Offshore Solar Farm Ready For Tow Out To Hollandse Kust Noord Wind Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
What is described as the “world’s first” offshore solar farm integrated within a wind farm has completed assembly at the Port of Amsterdam and is ready for deployment at the Hollandse Kust Noord (HKN) offshore wind farm in the North Sea.
These two paragraphs give more details about the project.
Dutch company Oceans of Energy assembled the floating solar farm in three days. The system will be towed 18.5 kilometres offshore this summer to be installed at the HKN site, operated by CrossWind, a joint venture (JV) between Shell and Eneco.
According to Oceans of Energy, the project uses prefabricated floating solar units designed for offshore conditions and is seen as a step toward scaling hybrid wind-solar developments.
There are several ways to generate renewable energy.
As wind, solar, tidal and wave power are often out of phase with each other, if you are using two together in a hybrid setup, then it is probably not a bad idea to add a BESS or other form of storage to the mix.
In Oceans of Energy To Build Offshore Solar Array At Hollandse Kust Noord Offshore Wind Park, I said that the Dutch were putting batteries in the design of Hollanse Kust Noord offshore wind farm.
E.ON, Superdielectrics Develop Polymer-Based Battery Tech For Residential Storage Applications
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Solar Power Portal.
These two introductory paragraphs outline the deal.
Energy supplier E.ON and energy storage technology firm Superdielectrics have joined forces to promote and develop a new battery technology for stationary storage applications.
The new BESS technology takes a unique approach by using a polymer-based technology, with the main component being a membrane similar to contact lens materials. According to the two companies, these polymer batteries are both more affordable and more environmentally friendly than their lithium-ion counterparts.
I believe that this battery could be a game-changer. Especially, for those like me, who have solar panels on their roofs.
Check out the Superdielectrics web site for more details.
I First Spotted Superdielectrics In 2019
I wrote about them in Is Cambridge Going To Save The World From Global Warming? in 2019.
This was my conclusion in that post.
I have been observing technology since the 1960s.
This is either one of those scientific curiosities , like cold fusion, that appear from time-to-time and then disappear into the scientific archives or become a game-changer.
I suspect we’ll know in a couple of years.
But even if it is isn’t the solution to affordable and massive energy storage,, that will save the world, I believe that one of the teams of men and women in white coats, somewhere in the world will crack the problem.
It looks like they’ve taken longer than I thought they would.
Note though, that in the linked post, they have a link-up with Rolls-Royce.
Conclusion
This is one of the great energy breakthroughs of my life-time.
Zenobē Lands Financing For 400MW Eccles Project
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
This is the sub-heading.
Battery energy storage system (BESS) developer/operator Zenobē has announced that it has successfully financed its Eccles BESS project in Scotland, in one of the biggest finance rounds in European history.
These two paragraphs add more details.
The total debt raised for the 400MW/800MWh project was £220 million, which the company says is one of the largest finance raises for a standalone BESS project ever made in Europe. The funding was provided by a group of lenders organised by National Westminster Bank and KKR Capital Markets Partners LLP. Additionally, Zenobē has announced that construction on the Eccles BESS—the company’s largest battery project to date—has begun.
The Eccles BESS is the final part of the firm’s £750 million investment in Scotland. Zenobē’s Blackhillock BESS, a 200MW/400MWh project located near Inverness, recently began commercial operations, and is set to expand to 300MW/600MWh later this year.
Zenobe seem to be able to finance these projects, without too much difficulty.
Construction seems to have started. But then, I suspect there are wind turbines in the vScottish Borders already lined up to use the batteries.
This Google Map shows an Eccles substation.
Note.
- The Eccles substation is marked by the red arrow.
- The town at the East edge of the map is Coldstream.
- The England-Scotland border is clearly marked.
This second Google Map shows a closer view of the Eccles substation.
Note.
- t looks to be a substantial substation.
- There would appear to be plenty of space for a large battery.
- It is close to the A 597 road for the delivery of heavy equipment.
I suspect this substation could be the location of the battery.
It’s also right in the heart of Scottish onshore wind territory.
It is also according to the Solar Power Portal a £220 million project.
A project of this size will deliver substantial benefits in terms of work to the local community.
It will likely have a community benefit fund or something similar.
So you would expect the project would be welcomed into the local area.
But you would be wrong, if this article on the BBC, which is entitled Village ‘Heart Ripped Out’ By Battery Site Plans, is typical of the feeling about the batteries.
This is the sub-heading.
A rural community in the Borders is warning that Scotland’s renewable energy revolution is coming at a cost.
These three paragraphs add more detail.
Residents of Leitholm – a village between Coldstream and Greenlaw – claim the heart is being ripped out of their community with the arrival of battery storage facilities.
If all six proposed facilities are approved, more than 200 acres of farmland will be turned over to concreted compounds within a three-kilometre radius of their village.
Retired nursery owner Seonaid Blackie said: “This is not the place it used to be – people are worried sick.”
The residents view is balanced by industry expert Professor John Irvine, from St Andrew’s University, believes energy storage has a vital role to play in reaching net-zero targets.
My view is what is needed is an energy storage system, that can be built substantially underground.
If you look at large Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), they are best described as container parks.
We need energy storage systems, that fit in a single tennis court, rather than thirty football pitches.
Gravitricity is one possibility, who are also Scottish, who store energy using weights in disused mine shafts.
The French system; DELPHY is also a vertical system for storing hydrogen in a custom-built hole.
Practically, I believe the solution adopted will be to spread the batteries out and spend money on surrounding them with trees and other camouflage.
Europe’s Biggest Battery Storage Project Goes Live In Scotland
The title of this post, is the same, as this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
Zenobe’s site at Blackhillock can store surplus generation for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine
These are the first two paragraphs.
Europe’s biggest battery storage project has entered commercial operation in Scotland, promising to soak up surplus wind power and prevent turbines being paid to switch off.
Zenobe said the first phase of its project at Blackhillock, between Inverness and Aberdeen, was now live with capacity to store enough power to supply 200 megawatts of electricity for two hours. It is due to be expanded to 300 megawatts by next year.
I believe we can do better, than install large lithium-ion batteries.
We need to get the pumped storage like Coire Glas, the liquid air like Highview Power and the gravity batteries like Gravitricity going as fast as we can.
They are more environmentally friendly than Tesla’s lithium ion tiddlers and a second generation liquid air battery appears to be 200 MW and 2.5 MWh, so they can supply 200 MW for 12.5 hours.
The Blackhillock battery can do just two hours.
Two of them working as a pair, with a 1 GW wind farm, are as big as a small modular nuclear reactor, so could do the same job, with respect to power supply, using machinery and tank designs, that have been used for decades.
I suspect, that like 1960s coal-fired power stations, they would keep running for fifty years and be simply recycled as steel, copper and other scrap.
Highview Power could make Bishops Stortford famous!
Ørsted Breaks Ground On Innovative UK Battery Energy Storage System
The title of this post, is the same as that, as this news item from Ørsted.
This is the sub-heading.
Ørsted, a global leader in offshore wind energy, has marked breaking ground for its first large-scale UK battery energy storage system (BESS) with a golden shovel ceremony.
These four paragraphs give more details of the project.
Located alongside Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm, near Norwich, Norfolk, the system will have a capacity of 600 MWh (and a 300 MW power rating), equivalent to the daily power consumption of 80,000 UK homes.
The golden shovel ceremony officially kicks off the construction phase of the project, known as Iceni after the Norfolk-based warrior tribe of the Roman era. It is expected to be operational by the end of 2026.
Preparatory works are now complete and the Ørsted, Knights Brown and Tesla Iceni team will continue with the remainder of the installation.
When completed, the battery energy storage system will be one of the largest in Europe.
Note.
- The batteries themselves are from Tesla.
- The project was previously known as the Swardeston BESS.
- The project will be located near to the Swardeston substation to the South of Norwich.
- The project doesn’t seem very innovative to me, as it appears to be a BESS built from Tesla batteries.
Like many batteries, it is designed to supply power for two hours.
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.
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.
‘Europe’s Biggest Battery Farm’ Built On Coal Mine
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Work is under way to create what has been described as Europe’s largest battery storage project at Coalburn in South Lanarkshire.
These three paragraphs add a bit more detail.
Developers say the two huge neighbouring battery farms – one at the site of a former opencast coal mine – will store enough electricity to power three million homes.
Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are being built across the UK to help balance the electricity grid, which is becoming increasingly powered by renewables.
Almost 90% of the electricity generated in Scotland last year was from low carbon sources like wind, solar or nuclear, according to figures from the Scottish government.
A search of the Internet found this paragraph describing the size of the battery.
The CIP BESS portfolio (Coalburn 1, Coalburn 2, and Devilla) will have total power capacity of 1.5GW and will be able to store and supply the grid with a total of 3GWh of electricity, equivalent to the electricity demand of over 4.5 million households, across a 2-hour period.
Note.
- CIP is Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, who are a large developer of energy infrastructure.
- It appears there are three separate 500 MW/ 1 GWh batteries being developed together.
- The batteries can supply electricity for two hours.
This looks like a sensible project in an area, where there could be plenty of spare electricity.
Competition With Highview Power
Highview Power’s web site has a Projects section, where this is said.
Scotland And The North-East, UK
Highview Power’s next projects will be located in Scotland and the North East and each will be 200MW/2.5GWh capacity. These will be located on the national transmission network where the wind is being generated and therefore will enable these regions to unleash their untapped renewable energy potential and store excess wind power at scale.
I can see Highview Power’s 200MW/2.5GWh liquid air batteries and 500 MW/ 1 GWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) competing for the same projects.
However, it does appear at Trafford Energy Park, both types of battery appear to be being installed.
- Carlton Power Secures Planning Consent For World’s Largest Battery Energy Storage Scheme
- Centrica Invests In Renewable Energy Storage Capabilities To Boost UK’s Energy Security And Accelerate Transition To Net Zero
Perhaps the two together give the best response?
Invinity’s New Flow Battery Aimed At Enabling ’24/7 Solar’ For The Grid
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Solar Power Portal.
These three paragraphs outline the story.
New vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) technology from Invinity Energy Systems makes it possible for renewables to replace conventional generation on the grid 24/7, the company has claimed.
Anglo-American flow battery company Invinity launched its new product, Endurium, today. It follows around three years of R&D, testing, and prototyping, during which Invinity has partnered with Siemens Gamesa on technology development.
Designed for high energy throughput with unlimited cycling and with at least a 50% reduction in the footprint required for installation at project sites, the company said it could cost-competitively tackle present-day energy storage markets and emerging long-duration energy storage (LDES) opportunities alike.
This looks like it could be a bit of a breakthrough.
After reading this article, it would appear that traditional lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) now have another competitor along with Highview Power’s liquid air battery.
The Anonymous Widower 