The Anonymous Widower

£100m Boost For Biggest UK Hydro Scheme In Decades

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.

This is the sub-heading.

A giant hydro scheme which would double the UK’s ability to store energy for long periods is taking a leap forward with a £100m investment by SSE.

These are the first three paragraphs.

The proposed 92m-high dam and two reservoirs at Coire Glas in the Highlands would be Britain’s biggest hydroelectric project for 40 years.

Scottish ministers approved the 1.5 GW pumped storage facility in 2020.

But power giant SSE wants assurances from the UK government before finally signing it off.

There are two major problems with this scheme.

Why The Forty Year Wait?

I am an Electrical and Control Engineer and it is a scandal that we are waiting forty years for another pumped storage scheme like the successful  Electric Mountain or Cruachan power stations to arrive.

Petrol or diesel vehicles have batteries for these three main purposes.

  • To start the engine.
  • To stabilise the output of the generator or alternator.
  • To provide emergency power.

As to the latter, I can’t be the only person, who has dragged a car out of a ford on the starter motor. But think of the times, you’ve used the hazard warning lights, after an accident or an engine failure.

The nightmare of any operator of a complicated electricity network like the UK’s is a black start, which is defined by Wikipedia like this.

A black start is the process of restoring an electric power station or a part of an electric grid to operation without relying on the external electric power transmission network to recover from a total or partial shutdown.

Hydro electric power stations and especially those that are part of pumped storage schemes are ideal for providing the initial power, as they are often easy to start and have water available. Cruachan power station has a black start capability, but at 440 MW is it big enough?

Over the last few years, many lithium-ion batteries have been added to the UK power network, which are used to stabilise the grid, when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

There are four pumped storage hydro-electric schemes in the UK.

Note.

  1. I always give the power output and the storage capacity for a battery, if it is known.
  2. According to Wikipedia, Scotland has a potential for around 500 GWh of pumped storage.
  3. The largest lithium-ion battery that I know, that is being planned in the UK, is Intergen’s 320 MW/640 MWh battery at Thames Gateway, that I wrote about in Giant Batteries Will Provide Surge Of Electricity Storage. It’s smaller than any of the four current pumped storage schemes.
  4. The Wikipedia entry for Coire Glas says that it is a 1.5 GW/30 GWh pumped storage hydro-electric power station.

I very much feel that even one 1.5 GW/30 GWh pumped storage hydro-electric power station must make a big difference mathematically.

Why have we had to wait so long? It’s not as though a pumped storage hydro-electric power station of this size has suffered a serious disaster.

Drax Needs Assurances Too?

The BBC article says this.

Scotland’s only other pumped storage scheme, operated by Drax Group, is housed within a giant artificial cavern inside Ben Cruachan on the shores of Loch Awe in Argyll.

The North Yorkshire-based company plans to more than double the generating capacity of its facility, nicknamed Hollow Mountain, to more than 1GW, with the construction of a new underground power station.

But both Drax and SSE have been reluctant to press ahead without assurances from Whitehall.

It looks like the right assurances would open up at least two pumped storage hydro-electric power station projects.

But it could be better than that, as there are other projects under development.

This totals to 3750 MW/104.3 GWh or 5850 MW/134.3 GWh with the addition of Coire Glas and the extension to Cruachan.

Getting the assurances right could result in large amounts of construction in Scotland!

What Assurances Do Power Giants SSE And Drax Want Before Signing Off?

This news item on SSE Renewables, which is dated 18th March 2022, is entitled Ministerial Roundtable Seeks To Unlock Investment In UK Energy Storage.

These three paragraphs gives details of the meeting.

Business leaders have met with UK Energy Minister the Rt Hon Greg Hands MP to discuss how the government could unlock significant investment in vital energy storage technologies needed to decarbonise the power sector and help ensure greater energy independence.

The meeting was organised by the Long-Duration Electricity Storage Alliance, a new association of companies, progressing plans across a range of technologies to be first of their kind to be developed in the UK for decades.

Representatives from Drax, SSE Renewables, Highview Power and Invinity Energy Systems met with The Rt Hon Greg Hands MP, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth [yesterday].

But they still don’t seem to have come up with a funding mechanism.

  • In this case, it seems that multiple politicians may not be to blame, as Greg Hands was the Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth until the 6th of September 2022, when he handed over to Graham Stuart, who is still the incumbent.
  • Could it be that civil servants for this problem need to be augmented by a Control Engineer with mathematical modelling skills from a practical university?

It is the sort of problem, I would love to get my teeth into, but unfortunately my three mentors in accountancy and banking; Bob, Brian and David, who could have helped me, have all passed on to another place to help someone else with their problems.

I’ve just had a virtual meeting with all three and they told me to look at it like a warehousing system.

Consider.

  • It would be very easy to measure the amount of water stored in the upper reservoir of a pumped storage hydro-electric power station.
  • It would also be easy to measure the electricity flows to and from the pumped storage hydro-electric power station.
  • A monetary value could be placed on the water in the upper reservoir and the flows, depending on the current price for electricity.

So it should be possible to know that a pumped storage hydro-electric power station, was perhaps storing energy as follows.

  • 10 GWh for SSE
  • 8 GWh for RWE
  • 6 GWh for Scottish Power
  • 6 GWh is not being used

And just as in a warehouse, they would pay a fee of so much for storing each GWh for an hour.

  • The system would work with any type of storage.
  • Would competition between the various storage sites bring down prices for storing electricity?
  • Pumped storage operators would get a bonus when it rained heavily.
  • Just as they do now, electricity generators would store it when prices are low and retrieve it when prices are high.

A lot of the rules used to decide where electricity goes would still work.

 

 

March 22, 2023 Posted by | Energy, Energy Storage, Finance | , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

UK Confirms £205 Million Budget To Power More Of Britain From Britain

The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from the Department of Energy Security And NetZero.

This is the sub title.

UK government confirms budget for this year’s Contracts for Difference scheme as it enters its first annual auction, boosting energy security.

These are the three bullet points.

  • Government announces significant financial backing for first annual flagship renewables auction, boosting Britain’s energy security
  • £170 million pledged for established technologies to ensure Britain remains a front runner in renewables and £10 million ring-fenced budget for tidal
  • Scheme will bolster investment into the sector every year, delivering clean, homegrown energy as well as green growth and jobs

These are my thoughts.

First And Annual

The scheme is flagged as both first and annual!

Does this mean, that each Budget will bring forward a pot of money for renewables every year?

My father, who being a letterpress printer and a Cockney poet would say it did and I’ll follow his lead.

Two Pots

In Contracts for Difference Round 4, there were three pots.

  • Pot 1 – Onshore Wind and Solar
  • Pot 2 – Floating Offshore Wind, Remote Island Wind and Tidal Stream
  • Pot 3 – Fixed Foundation Offshore Wind

This document on the government web site lists all the results.

For Contracts for Difference Round 5, there will be two pots, which is described in this paragraph of the press release.

Arranged across 2 ‘pots’, this year’s fifth Allocation Round (AR5) includes an allocation of £170 million to Pot 1 for established technologies, which for the first time includes offshore wind and remote island wind – and confirms an allocation of £35 million for Pot 2 which covers emerging technologies such as geothermal and floating offshore wind, as well as a £10 million ring-fenced budget available for tidal stream technologies.

It could be described as a two-pot structure with a smaller ring-fenced pot for tidal stream technologies.

Contract for Difference

There is a Wikipedia entry for Contract for Difference and I’m putting in an extract, which describes how they work with renewable electricity generation.

To support new low carbon electricity generation in the United Kingdom, both nuclear and renewable, contracts for difference were introduced by the Energy Act 2013, progressively replacing the previous Renewables Obligation scheme. A House of Commons Library report explained the scheme as:

Contracts for Difference (CfD) are a system of reverse auctions intended to give investors the confidence and certainty they need to invest in low carbon electricity generation. CfDs have also been agreed on a bilateral basis, such as the agreement struck for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant.

CfDs work by fixing the prices received by low carbon generation, reducing the risks they face, and ensuring that eligible technology receives a price for generated power that supports investment. CfDs also reduce costs by fixing the price consumers pay for low carbon electricity. This requires generators to pay money back when wholesale electricity prices are higher than the strike price, and provides financial support when the wholesale electricity prices are lower.

The costs of the CfD scheme are funded by a statutory levy on all UK-based licensed electricity suppliers (known as the ‘Supplier Obligation’), which is passed on to consumers.

In some countries, such as Turkey, the price may be fixed by the government rather than an auction.

Note.

  1. I would trust the House of Commons Library to write up CfDs properly.
  2. As a Control Engineer, I find a CfD an interesting idea.
  3. If a generator has more electricity than expected, they will make more money than they expected. So this should drop the wholesale price, so they would get less. Get the parameters right and the generator and the electricity distributor would probably end up in a stable equilibrium. This should be fairly close to the strike price.

I would expect in Turkey with Erdogan as President, there are also other factors involved.

Renewable Generation With Energy Storage

I do wonder, if wind, solar or tidal energy, is paired with energy storage, this would allow optimisation of the system around the Contract for Difference.

If it did, it would probably mean that the generator settled into a state of equilibrium, where it supplied a constant amount of electricity.

Remote Island Wind

Remote Island Wind was introduced in Round 4 and I wrote about it in The Concept Of Remote Island Wind.

This was my conclusion in that post.

I must admit that I like the concept. Especially, when like some of the schemes, when it is linked to community involvement and improvement.

Only time will tell, if the concept of Remote Island Wind works well.

There are possibilities, although England and Wales compared to Scotland and Ireland, would appear to be short of islands.

This map shows the islands of the Thames Estuary.

Note.

  1. In Kent, there is the Isle of Sheppey and the Isle of Grain.
  2. Between the two islands is a large gas terminal , a gas-fired power station and an electricity sub-station connecting to Germany.
  3. In Essex, there is Canvey, Foulness and Potton Islands.
  4. There is also the site at Bradwell, where there used to be a nuclear power station.

If we assume that each island could support 200 MW, there could be a GW of onshore wind for London and perhaps a couple of SMRs to add another GW.

This map shows the islands around Portsmouth.

Note.

  1. Hayling Island is to the East of Portsmouth.
  2. Further East is Thorney Island with an airfield.

The Isle of Wight could be the sort of island, that wouldn’t welcome wind farms, although they do make the blades for turbines. Perhaps they should have a wind farm to make the blades even more green.

But going round England and Wales there doesn’t seem to be many suitable places for Remote Island Wind.

I do think though, that Scotland could make up the difference.

Geothermal Energy

This is directly mentioned as going into the emerging technologies pot, which is numbered 2.

I think we could see a surprise here, as how many commentators predicted that geothermal heat from the London Underground could be used to heat buildings in Islington, as I wrote about in ‘World-First’ As Bunhill 2 Launches Using Tube Heat To Warm 1,350 Homes.

Perhaps, Charlotte Adams and her team at Durham University, will capitalise on some of their work with a abandoned coal mine, that I wrote about in Exciting Renewable Energy Project for Spennymoor.

Timescale

This paragraph gives the timescale.

The publication of these notices mean that AR5 is set to open to applications on 30 March with results to be announced in late summer/early autumn 2023, with the goal of building upon the already paramount success of the scheme.

It does look like the Government intends this round to progress at a fast pace.

Conclusion

If this is going to be an annual auction, this could turn out to be a big spur to the development of renewable energy.

Supposing you have a really off-beat idea to generate electricity and the idea place in the world is off the coast of Anglesey.

You will certainly be able to make a bid and know like Eurovision, one auction will come along each year.

 

 

 

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Energy | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment