The Shape Of Solar Farms To Come
This article on Renew Energy is entitled Gannawarra Battery-Integrated Solar Farm – Australia’s Largest – Officially Opened.
These are the first two paragraphs.
The Gannawarra solar and energy storage project near Kerang in western Victoria has had its official launch on Friday, to mark the largest pairing of a solar farm and a grid-scale battery system in Australia.
State energy minister Lily D’Ambrosio officially anointed the landmark project, which has combined 60MW of PV panels and a 25MW/50MWh battery system – Tesla’s second-biggest battery in the country so far.
Form the video in the areticle, it appears that there are 120 hectares of solar panels and the farm provides enough electricity for 25,000 homes.
It is an interesting concept and I’m sure it will be repeated around the world.
Ausralia has lots of sun, but there is no reason, why a similar system can’t be developed with tidal, wave or wind power.
A Different Energy Storage Technology
Recently, two articles on the web have been caught in my Google alerts.
- This article on Energy Storage News, which is entitled ‘Flow Machine’ Maker RedT Gets £3.2m Funding Needed To Power Projects
- This article on Mining Review Africa, which is entitled Bushveld Minerals: A Large-Scale Battery Storage Contender
Both articles are about energy storage using a Vanadium Redox Flow Battery.
This is a paragraph from the Bushveld article.
The project will be implemented in two phases for a total of 1 400 MWh of energy storage capacity – 800 MWh in Phase 1 and an additional 600 MWh in Phase 2.
When you consider that with lithium-ion technology battery capacity is normally talked about in kWH, these are impressive amounts of stored energy.
Reading the Wikipedia post shows that the batteries rely on toxic chemicals like sulphuric acid and vanadium oxide, which would probably rule out mobile applications.
Conclusion
Having read all the two articles and the Wikipedia entry, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some form of technology like this emerge for large scale energy storage to back up intermittent power sources like solar, wind and wave.
UK Listed Energy Storage Fund Seeks 182MW Battery Project Pipeline
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the first paragraph.
UK investment management firm Gresham House has confirmed it is to launch a fresh fund raising drive as it sets its sights on a new, 182MW pipeline of battery storage projects.
It is my belief as a Control Engineer, that if we move to renewable energy, like geothermal, hydro, solar, tidal, wave and wind, that the generating capacity must be backed up with large massive of energy storage.
- The energy storage captures excess electricity when nobody needs to use it and feeds it back when consumption exceeds supply.
- I suspect that the National Grid have done extensive simulations of the UK’s energy needs and that they have a model of how much energy storage is needed to support particular mixes and capacities of renewable energy.
- Most of the storage will be lithium-ion or perhaps some of the newer developments, that are creeping into the renewable dictionary.
- The cost of storage, its working life and performance must be well-known, which means that the investors can get a return, that satisfies their needs to fund pensions and insurance policies.
So it would appear that Gresham House have done their sums and come up with a mathematical model, where all are winners.
- UK industry and consumers get enough electricity for their needs.
- Insurance companies and pension funds get a return to fulfil their contractual commitments.
- UK pensioners get a reliable pension.
- UK taxpayers don’t have to fund the much-needed energy storage.
- Our electricity will increasingly be generated by renewables.
- I do suspect that Gresham House will take an appropriate fee.
There may even be an opportunity for the public to invest directly in the future.
For all these winners, there will be losers.
- Oil companies. In Writing On The Wall For Oil Say Funds, I wrote about the opinion of fund managers on oil companies.
- Despots, dictators and religious maniacs, who control much of the world’s oil resources.
I shall cry not one tear for the second group!
I’ll be very interested to see the way that these energy storage funds develop!
Conclusion
These funds will develop in parallel with renewable energy and the energy storage it needs.
As the demand for energy storage will grow significantly, these funds will grow as well to provide the capacity needed to keep the lights on.
Battery Storage Backers Energized By Prospect Of New Tax Credit
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Bloomberg Tax
- Thirty percent tax relief would be provided for energy storage.
- It might also stand a chance of becoming law in the US.
Read the article and question as I did, that tax relief may be the best way to get investors to build energy storage to keep the lights on, when the wind’s not blowing and the sun’s not shining.
Whitehaven Deep Coal Mine Plan Moves Step Closer
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first three paragraphs.
The first new deep coal mine in the UK for decades has moved a step closer after councillors unanimously backed the plans.
The West Cumbria Mining Company wants to mine next to the site of the former colliery in Whitehaven that shut three decades ago.
The Woodhouse Colliery could create 500 jobs, but objectors have said mining will contribute to global warming.
I am not normally a friend or supporter of coal, but there might be a different agenda behind this mine.
The coal that will be mined at Woodchurch Mine, will not be burnt in a power station or steam engine, as it is being mined for a different purpose. It is high-quality metallurgical coal, Wikipedia says this about metallurgical coal.
Metallurgical coal is a grade of low-ash, low-sulfur and low-phosphorus coal that can be used to produce high grade coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled to the demand for steel. Primary steelmaking companies will often have a division that produces coal for coking, to ensure stable and low-cost supply
Currently, there is a shortage of this product and Europe import several million tonnes a year.
It also appears that the Cumbrian metallurgical coal is of a high quality and low in impurities.
In Wikipedia, there is an entry for the HIsarna ironmaking process.
This process is being developed by the Ultra-Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking (ULCOS) consortium, which includes Tata Steel and the Rio Tinto Group. Reduction in carbon-dioxide produced by the process compared to traditional steel-making are claimed to be as high as fifty percent.
This figure does not include carbon-capture to reduce the carbon-dioxide still further.
However, looking at descriptions of the process, I feel that applying carbon-capture to the HIsarna steelmaking process might be a lot easier, than with traditional steelmaking.
If you are producing high quality steel by a process like HIsarna, you want to make sure that you don’t add any impurities from the coal, so you have a premium product.
So is Cumbrian metallurgical coal important to the HIsarna process?
I obviously don’t know and it is not even certain that HIsarna will eventually become a mainstream way of producing high-quality steel.
But you can be assured that there are other companies trying to find the Holy Grail of producing high quality steel with low impurities and without creating masses of carbon-dioxide.
The company or organisation, who cracks this one will make a fortune ethically, as we’ll always need lots of high quality steel.
Conclusion
Mining coal in Cumbria may seem a retrograde step, but it could be central to cutting carbon-dioxide emissions in high-quality steel-making.
I’ll be watching this development with interest.
Government Turns Up Power On Offshore Wind
The title of this post, is the same as that of an article in yesterday’s copy of The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
A third of British electricity will be generated by offshore wind farms by 2030 under government plans.
Although Jeremy Corbyn said he would reopen coal mines a couple of years ago, I can’t see a change of Government stopping this.
A few other points from the article.
- Last year offshore wind produced about eight percent of our electricity needs.
- The offshore wind energy industry has said it will raise UK content from 48 to 60 percent.
- The industry has promised to invest £250million in the supply chain.
- There are 1,900 turbines in British waters, which can generate 8GW.
- Another 6GW will come on stream by 2022-23.
- Another 16GW are in the planning stage.
The author feels that as costs are reducing, this is driving the investment.
Conclusion
We have a very windy future.
Ovo Partners With Glen Dimplex To Deliver Smart Heating
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Utility Week.
If you read the article, you will find out how the humble electric storage heater could be joining the smart electricity grid.
This is a paragraph.
It says the facility to store excess energy can lower the cost of electrification by reducing the need for backup generation and investment in the power grid to increase its peak capacity. Analysis by Imperial College London has indicated that deploying smart flexible heating could cut decarbonisation costs by £3.9 billion per year.
This is going to be technology to watch.
Especially, if your heating needs are best met by some form of electric storage heaters.
Wind Farms Sale Is Breath Of Fresh Air After Merger Setback
The title of this post, is the same as that as an article in the Business pages of The Times.
This is the first paragraph.
Selling stakes in two wind farms for £635million will provide funds to reduce debt and to launch up to £200million of share buybacks, SSE said yesterday.
Amongst the purchasers of the stake in the wind farms is an unnamed British pension fund.
So yet again, we’re seeing pension funds investing our future in wind farms.
It is a trend that will continue, as pension funds look for safe places to put the massive funds they have under management.
- We need the electricity the farms produce.
- The engineering of wind farms will get better, and farms will be more reliable and produce electricity economically for years longer.
- The farrms will probably get the best of maintenance, as pension funds will protect their investment.
In addition to wind, I suspect pension funds and insurance companies will invest in other large renewable energy schemes like solar and wave power and energy storage.
Schemes, such as those I mentioned in Exciting Renewable Energy Project for Spennymoor, will surely be ones that will appeal to the funds.
Conclusion
Pension funds and insurance companies with their massive funds are becoming a major force in vutting carbon emissions.
I suspect that this is not just a UK trend, but one with a world-wide dimension, that includes a lot of the EU, the Far East, North American and Australia.
Seabed Rocks Could Act As Green Energy Stores
The title of this post is the same as that of this press release from the University of Strathclyde.
This is the first four paragraphs.
Rocks in the seabed off the UK coast could provide long-term storage locations for renewable energy production, new research suggests.
An advanced technique could be used to trap compressed air in porous rock formations found in the North Sea using electricity from renewable technologies.
The pressurised air could later be released to drive a turbine to generate large amounts of electricity.
Using the technique on a large scale could store enough compressed air to meet the UK’s electricity needs during winter, when demand is highest, the study found.
I read about this in today’s copy of The Times, which also says the following.
- There are suitable areas in the North and Irish Seas that can be used.
- The rocks could store fifty percent more energy than we used January and February.
As similar technology is being used in salt caverns in Germany and the United States, I feel that the idea has possibilities.
Funding Nemo: £600m Power Cable Connects UK And Belgium
The title of this post is the same as this article in The Guardian.
This is the first paragraph.
A £600m cable connecting the UK and Belgium’s energy systems is about to be switched on, becoming the first of a new generation of interconnectors that will deepen the UK’s ties to mainland Europe just as it prepares to leave the EU.
It runs between Richborough in Kent and Zeebrugge in Belgium and is the fifth interconnector to be connected to Great Britain.
Other interconnectors connect to Ireland, Northern Ireland, France and the Netherlands.
In Large Scale Electricity Interconnection, I discuss the rest of the interconnectors, that are being constructed or planned.
We could see up to fifteen in operation in a few years.
As to Nemo, it was originally thought that the UK would be importing energy from Belgium, but as Belgium needs to service its nuclear power stations and will be shutting them in the next few years, the power will sometimes be flowing the other way. Especially, as more large wind farms come on stream in the UK!
It is my view that Icelink could change everything and Belgium’s possible future power shortage, makes Icelink far more likely.
Wikipedia describes the interconnector between Iceland and Scotland like this.
At 1000–1200 km, the 1000 MW HVDC link would be the longest sub-sea power interconnector in the world.
As more interconnectors are built between the UK and the Continent, including a possible link between Peterhead in North-East Scotland to Stavanger in Norway, which is called NorthConnect, the UK will begin to look like a giant electricity sub-station, that connects all the zero-carbon power sources together.
- Denmark will supply wind power.
- France will supply nuclear power.
- Iceland will supply hydro-electric and geothermal power.
- Norway will supply hydro-electric power.
- The UK will supply nuclear and wind power.
Other sources like wind power from France and Ireland and tidal and wave power from the UK could be added to the mix in the next decade.
The Consequences For Gas
Our use of gas to generate electricity in Western Europe will surely decline.
If projects, like those I discussed in Can Abandoned Mines Heat Our Future?, come on stream to provide heat, the role of gas in providing heating in housing and other buildings will decline in the UK.
We also shouldn’t forget the role of hydrogen, which could also replace natural gas in many applications. It would be created by electrolysis of water or as a by-product of some industrial processes.
Hydrogen could also become a valuable way of storing excess electricity produced by tidal, wave and wind power.
It is unlikely, we will develop a totally gas-free economy, as methane is a valuable chemical feedstock to produce other chemical products we need.
Conclusion
Not many people will be sorry, except for President Putin and a few equally nasty despots in the Middle East.
The Anonymous Widower 