National Grid ESO And Reactive Technologies Launch Flagship Inertia System To Measure Grid Stability
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Current News.
The first three paragraphs explain the project.
National Grid ESO and Reactive Technologies’ flagship grid stability measurement service has launched today, following the construction of the world’s largest continuously operating grid-scale ultracapacitor.
Using Reactive’s GridMetrix technology, the new services will provide instantaneous data to the grid operator, allowing for more efficient management than relying on estimates.
The ultracapacitor – constructed by Spanish technology group Ingeteam – sends pulses through the grid, which act like underwater sound waves used in sonar. These pulses will enable the ESO to measure power system stability.
As a Control and Electrical Engineer, I can just about get my brain around what is happening, but I do feel the explanation could be better.
- There is no mention of the size of the capacitor.
- Capacitors are often used to calm voltages in electrical circuits.
- How does the capacitor send pulses through the grid? It must be some other piece of kit linked to the capacitor.
In the end though, I don’t care, if it works.
A Brief History Of Scottish Hydropower
The title of this post, is the same as that of this page on the Drax Group web site.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Over the last century, Scottish hydro power has played a major part in the country’s energy make up. While today it might trail behind wind, solar and biomass as a source of renewable electricity in Great Britain, it played a vital role in connecting vast swathes of rural Scotland to the power grid – some of which had no electricity as late as the 1960s. And all by making use of two plentiful Scottish resources: water and mountains.
These are some points from the page.
- The first scheme was built in the last years of the nineteenth century and provided power for aluminium smelting.
- The first modern scheme was the Lanark Hydro Electric Scheme, which was built in the 1920s and is still running today, under the ownership of Drax Group.
- In 1935, the Galloway scheme, set the tone for later projects with architecture including stylised dams and modernist turbine halls.
- The North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board was founded in 1943.
- Sloy, the largest conventional hydro-electric station opened in 1950 and has a capacity of 152.5 MW.
- Building the dams and power stations appears to have been hard but well-paid work.
- By the mid Sixties, the North of Scotland Hydroelectric Board had built 54 main power stations and 78 dams. Northern Scotland was now 90% connected to the national grid.
- In 1965, the world’s then largest reversible pumped storage power station opened at Cruachan.
- In 2009, the last major scheme at Glendoe opened.
The schemes are a working catalogue of everything you can do with water to generate and store electricity.
Future development now seems to be moving in two directions.
The Drax page says this about new hydro-electric schemes.
In recent years, however, the real growth has been in smaller hydro-electric schemes that may power just one or a handful of properties – with more than 100 MW of such generation capacity installed in the Highlands since 2006.
On the other hand, several large pumped storage schemes are under development.
- Balliemeanoch – 1.5 GW/45 GWh
- Coire Glas – 1.5 GW/30 GWh
- Corrievarkie – 600 MW/14.5 GWh
- Red John – 450 MW/2.8 GWh
Note.
These schemes add up to an output of just over 4 GW and a colossal 92.3 GWh of storage.
The existing Foyers scheme and the under-development Coire Glas and Red John schemes. all use Loch Ness as the lower reservoir.
Two of these under-development schemes will be larger than the current largest pumped storage system in the world; Bath County Pumped Storage Station in Virginia in the United States, which is a 3 GW/24 GWh system.
Conclusion
Adding large numbers of wind turbines and tens of GWs to Scotland’s existing pumped storage could transform not just Scotland’s but most of Western Europe’s green energy production.
Rolls-Royce And Porterbrook Agreement Will Drive Rail Decarbonisation
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Porterbrook.
This is the important part of the press release.
Rolls-Royce is teaming up with Porterbrook to identify and develop technological innovations to reduce carbon emissions and improve air quality across the rail network. The two companies, who have signed a memorandum of understanding, will investigate the potential for the use of synthetic and net zero fuels, including hydrogen, both in fuel cells and internal combustion engines. Building on their recent success of jointly introducing hybrid battery-diesel railcars into passenger service, the two companies will also explore the potential for advanced hybridisation.
The relationship also includes considering the role of the wider rail ecosystem in decarbonisation, including fuel chain supply, infrastructure and operational models that can aid innovation and the transition to net zero.
The UK’s railway accounts for approximately 1% of all domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions* and the Government’s ambition is to remove all diesel-only trains – both passenger and freight – from the network by 2040 and achieve a net zero rail network by 2050. The UK Government has identified a number of different routes to this target including alternative forms of power such as hydrogen, fuel cells, batteries, hybrid-electric and sustainable fuels.
Rolls-Royce have issued a similar press release.
I believe this agreement could result in significant benefits to the UK rail industry, in respect to reduction in diesel consumption, noise and carbon emissions.
Examples could include.
- Conversion of Bombardier Turbostars to hybrid operation. I covered this in UK’s First 100mph Battery-Diesel Hybrid Train Enters Passenger Service.
- Conversion of Class 66 locomotives to hydrogen power.
- Conversion of Class 43 power-cars to hydrogen power.
Unfortunately, I can’t add more examples as there is no Porterbrook fleet list on their web site.
STEAG Advances Plans For 55MW Norfolk Solar Plant With Battery Storage
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Business Green.
It is very much a standard solar farm with a battery and provided everything is installed properly, there shouldn’t be to much adverse effects on wildlife and especially, East Anglia’s magnificent hares.
This article on the Solar Power Portal is entitled Solar Farms and Biodiversity.
This is a paragraph.
The point is that all sorts of wildlife move onto solar sites, from hares and hedgehogs, buzzards and butterflies, grasshoppers and beetles; other protected species such as Hazel Dormouse – all continue their ways along the hedgerows uninterrupted.
Hopefully, if the rules are followed at King’s Lynn, the hares will thrive.
New Electricity ‘Superhighways’ Needed To Cope With Surge In Wind Power
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Telegraph.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Energy companies are pushing for the rapid approval of new electricity “superhighways” between Scotland and England amid fears that a lack of capacity will set back the country’s wind power revolution.
Businesses including SSE and Scottish Power are calling on the industry regulator Ofgem to approve a series of major new north-south power cables in a bid to ease congestion on the existing electricity network.
These points are mentioned in the article.
- Current capacity is 6 GW, which even now is not enough.
- Another 17 GW of capacity will be needed by 2033.
- Wind farms in Scotland have been switched off and replaced by gas-fired power stations because of a lack of grid capacity.
- Another 25 GW of wind farms could be built after leases were awarded last month.
Two North-South interconnectors are being planned.
Peterhead And Drax
This is being proposed by SSE and National Grid.
- It will be an undersea cable.
- It will be two cables, each with a capacity of 2 GW.
- Peterhead and Drax power station are four hundred miles apart by road and 279 miles as the seagull flies, as a lot of the route would be over the sea. So an undersea connection would appear to be sensible.
- Peterhead is on the coast, so connecting an undersea interconnector shouldn’t be too challenging or disruptive to the locals.
- Drax power station is a 4 GW power station and the largest in the UK, so it must have good grid connections.
This Google Map shows the location of Drax power station in relation to Hull, Scunthorpe and the rivers in the area.
Note.
- Drax is marked by the red arrow in the West of the map.
- The large body of water in the East is the Humber Estuary.
- Hull is on the North Bank of the Humber.
- Scunthorpe, which is famous for its steel industry is South of the Humber in the middle of the map.
- To the West of Scunthorpe the Humber splits into the Trent and the Ouse.
- The Ouse leads all the way to Drax power station.
I suspect an undersea cable could go up the Humber and Ouse to Drax power station.
Is it a coincidence that both Drax power station and the proposed link to Peterhead are both around 4 GW?
Consider.
- Drax is a biomass power station, so it is not a zero carbon power station.
- Drax produces around six percent of the UK’s electricity.
- Most of the biomass comes by ship from North America.
- Protest groups regularly have protests at Drax because of its carbon emissions.
- Drax Group are experimenting with carbon capture.
- Drax is a big site and a large energy storage system could be built there.
- Wind is often criticised by opponents, saying wind is useless when the wind doesn’t blow.
- The Scots would be unlikely to send power to England, if they were short.
This is also said about Drax in Wikipedia.
Despite this intent for baseload operation, it was designed with a reasonable ability for load-following, being able to ramp up or down by 5% of full power per minute within the range of 50–100% of full power.
I take this it means it can be used to top up electricity generation to meet demand. Add in energy storage and it could be a superb load-follower.
So could the similar size of the interconnector and Drax power station be deliberate to guarantee England a 4 GW feed at all states of the wind?
I don’t think it is a coincidence.
Torness And Hawthorn Pit And Torness and South Humberside
These two cables are being proposed by Scottish Power.
- Each will be two GW.
- Torness is the site of the 1.36 GW Torness nuclear power station, which is likely to be decommissioned before 2030.
- Torness will have good grid connections and it is close to the sea.
- Hawthorn Pit is a large closed coal mine to the North of Newcastle, with a large substation close to the site. I suspect it will be an ideal place to feed power into the grid for Newcastle and it is close to the sea.
- Just South of Hawthorn Pit are the 1.32 GW Hartlepool nuclear power station, which will be decommissioned in 2024 and the landfall of the cables to the massive Dogger Bank wind farm.
- As I showed earlier with Drax, the Humber would be an ideal estuary to bring underwater power cables into the surrounding area. So perhaps the cable will go to Scunthorpe for the steelworks.
- As at Drax, there is backup in South Humberside, but here it is from the two Keadby gas-fired power stations.
The article in the Telegraph only gives the briefest of details of Scottish Power’s plans, but I suspect, that given the locations of the ends of the interconnectors, I suspect the cables will be underwater.
Conclusion
It strikes me that all three interconnectors have been well thought thought and they serve a variety of objectives.
- Bring Scottish wind power, South to England.
- Connect wind farms to the two nuclear power station sites at Hartlepool and Torness, that will close at the end of the decade.
- Allow the big 4 GW biomass-fired station at Drax to back up wind farms and step in when needed.
- Cut carbon emissions at Drax.
- Use underwater cables as much as possible to transfer the power, to avoid the disruption of digging in underground cables.
It looks to be a good plan.
Farringdon Station – 13th February 2022
The two main entrances to Farringdon station have now been finished and the road that runs between them has now been pedestrianised.
Is Farringdon station the only London station with separate entrances for National Rail and the Underground that are on opposite sides of a pedestrianised plaza?
Does it need to have some outdoor cafes in the Summer months?
Tideway – Blackfriars Bridge Foreshore – 13th February 2022
I took these pictures of the Tideway’s Blackfriars Bridge Foreshore site from the top of a 63 bus on Blackfriars Bridge.
Compare the pictures with those I took on the 4th September 2021.
Riding The Latest Alexander Dennis Electric Double-Decker Bus
This morning, I had a first ride in one of the latest Alexander Dennis electric double-decker buses.
Note.
- The bus is definitely an improvement on previous electric models, that I have ridden on routes 43 and 212.
- Bus route 63 goes between Kings Cross and Honor Oak.
- If you want to go South from King’s Cross, the bus is caught at Stop D in front of the station.
- I’ve never seen a bus before with a wooden floor. Was it real or fake?
- The stop buttons were in the back of the seat in front. I’ve never seen this before.
- The are charging points for mobile phones.
Overall the standard of finish seemed high, but then it was in the new Wrightbus hydrogen buses I’ve ridden lately.
New Catalyst Extracts Hydrogen From Hydrogen Storage Materials More Efficiently
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Tech Explorist.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Hydrogen storage is a crucial enabling technology for advancing hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. One of the ways to store hydrogen is chemically. Chemical storage allows large amounts of hydrogen stored in small volumes at ambient temperatures.
However, for the hydrogen to be useful, catalysts are needed to activate LOHCs and release the hydrogen. This process is called dehydrogenation.
LOHCs are Liquid Organic Hydrogen Carriers.
The article describes how scientists at the Ames Laboratory have developed a new catalyst that doesn’t use metals or additives, that works at mild temperatures and under normal atmospheric conditions.
It does seem to me that LOHCs have a future, but given the sparseness of the Wikipedia entry, their widespread use may be some years away.
Tony Radakin And Ben Wallace In Russia
The Times today has published a picture with this caption.
Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, his counterpart, Sergei Shoigu, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, chief of the defence staff, and Valery Gerasimov, chief of general staff
Ever since, Tony Radakin was made Chief of the Defence Staff, I’ve been curious about his name.
So tonight, I typed “radakin surname” into Google and got this answer.
Radakin (Russian: Радакин) is carried by more people in Russia than any other country or territory. It can also be rendered as a variant
Interesting! But surely, something that will enable the three military men and the former Scots guardsman to get on a bit better!
The Anonymous Widower 