BP’s Morven Wind Farm At Risk Of Missing Start Date
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
A lengthening queue for grid connection could scupper plans to provide energy for three million homes from a development in the North Sea by the end of the decade
These two paragraphs introduce the article.
One of the largest wind farms in the UK risks missing its 2030 target to start generating power, due to lengthy grid connection queues and supply chain shortages.
The Morven Wind Farm being developed by BP, which is to be located 38 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, will have capacity of 2.9 gigawatts, which is expected to be capable of powering three million homes in Britain.
The delays in getting a grid connection and obtaining various electrical parts could derail BP’s plans.
The Morven wind farm is one of three being developed by a partnership of BP and a German company, which is outlined in this paragraph.
Morven is one of three UK wind farms being built by BP in a joint venture with Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW), the German energy company. The other two, Mona and Morgan, are being developed in the Irish Sea and have already secured grid connections.
These are my thoughts on the problems with the Morven Wind Farm.
Everybody is assuming that there will be a large cable to bring the 2.9 GW of electricity to the Scottish coast somewhere near Aberdeen.
Cables can be a problem as the article indicates, with connection to the grid and the erection of large numbers of pylons being major ones.
But the energy from Morven doesn’t necessarily need to go to Scotland.
It can be converted into hydrogen using an offshore electrolyser and sent to where it is needed by pipeline or a tanker ship.
I have also noted that BP’s partners are German and Germany has a massive need for zero-carbon energy to replace the large amount of coal they burn.
The Germans are building a massive pipeline called AquaVentus, from their North-West coast to the Dogger Bank, to collect hydrogen created by up to 10 GW of offshore wind farms in the German Ocean or their part of the North Sea to the shore.
I introduced AquaVentus in this post called AquaVentus.
This video shows the structure of AquaVentus.
I clipped this map from the video.
Note.
- The thick white line running North-West/South-East is the spine of AquaVentus, that will deliver hydrogen to Germany.
- There is a link to Esbjerg in Denmark, that is marked DK.
- There appears to be an undeveloped link to Norway, which goes North,
- There appears to be an undeveloped link to Peterhead in Scotland, that is marked UK.
- There appears to be a link to just North of the Humber in England, that is marked UK.
- Just North of the Humber are the two massive gas storage sites of Aldbrough owned by SSE and Brough owned by Centrica.
- Aldbrough and Rough gas storage sites are being converted into two of the largest hydrogen storage sites in the world!
- There appear to be small ships sailing up and down the East Coast of the UK. Are these small coastal tankers, that are distributing the hydrogen to where it is needed?
When it is completed, AquaVentus will be a very comprehensive hydrogen network.
- Pipelines from Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands and the UK will feed directly into AquaVentus.
- Will enBW and BP build a giant offshore electrolyser at Morven and send the hydrogen to Germany via the spine of AquaVentus?
- Will AquaVentus use the vast hydrogen storage North of Hull to store excess hydrogen?
- Will connections be built between AquaVentus and the UK’s Northern gas terminals at St Fergus and Easington?
If AquaVentus works as intended, Germany’s Russian gas will be replaced by zero-carbon hydrogen, a large proportion of which will come from the UK’s waters.
Where Will We Get Our Electricity From?
If the energy from Morven is sold to the Germans as hydrogen, where will we get the energy we need?
Morven is just one of several large wind farms and being developed around the North of Scotland and we’ll probably use the energy from another wind farm.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to the grid, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to one or more of the large Scottish pumped storage hydro-electric power-stations, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to Germany as hydrogen, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to Scotland or another country as hydrogen, will do so.
The hydrogen will get distributed to those who need it and can pay the appropriate price.
Where Will The Turbines And the Electrical Gubbins Come From?
I’m sure that if Morven was sending a couple of GW of hydrogen to Germany, Siemens could build the turbines and the associated electrical gubbins needed at a favourable price, with an acceptable delivery date.
Conclusion
Germany will likely be pleased, in that they will be able to close a lot of very dirty coal-fired power stations, by replacing coal with green hydrogen.
The UK should be pleased, as the Germans will pay us for the hydrogen.
As for Putin, who knows, what the mad Russian will do?
The Anonymous Widower 
BPs issues is just the tip of the iceberg and mad Millibrain launching us headlong too fast into decarbonisation is just going drive up the costs even more for buying the kit and hiring the vessels to install offshore windfarms. Thus there has to be merit now in considering the solution you describe above.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | November 25, 2024 |
In November 2023, Claire Coutinho and her German opposite number ; Robert Habeck had a meeting in Downing Street about energy security.
At the time the Germans were trying to source hydrogen from places like Australia, Dubai and Namibia, but that all seems to have gone quiet. The Houthis didn’t help.
The notes of the Downing Street meeting are on the web and talk about hydrogen and energy security.
Soon after the meeting, Vattenfall sold 4.2 GW of wind farms, they were developing North-East of Yarmouth to the German energy company; RWE, who are the UK’s biggest electricity generator. RWE also took out a lease for a 3 GW wind farm at Dogger Bank South.
Both the Yarmouth and Dogger Bank South wind farms are in UK waters, but close enough to be connected by pipeline to AquaVentus.
The Germans are certainly throwing their cash into the UK areas of the North Sea and turning it into a German Ocean, but at a price that must have been acceptable to Miss Coutinho.
Comment by AnonW | November 25, 2024 |
HMG has to throw headlong money at getting energy independence. We are going to have massive fuel poverty, deaths by hypothermia, etc, if they do not. Money pit HS2 should be shelved using the money for the obvious priority.
HMG are looking at hydrogen storage in exhausted natural gas fields. So we are sensibly keeping the gas network.
If Trump puts tariffs on Chinese imports it helps the UK in wind/solar/battery procurement.
Comment by John | November 25, 2024 |
Energy independence is important but rushing at it just benefits overseas companies not British ones. Not one wind nacelle is made in the UK all come from Germany, Denmark or China now. Yes Siemens make blades in Hull which are very clever in what they do but manufacturing them isn’t a well paid engineering job. Nearly 2/3rds of the HV electrical equipment is imported now. There is some cable manufacturing and some expansion in that so one positive. Then we have heavy lift sea vessels not one is owned but UK mainly Dutch all we get is trawlers converted to watch vessels. We never leveraged our N.Sea capability because all govts have failed to maximise local content as part of getting subsidies.
Pushing the deadline to 2035 and requiring increased local content was a sensible strategy and us emitting a bit more CO2 would have made no difference against the worlds major emitters but from it we may have had an opportunity to support other countries.
Comment by Nicholas Lewis | November 26, 2024
We UK needs to tackle fuel poverty ASAP, like yesterday. It does not matter where the equipment comes from.
Comment by John | November 27, 2024 |