The Future Of Drax Power Station
Drax power station is not liked by a lot of environmentalists.
I have been thinking about the future of the power station and the public company that owns it.
Drax power station has a nameplate capacity of around 2.5 GW running on biomass.
It also will be the Southern end of EGL2, which will be an undersea electricity 2 GW superhighway distributing Scottish wind power from Peterhead in Scotland. So the dreaded biomass hated by certain groups will be relegated from the Premier League of electricity generation and replaced by Scottish wind.
As reported in various publications, Drax has signed a deal in the US, so that the biomass can be used for the production of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)
To my mind, the Drax site could be an ideal one for one or more small modular nuclear reactors.
- The large Drax site has been producing electricity for 52 years.
- In 1986, the site produced nearly 4 GW of electricity.
- I would suspect that the substations on the site could be enlarged to distribute 4 GW of electricity.
- EGL2 will bring in 2 GW of Scottish wind-generated electricity.
- The site has excellent rail connections.
- The site has twelve cooling towers and is encircled by the River Ouse.
- Could all this water be used for cooling the small modular nuclear reactors.
I believe that perhaps three small modular nuclear reactors could be built on the Drax site to backup EGL2 and bring a reliable source of sustainable power to Yorkshire.
Drax is also only about forty miles from the vast hydrogen stores at Aldbrough and Rough, so if Drax needed, if could use excess electricity to create hydrogen for storage.
SSE is consulting on a 1+ GW hydrogen power station at Keadby, so perhaps Drax should have a similar hydrogen power station on its site?
UK Wind Risks ‘Exponentially Rising’ Curtailment Without Energy Storage
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Recharge.
This is the sub-heading.
UK liquid battery pioneer Highview Power is working with renewable energy giant Orsted on plan to store excess power from its Hornsea offshore wind projects
This is the introductory paragraph.
The UK wind sector faces “exponentially” increasing curtailment of assets without a rapid rollout of energy storage, says the chief of liquid battery pioneer Highview Power, which is working with Orsted on a project to store excess offshore wind power.
The article also states that according to Octopus Energy, this cost could have been as high as a billion pounds last year.
In Grid Powers Up With One Of Europe’s Biggest Battery Storage Sites, I described how Ørsted were planning to build a large BESS near the Swardeston substation in Norfolk, where the Hornsea 3 wind farm will connect to the grid.
Have Ørsted decided to put a Highview Power battery on the Swardeston site, as it can be a bigger battery, as Highview Power talk about 200MW/2.5GWh capacity batteries on the projects page of the web site?
Highview also say this about co-operation with Ørsted on that page.
Highview Power and Ørsted’s joint study shows that the co-location of LAES with Ørsted’s offshore wind offers a step forward in reducing wind curtailment, and helping to move to a more flexible, resilient zero carbon grid.
The words are accompanied by pictures of a smart gas storage site, which shows four of the largest tanks, that might be used to store LNG.
In Could A Highview Power CRYOBattery Use A LNG Tank For Liquid Air Storage?, I estimated that one of the largest LNG tanks could hold about a GWh of energy.
So Highview Power’s visualisation on their project page would be a 4 GWh battery.
.
How To Keep The Lights On When The Wind Doesn’t Blow
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
Britain came close to a blackout this month. Gas is being phased out and renewables are intermittent, so can energy storage stop us going dark?
These are the first two paragraphs.
It was 8.29pm on the first Tuesday in January when the alert was issued by the electricity control room. Freezing temperatures had coincided with unusually low wind speeds, and it was making the National Energy System Operator (Neso) jittery.
Engineers forecast a 1.6GW shortfall — the requirement for about 1.5 million homes — for a three-hour period from 4pm the following afternoon. “System operators are requested to notify Neso of any additional megawatt capacity,” the message said.
Luckily, the plea worked.
The article then goes on to describe the various technologies that are being deployed.
The article starts by talking about pumped storage hydroelectricity.
This paragraph gives a superb illustration about how things have changed in energy and energy storage in the UK in the last few decades.
In the past, when coal provided the bulk of British power, this system was used to meet fluctuating demand levels. But now it is also required to meet fluctuating supply levels from renewable sources. Martin Pibworth, chief commercial officer at SSE, started with the company as a trainee in 1998. “Back then, at our Foyers pumped storage plant [at Loch Ness] we would switch modes, from pumping to not pumping and back again, maybe 600 to 700 times a year. Last year we switched modes there 6,500 times. It’s an insight into how the market has changed and how much more flexibility is needed, and how responsive that has to be.”
We have to be more agile, with our handling of storage to back up the various methods of generation.
Could Highview Power’s Batteries Be Used Offshore?
When I first saw Highview Power’s Liquid Air batteries or Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES), I liked them.
This was partly because I’d investigated large tanks for chemical reactions and I like their mathematics.
But it was mainly because the concept had been developed by a lone inventor in Bishops Stortford.
In Could A Highview Power CRYOBattery Use A LNG Tank For Liquid Air Storage?, I bcalculated, that a 5,000 cubic metre tank could hold about a GWh of electricity as liquid air.
So just as steel and concrete tanks were placed on the sea floor to hold oil and gas, could they be placed on the sea floor to hold compressed air?
I don’t see why not!
I suspect, that it’s all fairly standard offshore engineering.
If you want more storage, you would just add more tanks.
Could They Be Combined With Electrical Substations?
I don’t see why not!
There may be advantages with respect to safety and noise.
Project Fortress
Project Fortress is described like this in its Wikipedia entry.
Project Fortress (formerly Cleve Hill Solar Farm) is a photovoltaic power station under construction on the Graveney marshes between Faversham and Whitstable, Kent in the UK.
Once operational, it will be the largest solar farm in the UK, generating 373 MW of electricity from 900 acres (360 ha) of vertical solar panels and will also include 700 MWh of battery storage. Because of its size, it is a nationally significant infrastructure project so outside the standard local planning procedure.
Electricity will be exported from the project via the 400 kV National Grid substation at Cleve Hill, constructed to serve the London Array offshore wind farm that lies to the north. Here, a battery array will be placed, that will charge from the sunlight during the day and release the energy at night when it is needed.
It is one of the very few co-located solar farms and lithium ion batteries that are co-located with a wind farm in the UK.
We need more of these to balance our power supplies and improve their quality.
Moment Energy Secures US$15 Million Series A Funding To Build World’s First Second-Life Gigafactory in the U.S
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Cision.
This is the sub-heading.
Funding co-led by Amazon Climate Pledge Fund and Voyager Ventures to accelerate production of high-performing Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) from repurposed EV batteries
Series A brings Moment Energy’s financing in the last three months alone to over US$40 Million with US$52 million raised to date
This introductory paragraph gives more details.
Moment Energy’s battery energy storage systems (BESS) can be deployed in projects ranging from 400 kilowatt hours (kWh) to 10 megawatt hours (MWh), targeting an intermediate market segment that is currently underserved but crucial to the clean energy transition. Designed to serve commercial and industrial sectors, EV charging infrastructure, and renewable energy integration, the company is strategically positioned to capitalize on the convergence of rising EVs and renewable energy sources.
Sounds like a sensible way of handling old lithium-ion batteries.
Moment Energy has a web site.
Are we getting a second-life gigafactory in the UK?
We probably will need one.
As Moment Energy is Canadian, they might supply it.
US DOE Offers US$1.76 billion Loan To Hydrostor For A-CAES California Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
These three paragraphs give more detail.
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) has made a conditional commitment for a loan to long-duration energy storage (LDES) developer and operator Hydrostor of up to US$1.76 billion.
If finalised, the loan would be used to help fund the Willow Rock Energy Storage Centre, a 500MW/4,000MWh, 8-hour advanced compressed air energy storage system (A-CAES) in Eastern Kern County, California, led by Hydrostor subsidiary GEM A-CAES.
Compressed air energy storage (CAES) charges by pressurising air and funnelling it into a storage medium, often a salt cavern, and discharges it by releasing the compressed air through a heating system, which expands air before it is sent through a turbine generator.
Note.
- Both the Canadian Hydrostor and the British Highview Power use air in their batteries, with the Canadians using compressed air, often in salt caverns and the British using liquid air in tanks.
- Highview Power’s first large scale battery will be 200MW/2.5GWh, which is about half the size of Hydrostor’s, which will be 500MW/4.0GWh.
- Having mathematically-modeled large tanks full of chemicals in the 1970s for ICI, I wouldn’t be surprised, if the Highview Power battery is more easily scalable.
This could be an interesting technological shootout.
Complicating matters could be Trump’s policies to big batteries.
This article on Utility Dive, which is entitled Potential Trump Policies Pose Risks For US Storage Sector, With Musk Impact Uncertain.
Analysts Say Gives A Reasoned.
Higher battery material tariffs and phased-down IRA tax credits threaten a 15% drop in U.S. storage deployment through 2035 in a “worst-case” scenario,
BNEF analysts said.
Octopus Energy Generation Acquires 252MW Solar And Storage Projects
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
These two introductory paragraphs add more detail.
The generation arm of British energy major Octopus Energy has announced that it has acquired four new solar projects across England as part of a plan to invest £2 billion into renewable energy projects by 2030.
Four new solar farms currently under development have been acquired from renewable energy developer BayWa.re, with a combined generation capacity of 222MW. One of the sites will also play host to a 30MW battery energy storage system (BESS).
On Sunday, there was an Interview with Greg Jackson, who is the boss of Octopus in the Sunday Times, which was entitled Octopus Boss: Split UK Into Price Zones Or Bills Will Keep Rising.
I think we should watch, where Greg splashes his money.
Battery Energy Storage Park Plans Submitted
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
A green energy company has pledged to fund up to £40m worth of community projects if a controversial battery energy storage system (BESS) in the North Yorkshire countryside goes ahead.
These three paragraphs fill out the story.
NatPower has submitted a planning application to North Yorkshire Council for the site on farmland near Thirsk.
If approved, the company said it would contribute up to £1m each year for 40 years to local businesses, charities and groups to develop “sustainable communities”.
However, campaign group Thirsk Against Battery Storage (TABS) said local residents remained opposed to the scheme.
If the developers of the BESS can afford to give forty million pounds to the community, there must be substantial sums to be made out of installing batteries like these.
I certainly believe that with the current government’s more relaxed attitude to renewable energy developments in the countryside, that we’ll see more batteries, solar panels and wind turbines on hill tops and behind barns band woods.
More and more bigger houses and small businesses will install solar panels, smaller wind turbines and batteries and find they can be independent of the grid.
UK Gov’t Says Offshore Wind Backbone Of 2030 Clean Power System, Plans To Procure 12 GW More In Next Few Allocation Rounds
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Electricity generated by renewable sources and nuclear power will be the foundation of the UK’s electricity system by 2030, according to a new action plan the UK government issued in December 2024. Offshore wind, which now accounts for some 17 per cent of the country’s electricity generation, has “a particularly important role as the backbone of the clean power system”, the government said, revealing plans to make part of the path to building offshore wind farms easier as soon as before the Contract for Difference (CfD) round planned for the summer.
These two paragraphs add a few more details to the plan.
The action plan, issued by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), was presented by the UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband on 13 December and is said to be a “major milestone to deliver on the Prime Minister’s Plan for Change which aims to drive economic growth and rebuild Britain with mission-driven government”.
Clean Power 2030 Action Plan is a roadmap to an (almost) fully clean power system in the UK by 2030, with clean sources making up 95 per cent of Great Britain’s electricity generation with gas being used for no more than 5 per cent of total generation.
This Wikipedia entry is a List of Operational Wind Farms in the UK.
Operational Offshore Wind Farms
In October 2023, there were offshore wind farms consisting of 2,695 turbines with a combined capacity of 14,703 megawatts. Strike price based on £/MWh at 2012 prices.
Wind Farms Under Construction
Offshore wind farms currently under construction (offshore), with a combined capacity in December 2024 of 7,792 MW. Strike price based on £/MWh at 2012 prices.
Pre-Construction Wind Farms
Wind farms that have started onshore construction and have been awarded contracts under the UK Government’s Contracts for Difference Round 3 (2019)/Round 4 (2022). Total capacity of 3,932 MW. Strike price based on £/MWh at 2012 prices. These projects re-bid some capacity in Round 6 (2024) with a higher strike price.
Proposed Wind Farms – Contracts For Difference Round 4
Wind farms proposed under the Round 4 (2022) CFD auction,[88] with a combined capacity of 1,428 MW . Strike price based on £/MWh at 2012 prices.
Proposed Wind Farms – Contracts For Difference Round 6
Wind farms proposed under the Round 6 (2024) CFD auction,[88] with a combined capacity of 3,763 MW . Strike price based on £/MWh at 2012 prices.
Proposed Wind Farms – Previously Awarded In The CfD Round 3
This wind farm was proposed under the UK Government’s Contracts for Difference Round 3 (2019), which it decided to withdraw from. It will likely bid in AR6 with a changed specification from the original submission
Proposed Wind Farms – Early Planning
Wind farms that are in an exploratory phase and have not yet secured a Contract for Difference at auction.
Total capacities: England: 18,423 MW – Wales: 700 MW – Scotland: 30,326 MW
Current Totals
- Operational Offshore Wind Farms – 14,703 MW
- Wind Farms Under Construction – 7,792 MW
- Pre-Construction Wind Farms – 3,932 MW
- Contracts For Difference Round 4 – 1,428 MW
- Contracts For Difference Round 6 – 3,763 MW
- Previously Awarded In The CfD Round 3 – 0 MW
- Earlp Planning – England: 18,423 MW
- Early Planning – Wales: 700 MW
- Early Planning – Scotland: 30,326 MW
Adding up these totals gives 81.067 MW
As I’m typing this, the UK is generating and importing a total of 29,330 MW of electricity.
Conclusion
Another 12 GW of new offshore wind will mean that we will have 81,067 + 12,000 – 29330 MW of electricity to put in store or sell to the Germans and other Europeans.
Perhaps we should be investing in industries, that use large quantities of electricity like hydrogen steel-making or zero-carbon cement making.
The Anonymous Widower 