Batteries Could Save £195m Annually By Providing Reserve Finds National Grid ESO Trial
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Current News.
The title gives the findings of the Arenko-led trial.
What Is The National Grid Reserve Service?
It’s all about providing capacity for the National Grid Reserve Service, which is described in this Wikipedia entry. This is the introductory paragraph.
To balance the supply and demand of electricity on short timescales, the UK National Grid has contracts in place with generators and large energy users to provide temporary extra power, or reduction in demand. These reserve services are needed if a power station fails for example, or if forecast demand differs from actual demand. National Grid has several classes of reserve services, which in descending order of response time are: Balancing Mechanism (BM) Start-Up, Short-Term Operating Reserve, Demand Management and Fast Reserve.
The Wikipedia entry is very comprehensive.
A Collateral Benefit
This is a paragraph from the article.
Additionally, unlike CCGT plants, batteries do not need to be producing power in order to provide Reserve as they can charge when there is abundant renewable energy on the grid, and then wait to react when needed. As CCGT’s need to be producing power to provide this service, it can led to renewables switched off in favour of the more carbon intensive fossil fuel generation, to ensure Reserve is available if needed.
The article concludes that Reserve from Storage could help National Grid ESO’s reach their target of net-zero operation by 2025.
Could We Replace CCGT Plants With Batteries?
CCGT or combined cycle gas-turbine power plants are efficient ways to turn natural gas into electricity.
- Typical sizes are around 800 MW.
- They are reasonably quick and easy to build.
- As their fuel comes by a pipeline, they don’t need to be connected to the rail network, unlike biomass and coal power plants.
Because they burn methane, they still emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, although levels much less than an equivalent coal-fired power station.
In Energy In North-East Lincolnshire, I described the three Keadby power stations.
- Keadby – In operation – 734 MW
- Keadby 2 – Under construction – 840 MW
- Keadby 3 – In planning – 910 MW
In total, these three power stations will have a capacity of 2484 MW.
By comparison, Hinckley Point C will have a capacity of 3200 MW.
Add Keadby 4 and the four CCGTs would provide more electricity, than Hinckley Point C.
I think it would be very difficult to replace a cluster of CCGT gas-fired power stations or a big nuclear power plant with the sort of batteries being deployed today. 2.5 to 3 GW is just so much electricity!
I do believe though, that instead of building a 3200 MW nuclear power plant, you could build a cluster of four 800 MW CCGTs.
But What About The Carbon Dioxide?
Using the Keadby cluster of CCGTs as an example.
- Keadby 2 and Keadby 3 are being built to be upgraded with carbon-capture technology.
- The HumberZero gas network will take the carbon dioxide away for storage in worked-out gas fields in the North Sea.
- Some carbon dioxide will be fed to salad vegetables and soft fruits in greenhouses, to promote growth.
- Keadby 2 and Keadby 3 are being built to be able to run on hydrogen.
- The HumberZero network will also be able to deliver hydrogen to fuel the power stations.
I’m certain we’ll see some of the next generation of wind turbines delivering their energy from hundreds of miles offshore, in the form of hydrogen by means of a pipe.
The technology is being developed by ITM Power and Ørsted, with the backing of the UK government.
- Redundant gas pipelines can be used, to bring the hydrogen to the shore
- The engineering of piping hydrogen to the shore is well-understood.
- Redundant gas pipelines can be used if they already exist.
- Gas networks can be designed, so that depleted gas fields can be used to store the gas offshore, in times when it is not needed.
But above all gas pipelines cost less than DC electricity links, normally used to connect turbines to the shore.
I can see very complicated, but extremely efficient networks of wind turbines, redundant gas fields and efficient CCGT power stations connected together by gas pipelines, which distribute natural gas, hydrogen and carbon dioxide as appropriate.
Could Offshore Hydrogen Storage And CCGTs Provide The Reserve Power
Consider.
- Using a CCGT power station to provide Reserve Power is well understood.
- Suppose there is a large worked out gasfield, near to the power station, which has been repurposed to be used for hydrogen storage.
- The hydrogen storage is filled using hydrogen created by offshore wind turbines, that have built in electrolysers, like those being developed by ITM Power and Ørsted.
- One of more CCGTs could run as needed using hydrogen from the storage as fuel.
- A CCGT power station running on hydrogen is a zero-carbon power station.
Effectively, there would be a giant battery, that stored offshore wind energy as hydrogen.
I can see why the UK government is helping to fund this development by ITM Power and Ørsted.
Could We See Cradle-To-Grave Design Of Gas Fields?
I suspect that when a gas field is found and the infrastructured is designed it is all about what is best in the short term.
Suppose a gas field is found reasonably close to the shore or in an area like the Humber, Mersey or Tees Estuaries, where a lot of carbon dioxide is produced by industries like steel, glass and chemicals!
Should these assessments be done before any decisions are made about how to bring the gas ashore?
- After being worked out could the gas field be used to store carbon dioxide?
- After being worked out could the gas field be used to store natural gas or hydrogen?
- Is the area round the gas field suitable for building a wind farm?
Only then could a long-term plan be devised for the gas-field and the infrastructure can be designed accordingly.
I suspect that the right design could save a lot of money, as infrastructure was converted for the next phase of its life.
Conclusion
It does appear that a lot of money can be saved.
But my rambling through the calculations shows the following.
Wind Turbines Generating Hydrogen Give Advantages
These are some of the advantages.
- Hydrogen can be transported at less cost.
- Hydrogen is easily stored if you have have a handy worked-out gas field.
- The technology is well-known.
Hydrogen can then be converted back to electricity in a CCGT power station
The CCGT Power Station Operates In A Net-Zero Carbon Manner
There are two ways, the CCGT station can be run.
- On natural gas, with the carbon-dioxide captured for use or storage.
- On hydrogen.
No carbon-dioxide is released to the atmosphere in either mode.
The Hydrogen Storage And The CCGT Power Station Or Stations Is Just A Giant Battery
This may be true, but it’s all proven technology, that can be used as the Power Reserve.
Power Networks Will Get More Complicated
This will be inevitable, but giant batteries from various technologies will make it more reliable.
The Recovery Trial And Coeliac Disease
The Recovery Trial appears to have been a success, with another drug announced to have positive benefits in fighting Covid-19 today.
As a coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet like up to one-in-100 or even 1-in-50, in the UK, I wonder what they have found out about my susceptibility to Covid-19 and how my disease would affect my treatment!
I just typed “coeliac” into the Recovery Trial and I found nothing.
Using Google directly, I didn’t get any matches either.
So I suspect that they know nothing about how coeliacs are affected by Covid-19.
Since 1997, after I was diagnosed at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, I’ve been on a strict long-term gluten-free diet, my health has improved dramatically from what it was for the previous fifty years.
My only major health issue, since 1997, has been a serious stroke in 2010, from which I have made an almost full recovery.
But one cardiologist has told me, that the stroke could have been caused by fifty years of unhealthy eating, that damaged my heart muscle to cause atrial fibrillation.
I have only found one serious peer-reviewed study on coeliac disease and Covid-19 on the Internet.
This paper on the US National Library of Medicine, is from the University of Padua in Italy.
The University followed a group of 138 patients with coeliac disease, who had been on a gluten-free diet for at least six years, through the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Padua.
This sentence, sums up the study.
In this analysis we report a real life “snapshot” of a cohort of CeD patients during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in Italy, all followed in one tertiary centre in a red area of Northern Italy. Our data show, in accordance with Emmi et al., the absolute absence of COVID-19 diagnosis in our population, although 18 subjects experienced flu-like symptoms with only one having undergone naso-pharyngeal swab.
It says that no test subject caught Covid-19, in an admittedly smallish number of patients.
But it reinforces my call for more research into whether if you are a diagnosed coeliac on a long-term gluten-free diet, you have an immune system, that gives you a degree of protection from the Covids.
How Many Patients In The Recovery Trial Are Coeliac?
The Wikipedia entry for The Recovery Trial says this about the numbers of patients.
The trial began in March 2020 and has an estimated duration through June 2021. As of December 2020, the trial had enrolled more than 20,000 COVID-19 participants admitted to hospitals in the UK.
A figure of 1-in-100 is accepted, as an at least figure of the number of coeliacs in the UK population. Some doctors rate it as high as 1-in-50.
So that should mean that somewhere between 200 and 400 of those on the trial were coeliac. But that figure would include those who were both diagnosed and undiagnosed.
I would love to have an answer to my question. But I suspect, that the data is not available.
Another Answer
There could of course be another answer – Diagnosed coeliacs on a long-term gluten-free diet don’t get the virus serious enough to go into hospital.
Afruca: Highview Power Raises $70million For Renewable Energy Storage
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Afrik21.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Highview Power, a company specialising in electricity storage, has just raised 70 million dollars to distribute its solutions in Africa. The funds were raised from Janus Capital, the subsidiary of Janus Continental Group (JCG); Sumitomo Heavy Industries (SHI) and the Spanish group TSK.
It then says that Highview Power is launching the conquest of Africa. In Spanish Govt Approves Energy Storage Strategy, Sees 20 GW In 2030, I said this.
Highview Power’s liquid air systems would be another possibility, but I doubt, they’d perform as well in the heat of Spain, as a system based on hot rocks.
It would appear that Highview Power believe their system can work in the heat of Africa.
- Air is reasonably plentiful in Africa.
- Perhaps, the sun is an ideal low-grade heat source needed to warm up the liquid air, when the power is recovered.
- Highview’s CRYOBattery doesn’t seem to use many exotic difficult-to-source materials.
So it looks like I was wrong to doubt their performance in hot countries.
These last two paragraph say more about Highview’s plans.
According to the company, its system is capable of storing from 20 MW/80 MWh to more than 200 MW/1.2 GWh of electricity generated from renewable sources. This is a real asset for clean energy plants whose operation depends on variations in climatic conditions. JCG believes that its investment will enable the deployment of this solution on the African continent, particularly in the Great Lakes region where large solar and wind energy projects are currently being developed.
“JCG believes in a diversified energy solution for Africa, and technology such as Highview Power’s will facilitate increased use of renewable energy, reducing regional dependence on fossil fuels and bringing accessible energy to underserved communities,” says the conglomerate of companies investing in the energy, hospitality and real estate sectors.
Hopefully by the next time, I get to Manchester, there will be something to see of the 50 MW/250 MWh plant at Carrington.
The Anonymous Widower 