast amounts of energy, so National Grid has to predict all this in advance.

That requires some beautiful maths & a good bit of luck. Like in the 2012 Andy Murray Wimbledon final.

Seriously, who's gonna be able to correctly predict all that?

This is mainly just me nerding out. Actually, my trip was all because of a new report commissioned by National Grid that shows the UK needs hundreds of thousands of people to help transform the energy system.

(In fact, I got so into it, that the people organising the day had to tell me off for asking too many questions 🤣)

Here's the point: If we're gonna get to Net Zero by 2050, we need a lot more clean energy to power the Uk

More electricity came from zero carbon sources last year than ever.

Brilliant news. But still lots more to do.

(And yes, I hate pie charts too. Lemme have this one, ok?)

It needs massive investment, with 400k jobs to be filled in the coming decades.

So, if you're thinking about a STEM career; if you want to help fight climate change; if you don't want to follow the 40% of Physics graduates into a career in finance, think about the energy sector.

I know it’s a bold ambition, but hey, dream big. One day you too could look this good in an orange boiler suit. 🤘