Future Offshore Wind Power Capacity In The UK
I am building this table, so that I can get a feel for the electricity needs of the UK.
According to Wikipedia, on February 2020, there were thirty six offshore wind farms consisting of 2180 turbines with a combined capacity of 8113 megawatts or 8.113 gigawatts.
Currently, these offshore wind farms are under construction, proposed or are in an exploratory phase.
- Triton Knoll – 857 MW – 2021 – Under Construction
- Hornsea Two – 1386 MW – 2022 – Under Construction
- Moray East – 960 MW – 2022 – Under Construction
- Neart Na Gaoithe – 450 MW – 2023 – Under Construction
- Seagreen Phase 1 – 1075 MW – 2023 – Under Construction
- Dogger Bank A – 1200 MW – 2023/24 – Proposed
- Dogger Bank B – 1200 MW – 2024/25 – Proposed
- Dogger Bank C – 1200 MW – 2024/25 – Proposed
- Moray West – 1200 MW – 2024/25 – Exploratory
- Hornsea Three – 2400 MW – 2025 – Proposed
- East Anglia One North 800 MW – 2026 – Exploratory
- East Anglia Two – 900 MW – 2026 – Exploratory
- East Anglia Three – 1400 MW – 2026 – Exploratory
- Sofia Offshore Wind Farm Phase 1 – 1400 MW – 2023/2026 – Under Construction
- Hornsea Four – 1000 MW (?) – 2027 – Exploratory
- Rampion Two Extension – 1200 MW – Exploratory
- Norfolk Vanguard – 1800 MW – Exploratory
- Norfolk Boreas – 1800 MW – Exploratory
Note.
- The date is the possible final commissioning date.
- I have no commissioning dates for the last three wind farms.
- Wikipedia says that the Hornsea Four capacity is unknown by Ørsted due to the ever increasing size of available wind turbines for the project.
I can total up these wind farms by commissioning date.
- 2021 – 857 MW
- 2022 – 2346 MW
- 2023 – 1525 MW
- 2024 – 1200 MW
- 2025 – 6000 MW
- 2026 – 4500 MW
- Others – 5800 MW
I can draw these conclusions.
- Total wind farm capacity commissioned each year is increasing.
- It looks like there will be a capacity to install up to 5000 or 6000 MW every year from about 2025.
- If we add my figures for 2021-2026 to the 8113 MW currently installed we get 24541 MW.
- Adding in 6000 MW for each of the four years from 2027-2030 gives a total of 48541 MW or 48.5 GW.
As I write this on a Sunday afternoon, wind power (onshore and offshore) is supplying 13 GW or forty-four percent of our electricity needs.
I have further thoughts.
Parallels With North Sea Oil And Gas
I was very much involved in the development of North Sea oil and gas, as my software was used on a large number of the projects. I had many discussions with those managing these projects and what was crucial in shortening project times was the increasing availability of bigger rigs, platforms and equipment.
Big certainly was better.
I believe that as we get more experienced, we’ll see bigger and better equipment speeding the building of offshore wind farms.
Reuse of Redundant North Sea Oil And Gas Platforms
Don’t underestimate the ability of engineers to repurpose redundant oil and gas platforms for use with windfarms.
Electrolysers on the platforms can convert the electricity into hydrogen and use redundant gas pipes to bring it ashore.
Some processes like steelmaking could use a lot of hydrogen.
Platforms can be used as sub-stations to collect electricity from windfarms and distribute it to the various countries around the North Sea.
Hydrogen
Some processes like steelmaking could use a lot of hydrogen. And I don’t think steelmakers would be happy, if the supply was intermittent.
So why not produce it with giant electrolysers on redundant oil and gas platforms and store it in redundant gas fields under the sea?
A large store of hydrogen under the sea could have the following uses.
- Steelmaking.
- Feedstock for chemical manufacture.
- Transport
- Power generation in a gas-fired power station, that can run on hydrogen.
It would just need a large enough hydrogen store.
Energy Storage
This large amount of wind power will need a large amount of energy storage to cover for when the wind doesn’t blow.
Some of this storage may even be provided by using hydrogen, as I indicated previously.
But ideas for energy storage are coming thick and fast.
The North Sea Link To Norway
The North Sea Link is much more important than an interconnector between Blyth in Northumberland and Norway.
- At the Norwegian end the link is connected to a vast pumped storage energy system in the mountains of Norway.
- This pumped storage system is filled in two ways; Norwegian rain and snow and UK wind power through the interconnector.
- In times of need, we can draw electricity through the interconnector from Norway.
- It has a capacity of 1.4 GW.
- It was delivered on time for a cost of around €2 billion.
It can almost be thought of as an international bank of electricity and is probably one of the most significant pieces of European infrastructure built in recent years.
There are also plans to build NorthConnect, that would connect Peterhead in Scotland to Norway.
Conclusion
It looks like we’ll be able to reap the wind. And possibly 50 GW of it!
Rolls-Royce Makes Duisburg Container Terminal Climate Neutral With MTU Hydrogen Technology
The title of this post, is the same as this press release from Rolls-Royce.
This is the first sentence.
Rolls-Royce will ensure a climate-neutral energy supply at the container terminal currently under construction at the Port of Duisburg, Germany.
There is also this Rolls-Royce graphic, which shows the energy sources.
It would appear batteries, combined heat and power (CHP), grid electricity, hydrogen electrolyser, hydrogen storage and renewable electricity are being brought together to create a climate-neutral energy system.
- As the graphic was named hydrogen technology for ports, I would assume that this is a Rolls-Royce mtu system that will be deployed at more than one port around the world.
- Note the H2 CHPs in the graphic. Could these be applications for Rolls-Royce’s beer keg-sized 2.5 MW electrical generator based on a Super Hercules engine?
- One of Rolls-Royce’s small modular nuclear reactors could be ideal for a large port outside Germany.
This is the last paragraph of the press release.
“Hydrogen technology is no longer a dream of the future, but hydrogen technology will prove itself in everyday use in Duisburg. The parallel use of fuel cell solutions and hydrogen engines shows that we have taken the right path with our technology-open approach to the development of new solutions for the energy supply of the future,” says Andreas Schell, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems.
Rolls-Royce mtu appear to be very serious about the possibilities of hydrogen.
Aceleron Secures Over £927k In Government Funding For Circular Battery Storage Project
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Current News.
These two paragraphs define their project.
Lithium-ion battery developer Aceleron has been granted £927,426 in government funding to help develop its Project BATLAB.
The project will look to develop a more sustainable, circular build process for batteries in the UK market, with the goal of ensuring everything needed within the life cycle of the battery will be available in the same environment from first life to repurposing.
They are aiming to repurpose vehicle batteries and it appears University College London is involved.
I believe that given average luck, this venture could be a success.
- They have government funding.
- They have backing for a respected university.
- One of the partners is Aspire Engineering.
There will be masses of batteries to repurpose and lots of applications for them.
When Will Energy Storage Funds Take The Leap To New Technology?
This article on the Motley Fool is entitled 3 UK Dividend Shares To Buy Yielding 6%.
This is a paragraph from the article.
The first company on my list is the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (LSE: GSF). With a dividend yield of just over 6%, at the time of writing, I think this company looks incredibly attractive as an income investment. It is also an excellent way for me to build exposure to the green energy industry.
Just as everybody has a fridge in their house to stop food being wasted, electricity networks with a lot of intermittent resources like wind and solar, needs a device to store electricity, so that it isn’t wasted.
Gore Street Energy Storage Fund is being very safe and conservative at the current time, often using batteries from one of Elon Musk’s companies.
You can’t fault that, but they are only barely making a dent in the amount of batteries that will be needed.
If we are generating tens of GW of wind energy, then we need batteries at the GWh level, whereas at the moment a typical battery in Gore Street’s portfolio has only an output of a few megawatts. They don’t state the capacity in MWh.
There is this statement on their web site, about the technology they use.
Although the projects comprising the Seed Portfolio utilise lithium-ion batteries and much of the pipeline of investments identified by the Company are also expected to utilise lithium-ion batteries, the Company is generally agnostic about which technology it utilises in its energy storage projects. The Company does not presently see any energy storage technology which is a viable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. However, there are a number of technologies which are being researched which if successfully commercialised, could prove over time more favourable and the Company will closely monitor such developing technologies.
They say they are agnostic about technology and are looking around, but they are sticking with lithium-ion technology.
That technology works, is safe and gives a good return.
But they are at least thinking about moving to new technology.
In the rail industry, it is common for rail leasing companies to get together with train manufacturers or remanufacturers to develop new trains.
As an example, Eversholt Rail and Alstom formed a partnership to develop a hydrogen-powered train for the UK, which I wrote about in Alstom And Eversholt Rail Sign An Agreement For The UK’s First Ever Brand-New Hydrogen Train Fleet.
Worldwide, there are probably upwards of a dozen very promising energy storage technologies, so I am very surprised that energy storage funds, like Gore Street and Gresham House have not announced any development deals.
Conclusion
Energy storage funds could benefit from using some of the financing methods used by rolling stock leasing companies.
Virtual Power Plants: Enphase, Sunverge And LG In The US, Project Symphony In Australia
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
The article is a good introduction to the concept of a virtual power plant. The Wikipedia entry starts with this definition.
A virtual power plant (VPP) is a cloud-based distributed power plant that aggregates the capacities of heterogeneous distributed energy resources (DER) for the purposes of enhancing power generation, as well as trading or selling power on the electricity market.
It can almost be thought of as an energy equivalent of the Internet.
As a Control Engineer, I believe that the creation of virtual power plants will be very important in the future.
Read the article and the Wikipedia entry and see if you agree.
EMEC And Gravitricity Pick Up Scottish Green Energy Awards
The title of this post, is the same as this article on renews.biz.
These are the first two paragraphs.
The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), energy storage innovator Gravitricity and Crown Estate Scotland were among the winners announced last night at the Scottish Green Energy Awards in Edinburgh.
EMEC won the Champion of Renewables award for its ocean energy test facility, while Gravitricity’s energy storage system, which uses excess electricity to winch weights to charge the system and then releases these when energy is required, was announced as the Best Innovation winner.
I am pleased, as I own a small part of Gravitricity, which I contributed through crowdfunding.
Energy Dome Secures Funding, Partner For New CO2 Energy Storage Projects
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Renewables Now.
This is the first paragraph.
Energy Dome SpA announced on Tuesday that it has closed a funding round securing USD 11 million (EUR 9.7m) to finalise the construction of a demonstration 2.5-MW/4-MWh carbon dioxide (CO2) battery storage project in Sardinia and to speed up business growth.
Note.
- It appears that Energy Dome has weaponised carbon dioxide against climate change.
- Providing 2.5 MW for over an hour and a half is an impressive performance.
- I think this project has the style we associate with Italy and Italians.
I have found their website at energydome.com and behind their energy storage system is unusual technology.
Their web site says this about their choice of storage medium.
CO2 is the perfect fluid to store energy cost effectively in a closed thermodynamic process as it is one of the few gases that can be condensed and stored as a liquid under pressure at ambient temperature. This allows for high density energy storage without the need to go at extreme cryogenic temperatures.
That is breathtakingly simple!
The main tank for the gaseous carbon dioxide is an inflatable dome and the liquid carbon dioxide is stored in steel tanks.
A turbine -compressor moves the carbon dioxide between gaseous and liquid states storing it appropriately.
It is very impressive! And I suspect extremely affordable!
1.5GW Of Irish PV To Receive Grid Connection Offers Through ECP Process
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
Note.
- There are 85 projects in total.
- Several also involve energy storage
- Gresham House and Gore Street Energy Storage Funds are involved.
It all seems to be happening in Ireland.
Gravitricity Explores Czech Coal Mine For MW-Scale Storage
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article on renews.biz.
This is the first paragraph.
Scottish energy storage outfit Gravitricity is exploring the potential to transform a former Czech coal mine into an energy storage plant with a capacity of up to 8MW.
It all sounds like a good use for a disused coal mine.
According to the article, future systems with multiple weights could store up to 25 MWh.
Fortescue Unveils Green Investment Framework
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Mining Weekly.
This is the first paragraph.
Iron-ore major Fortescue Metals this week launched its Sustainability Financing Framework, enabling the future issuance of green and social debt instruments that will support investments in eligible green and social projects.
I have to admit, that I thought something like this might happen, after seeing all the Fortescue Future Industries publicity on a bus, which I wrote about in Green Hydrogen Can Save Us. But Waiting For It Won’t.
I did say this in that post.
Andrew Forrest is intending to get his message across to the City.
But I didn’t take any action.
I can see other companies and investment trusts following Andrew Forrest’s lead.
