Vallourec’s Delphy Hydrogen Storage Solution
Hydrogen can be a nuisance to store.
I have just found a YouTube video of a system called Delphy from French company Vallourec.
Delphy seems a neat solution, where hydrogen is stored vertically in a 100 metre hole, that can hold a 100 tonnes of hydrogen.
You can watch this video.
I think this would be an ideal hydrogen storage solution for a bus or coach company or a truck operator.
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.
Cold Snap Leaves Britain With Less Than A Week’s Worth Of Gas
The title of this post, are the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
The closure of Russian pipelines through Ukraine and recent weather conditions have left gas stores ‘concerningly low’
These are the first two paragraphs.
Britain has less than a week of gas supplies in storage, the country’s largest supplier has warned after plunging temperatures and high demand.
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, said the UK’s gas storage was “concerningly low” after coming under pressure this winter.
The two largest gas storage facilities in this country are both in the Humberside area.
- Aldbrough is in salt caverns North of Hull and is owned by SSE.
- Rough is under the North Sea and is owned by Centrica
Both are being converted to store hydrogen.
Some might thing that is a bit stupid if we’re short of storage, but we need the hydrogen storage for four reasons.
- To store hydrogen created by electrolysers on Humberside, which will enable heavy gas users in the area to decarbonise.
- The hydrogen will also be burnt in a 1 GW hydrogen-fired power station at Keadby to back up the wind turbines, with zero-carbon electricity.
- The hydrogen will also be sold to the Germans to replace Putin’s blood-stained gas. It will be sent to Germany in a pipeline called AquaVentus, which will also deliver Scottish hydrogen across the North Sea. Hopefully, the Germans will pay a good price for the hydrogen.
- The hydrogen will be used for transport.
The mistake the Government is making is not to develop smaller gas fields, so that domestic gas users can continue to use natural gas, until the technology to replace it with zero-carbon sources is fully developed.
A New Metier
This article in The Times today is entitled Too many Sir Humpreys are stopping London from taking a punt.
The article is about one of Britain’s most successful private investors ; John Gunn.
The article also introduces a new company to me, with this paragraph.
His latest enthusiasm is for Metier, a company that aims to leapfrog electric vehicle power to convert buses and heavy trucks to hydrogen fuel cells. Several big firms such as Volvo are making new hydrogen-powered vehicles, but Gunn and his partners reckon there is more money in reconfiguring existing ones.
It was Metier, that caught my eye.
In the 1970s, with three others, I started a company called Metier Management Systems, which developed a project management system called Artemis.
We were very successful, in that we sold the company for a nine figure sum and won two Queen’s Awards for Exports.
Since then, there have been several successful companies named Artemis, but we haven’t seen a Metier.
Until now that is and I hope that the hydrogen vehicle company is as successful worldwide as we were.
Strangely, my first job on leaving Liverpool University was in a hydrogen factory and I am a great believer in using the gas as a source of energy.
Metier have a web site, if you want to find out more about the company.
H2Rescue Truck Smashes World Record With 1,806 Miles On A Single Hydrogen Fill!
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Fuel News.
This is the sub-heading.
H2Rescue Truck Sets New World Record in Hydrogen Transportation
These first two paragraphs add more detail.
A groundbreaking milestone in hydrogen-powered transportation has been achieved by the H2Rescue truck, a prototype heavy-duty vehicle capable of addressing energy challenges during disaster relief. Built by Accelera (a division of Cummins), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and other federal agencies, the truck recently achieved a Guinness World Record by traveling an astonishing 1,806 miles on a single fill of hydrogen fuel.
What makes this feat remarkable is the environmental implications of the technology. While a traditional internal combustion engine would have emitted 664 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) over the same distance, the hydrogen-fueled H2Rescue truck produced zero CO2 emissions. Hydrogen-powered vehicles like this one exemplify cutting-edge innovation in decarbonizing transportation.
This last paragraph describes the use of the vehicle in emergencies.
More than just a long-distance performer, the H2Rescue truck is an essential tool during emergencies. It can provide 25 kilowatts of power for critical relief operations, such as lighting, medical equipment, and communication systems, for up to 72 hours without refueling. This capability could make a significant difference in disaster zones, where reliable energy sources are often scarce.
Cummins are certainly serious about the innovative use of hydrogen.
Did I Come Across A HiiRoc-Style Process In the 1960s?
The home page of the HiiROC web site has a title of Thermal Plasma Electrolysis with this sub-heading.
A Transformational New Process For Affordable Clean Hydrogen.
This is the first paragraph.
Leading with our proprietary plasma technology, HiiROC has developed a new process for producing affordable clean hydrogen: Thermal Plasma Electrolysis
The further I read it starts to appear familiar.
It was a long time ago in 1968, but I shared an office at ICI Mond Division with a guy called Peter, who was helping to try to get a similar process working.
ICI were using a bought-in process to try to make acetylene.
I seem to remember that ethylene was burnt in a aerosphere with little oxygen.
Was it then quenched with naphtha?
Acetylene was then supposed to be released, but all the plant did was produce lots of soot, which it spread all over Runcorn.
Peter’s job was to measure the acetylene in the burner off gas. The section I worked in had developed, a very clever instrument that could measure levels of one chemical in another by infra-red comparison to very low levels.
In this plant, it was measuring acetylene in burner off-gas.
They did it successfully, but it was a disaster, as the gas on the output of the burner was straying into explosive limits.
The plant was was immediately shut down and dismantled.
ScottishPower Renewables Picks Port For East Anglia Two Pre-Assembly
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
ScottishPower Renewables, Iberdrola’s UK arm, has selected Peel Ports Great Yarmouth as the staging ground for pre-assembly works for its 960 MW East Anglia Two offshore wind project.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The companies have signed a reservation agreement that will see the Siemens Gamesa turbine components and sections come together for assembly at the Norfolk site before installation in the southern North Sea in 2028.
Note.
- The Port of Great Yarmouth was used for this task with East Anglia One.
- The turbine blades will be manufactured at Siemens Gamesa’s offshore wind blade factory in Hull.
- The monopiles will come from Sif in Rotterdam.
This is the first sentence of the Wikipedia entry for the East5 Anglia Array.
The East Anglia Array is a proposed series of offshore wind farms located around 30 miles off the east coast of East Anglia, in the North Sea, England. It has begun with the currently operational East Anglia ONE, that has been developed in partnership by ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall. Up to six individual projects could be set up in the area with a maximum capacity of up to 7.2 GW.
These articles on offshoreWIND.biz indicate that ScottishPower Renewables has been busy signing contracts for East Anglia Two.
- December 4th, 2024 – Nexans Lands Export Cable Contract For East Anglia Two Offshore Wind Farm.
- November 28th, 2024 – Hitachi Energy to Integrate 960 MW East Anglia Two Wind Farm into UK Grid.
- November 12th, 2024 – Siemens Gamesa Bags GBP 1 Billion Turbine Contract For East Anglia Two.
- November 6th, 2024 – Seaway7 Wins East Anglia Two Inter-Array Cable Contract.
- October 31st, 2024 – Sif, Smulders to Deliver Monopiles and TPs For ScottishPower’s East Anglia Two Offshore Wind Farm.
They must have employed lawyers on roller skates to get five contracts signed in just over a month.
Conclusion
East Anglia Two appears to be definitely under way and the Wikipedia extract says there could be a lot more, if all the other wind farms are developed in the same way using the Port of Great Yarmouth.
A total capacity in the East Anglia Array of 7.2 GW will surely be good for both East Anglia and the UK as a whole, but will the natives be happy with all the onshore infrastructure?
I wouldn’t be surprised to see further wind farm developed to generate hydrogen offshore, which will be either brought ashore to the Bacton gas terminal, using existing or new pipelines or distributed using tanker ships to where it is needed.
Petition Calls Made To Scrap Blackwall And Silvertown Tolls
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
A petition containing more than 37,000 signatures calling for proposed tolls on the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels to be scrapped has been presented at City Hall.
These four paragraphs give more details.
Toll charges of up to £4 per journey through the soon-to-open Silvertown Tunnel and the neighbouring Blackwall Tunnel were announced by Transport for London (TfL) on 26 November.
The Silvertown Tunnel will open next spring and will provide a new road crossing under the Thames between Silvertown and the Greenwich Peninsula.
The charges are “designed to manage levels of traffic using the tunnels”, TfL has said.
A TfL spokesperson added that without the tolls, “traffic would increase in both tunnels causing delays and congestion, which contribute to poorer air quality”.
Note.
- 37,000 is a large petition.
- If Transport for London wanted to reduce pollution, they could encourage greater use of hydrogen.
I have done some simple modeling using Excel.
- There are six vehicle crossings; Dartford Bridge, Dartford Crossing, Woolwich Ferry, Silvertown Tunnel, Blackwall Tunnel and Rotherhithe Tunnel.
- Matters are complicated by each crossing being a different size.
- There are several reliable rail crossings and a number of foot crossings, which offer alternatives, for those travellers on foot.
- Currently the worst disruption occurs, when more than one route is out of action at the same time.
It is a very complex river crossing,
I feel strongly that we aren’t going to get a true picture of traffic flow through the two new tunnels, until we see serious disruption on the Dartford Crossing.
But what worries me most, is that in the last few years, TfL have made decisions, where they must have done extensive mathematical modelling and they seem to have come up with answers, that are wide of the mark.
Congestion Prediction
I believe that we now have enough data, that by the use of modern computing, advanced vehicle detection techniques and a liberal dollop of artificial intelligence we should be able to accurately predict the traffic flow over the Thames between Dartford and Silvertown, better than we have done in the past.
But will this just mean, that everybody just takes the least-congested route?
BP’s Morven Wind Farm At Risk Of Missing Start Date
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
A lengthening queue for grid connection could scupper plans to provide energy for three million homes from a development in the North Sea by the end of the decade
These two paragraphs introduce the article.
One of the largest wind farms in the UK risks missing its 2030 target to start generating power, due to lengthy grid connection queues and supply chain shortages.
The Morven Wind Farm being developed by BP, which is to be located 38 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, will have capacity of 2.9 gigawatts, which is expected to be capable of powering three million homes in Britain.
The delays in getting a grid connection and obtaining various electrical parts could derail BP’s plans.
The Morven wind farm is one of three being developed by a partnership of BP and a German company, which is outlined in this paragraph.
Morven is one of three UK wind farms being built by BP in a joint venture with Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW), the German energy company. The other two, Mona and Morgan, are being developed in the Irish Sea and have already secured grid connections.
These are my thoughts on the problems with the Morven Wind Farm.
Everybody is assuming that there will be a large cable to bring the 2.9 GW of electricity to the Scottish coast somewhere near Aberdeen.
Cables can be a problem as the article indicates, with connection to the grid and the erection of large numbers of pylons being major ones.
But the energy from Morven doesn’t necessarily need to go to Scotland.
It can be converted into hydrogen using an offshore electrolyser and sent to where it is needed by pipeline or a tanker ship.
I have also noted that BP’s partners are German and Germany has a massive need for zero-carbon energy to replace the large amount of coal they burn.
The Germans are building a massive pipeline called AquaVentus, from their North-West coast to the Dogger Bank, to collect hydrogen created by up to 10 GW of offshore wind farms in the German Ocean or their part of the North Sea to the shore.
I introduced AquaVentus in this post called AquaVentus.
This video shows the structure of AquaVentus.
I clipped this map from the video.
Note.
- The thick white line running North-West/South-East is the spine of AquaVentus, that will deliver hydrogen to Germany.
- There is a link to Esbjerg in Denmark, that is marked DK.
- There appears to be an undeveloped link to Norway, which goes North,
- There appears to be an undeveloped link to Peterhead in Scotland, that is marked UK.
- There appears to be a link to just North of the Humber in England, that is marked UK.
- Just North of the Humber are the two massive gas storage sites of Aldbrough owned by SSE and Brough owned by Centrica.
- Aldbrough and Rough gas storage sites are being converted into two of the largest hydrogen storage sites in the world!
- There appear to be small ships sailing up and down the East Coast of the UK. Are these small coastal tankers, that are distributing the hydrogen to where it is needed?
When it is completed, AquaVentus will be a very comprehensive hydrogen network.
- Pipelines from Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands and the UK will feed directly into AquaVentus.
- Will enBW and BP build a giant offshore electrolyser at Morven and send the hydrogen to Germany via the spine of AquaVentus?
- Will AquaVentus use the vast hydrogen storage North of Hull to store excess hydrogen?
- Will connections be built between AquaVentus and the UK’s Northern gas terminals at St Fergus and Easington?
If AquaVentus works as intended, Germany’s Russian gas will be replaced by zero-carbon hydrogen, a large proportion of which will come from the UK’s waters.
Where Will We Get Our Electricity From?
If the energy from Morven is sold to the Germans as hydrogen, where will we get the energy we need?
Morven is just one of several large wind farms and being developed around the North of Scotland and we’ll probably use the energy from another wind farm.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to the grid, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to one or more of the large Scottish pumped storage hydro-electric power-stations, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to Germany as hydrogen, will do so.
- Wind farms that can best send their energy to Scotland or another country as hydrogen, will do so.
The hydrogen will get distributed to those who need it and can pay the appropriate price.
Where Will The Turbines And the Electrical Gubbins Come From?
I’m sure that if Morven was sending a couple of GW of hydrogen to Germany, Siemens could build the turbines and the associated electrical gubbins needed at a favourable price, with an acceptable delivery date.
Conclusion
Germany will likely be pleased, in that they will be able to close a lot of very dirty coal-fired power stations, by replacing coal with green hydrogen.
The UK should be pleased, as the Germans will pay us for the hydrogen.
As for Putin, who knows, what the mad Russian will do?
The Incredible £7m Hydrogen Train To Be introduced In ‘Fastest Growing’ Country
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in the Express.
This is the sub-heading.
Each hydrogen train is priced at £7 million and can run up to 621 miles (1,000km) on a single tank, reaching speeds of 87mph (140 km/h).
These two paragraphs add more details.
India is the fastest-growing economy among G20 nations and is set to launch its first hydrogen-powered train this December.
The groundbreaking train will debut on the Jind-Sonipat route in Haryana and will mark a massive step toward eco-friendly rail travel.
If you look at the article, there is an impressive looking picture, but it may be a visualisation.
This page on etnow.in has an interesting paragraph.
- In this context, the launch of Hydrogen trains deserves special mention. The national transporter has envisaged running 35 Hydrogen trains under “Hydrogen for Heritage” on various heritage and hill routes.
Does that mean that Indian Railways are using hydrogen-powered trains to avoid spoiling the scenery with overhead wires?
Hydrogen-powered trains in India could be a story to watch.
The Anonymous Widower 