What Does the Future of Offshore Wind Energy Look Like?
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Real Clear Energy.
These topics are covered.
- Improved efficiency
- Aerodynamic blades
- Sturdiness and durability
- Big data, the cloud and artificial intelligence
- Drones
- Floating turbines and deeper waters
- Complicated coastal climate zones of which North America has eight.
Some topics weren’t covered.
- Artificial islands like the Dutch, German and Danish plan for The North Sea Wind Power Hub on the Dogger Bank.
- Conversion of wind power to hydrogen at or near the offshore turbines, which I wrote about in ITM Power and Ørsted: Wind Turbine Electrolyser Integration.
The author finishes with this statement.
The integration of wind energy, in any form, can ultimately benefit all 50 states in the US by 2050 if it starts now.
In 1962, Bob Dylan, wrote this famous phrase.
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.
Fifty-eight years later he’s been proven right, in a big way!
What Exactly Is Upside Energy?
On Friday, August 9th, 2019, there was a massive power cut in the South of England, that is described in this article on the BBC, which is entitled Lightning Strike ‘Partly To Blame’ For Power Cut.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A lightning strike and the sudden loss of two large electricity generators caused nearly a million people to lose power in England and Wales earlier this month, an interim report has found.
So what exactly happened?
This article on Wired is entitled How Batteries Stopped The UK’s Power Cut Being A Total Disaster, was written after the report into the cut had been written.
This is the third paragraph of the article.
But it could have been even worse. Within seconds of problems hitting the grid, a fleet of batteries dotted around Great Britain were able to pump power into the system, preventing a rapid drop off in transmission frequency.
Is fleet the right collective noun for storage batteries? But it will do for the time-being.
This is the next two paragraphs.
Upside Energy is one firm that lent a helping hand by supplying six megawatts (MW) from five large lithium-ion batteries located on a solar farm near Luton Airport. “Those batteries responded immediately – actually it was sub-second,” says the firm’s chief executive Devrim Celal.
Six megawatts may not sound like much. It’s about the same capacity as a single medium-sized wind turbine, but in the context of national electricity supply that can make a difference, says Tim Green, co-director at Imperial College London’s Energy Futures Laboratory. “A home on average is consuming about two kilowatts – six megawatts gets you 3,000 homes maybe.”
But every little helps!
So who are Upside Energy?
If you look at their web site, this is the headline on the home page.
Smart Energy Management Systems
There is also this description.
Our award-winning cloud-based platform provides our customers with a way to capitalise on new opportunities, while supporting an acceleration in the use of renewable technologies, and overall helping to create a more sustainable and efficient power network.
From what I can gather with further reading, it almost looks like a peer-to-peer network for energy, akin to how Zopa is one for money.
- If you or your company, built a battery or a solar farm, then Upside Energy would control it, in the most efficient way.
- As the Wired article states, they also have a few batteries of their own.
On another page they describe the system as a cloud-based platform can connect with a multitude of devices across commercial, industrial and domestic sites. They give the following examples of devices.
- Battery storage systems.
- \electric-vehicle charging points.
- Uninterruptible power supplies
- Heating and cooling systems.
They then say a bit about how it works.
It uses advanced algorithms and artificial intelligence to match energy demand with the available supply, helping the electricity grid deal with fluctuations and times of peak usage. Supporting the grid in this way, opens the doors to additional revenue streams for our customers, who also benefit from significant reductions in energy costs and carbon emissions.
The platform can manage demand response for more than 100,000 devices running in parallel.
As a Control Engineer, whose friend went on to manage ICI’s power networks in the North West, I know management of these complex networks was difficult even in the 1970s.
It is interesting to look at their funding page.
- Legal & General is an investor.
- systemiQ is an investor.
- Innovate UK is present, as they are in many British technology developments.
Funding would appear to be typical for a company like this.
Conclusion
If I was a farmer, who was investing in a solar farm on a piece of land, I would check out Upside Energy.
But I’m not!
Over eight years ago, I wrote Stability in Financial Systems, where I used my Control Engineering and mathematical experience to postulate that Zopa might have found a way to create a system with an equilibrium between saving and borrowing, that responded to politics, the economy and unforeseen circumstances.
Could Upside Energy have created a system that balances energy production, storage and use, which navigating the perils of the modern world?
AI ‘Outperforms’ Doctors Diagnosing Breast Cancer
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Artificial intelligence is more accurate than doctors in diagnosing breast cancer from mammograms, a study in the journal Nature suggests.
An international team, including researchers from Google Health and Imperial College London, designed and trained a computer model on X-ray images from nearly 29,000 women.
I have rarely worked with healthcare data, so I can’t comment on the accuracy of this trial.
However, over fifty years ago, I was able to make a lot of progress in the analysis of mass spectrometry data, by observing operators and asking how they identified various chemicals in the scan from the mass spectrometer.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find some detailed observation of the working methods of radiologists, formed the foundation data for this research.
The research seems to have done it well, judging by the published results.
Should we trust ourselves to methods like this in healthcare?
Undoubtedly! Yes!
Many systems like this are starting to be used in the maintenance of complex entities, as diverse as trains, planes, chemical works and advanced automated distribution depots.
But every fault, is always tested by a trained person.
This is a paragraph from the BBC article.
Prof Ara Darzi, report co-author and director of the Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Imperial Centre, told the BBC: “This went far beyond my expectations. It will have a significant impact on improving the quality of reporting, and also free up radiologists to do even more important things.”
I very much feel we will see very much more of this automated testing of the human body! And not just for cancer!
I already know of groups working on automatic diagnosis of arthritis!
Phone Call Cuts Hospital Readmissions
The title of this post is the same as that of an article on page 18 of today’s copy of The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
A single phone call to an older patient who has been discharged from hospital can almost halve the odds of readmission, research suggests.
I have mined health-care data in the past several times and often something simple drops out from a simple analysis.
Some analyses produce the obvious like you gets lots of leg injuries on Saturday afternoons, due to football being played.
I also believe that analysis of health data in an area could pick up more sinister links.
This could be picked up by artificial intelligence scanning the various databases, but until such systems are fully developed, a lot can be picked up by analysts using simple tools. Even Excel can find a lot of problems, if used properly.
The Concept Of Hybrid Banking
I have been writing about hybrid trains and locomotives recently.
In Hybrid Power On The Railways, I summarised the current state of development, with brief descriptions of the current hybrid trains and locomotives.
This was my conclusion.
Just as hybrid cars are becoming more numerous, I suspect we’ll be seeing more hybrid trains in the future.
So can hybrid principles be applied to other industries and processes?
A Standard Hybrid Process
In my opinion, one of the best hybrid systems is the transmission of London’s New Routemaster bus. This description of the drive-train is from Wikipedia.
The bus is a hybrid diesel-electric driven by a battery-powered electric motor, charged by a diesel fuelled generator and recovering energy during braking by regenerative braking.
It is a classic serial hybrid vehicle.
Energy is collected in the battery from the diesel generator and regenerative braking and the battery powers the bus.
Hybrid Banking
Could a bank account be designed on similar principles?
- Money would be collected and stored in a deposit account, where it would earn interest.
- There would be a wallet or current account, where sufficient money is available to pay bills expected.
I also believe that just as in the bus, there would be a clever control algorithm, that made sure money was in the right place.
- To pay bills.
- Earn maximum interest payments.
- Avoid charges for going overdrawn.
Many would believe, I’m asking for the impossible.
But!
Zopa Or Another Peer-To-Peer Lender As A High Interest Deposit Account
I use Zopa to store my excess cash.
I just add money, when I have spare.
Zopa’s computer decides, who I lend it to, so it’s effectively deposit-and-forget.
Since, I started investing I have earned returns of around five per cent before tax.
Any irrecoverable debts are now allowed against earnings.
But the unique property of Zopa and probably some other peer-to-peer lenders, is that each month a certain amount of money becomes available for reinvestment or withdrawal.
These figures show the percentage of money, I’ve had available in the last few months.
- May 2018 – 7.5%
- April 2019 – 6.0%
- March 2019 – 5.7%
- February 2019 – 5.6%
- January 2019 – 6.1%
- December 2018 – 4.7%
- November 2018 – 6.9%
- October 2018 – 7.1%
- September 2018 – 6.7%
- August 2018 – 7.5%
- July 2018 – 6.8%
So it looks like for a mature Zopa portfolio, around 6-7 percent is available for reinvestment or withdrawal.
If like me, you have tax bills to pay at various times of the year, you might sometimes take the latter option, as I do!
But if you do withdraw money, your ratio will change.
It should also be noted that a high proportion of Zopa contracts make payments on or around the first of the month. So lenders can get a sizeable payment in the first few days of a month. All very handy!
Nationwide Or Any Other Bank Account As A Wallet
I use Nationwide as my bank current account, transferring money between Nationwide and Zopa as required.
I also have a sensible agreed overdraft limit, which gives me an extra amount of flexibility. I think it’s only been used twice in the last couple of years at tax payment time.
As the overdraft limit is lower than the minimum amount of money, I’ll be able to withdraw from Zopa in a month, I know that if I use the overdraft, I should be able to repay it quickly.
The Control Philosophy
I don’t use a computer to work through the control philosophy, but I can use the brain I was born with.
By about the twentieth of the month, I can see the state of my finances and generally know, whether my pension will cover my expenses for the next month or so, or if I need some help.
So when the Zopa payments kick in around the turn of the month, I withdraw what I think I’ll need.
If I draw out too much, then around the twelth or so, I put any surplus back into Zopa.
A Hybrid System
I believe that what I have described works in a similar way, as a typical hybrid drive system for a bus, train or car.
- Zopa backs up the bank account and provides extra finance when needed. This is a similar function to the traction battery in a hybrid vehicle
- The agreed overdraft facility is there if any extra short term finance is needed. It has a function similar to capacitors in a hybrid vehicle, where they are used to provide a fast smoothing response.
Imagine an on-line banking system, which used artificial intelligence to calculate how much extra money is needed each month and transfer money to and from Zopa accordingly.
The Anonymous Widower 