mtu Engines From Rolls-Royce Provide Emergency Power On Offshore Wind Platforms In The UK
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Rolls-Royce.
These two bullet points act as sub-headings.
- Four engines from the mtu Series 4000 provide emergency power for two converter platforms
- Norfolk wind farm will generate electricity for demand from more than four million households
This opening paragraph adds more detail.
Rolls-Royce has received a second order from Eureka Pumps AS to supply mtu Series 4000 engines to power emergency power generators for the Norfolk Offshore Wind Farm on the east coast of the United Kingdom. Rolls-Royce will thus supply a total of four mtu engines for the first and second phases of the large wind farm, which is operated by energy supplier RWE. The engines will be installed on two converter platforms at sea and onshore, which are the heart of the offshore grid connection: they ensure that the electricity generated at sea can be fed into the power grid. With a total capacity of 4.2 GW, the wind farm is expected to generate electricity for more than four million households during the course of this decade. It is located 50 to 80 kilometers off the east coast of the UK.
In some ways I find it strange, that a diesel generator is used to provide the necessary emergency power.
But when I asked Google if mtu 4000 generators can operate on hydrogen. I got this answer.
Yes, mtu Series 4000 engines, specifically the gas variants, can be adapted to run on hydrogen fuel. Rolls-Royce has successfully tested a 12-cylinder mtu Series 4000 L64 engine with 100% hydrogen fuel and reported positive results. Furthermore, mtu gas engines are designed to be “H2-ready,” meaning they can be converted to operate with hydrogen, either as a blend or with 100% hydrogen fuel.
That seems very much to be a definite affirmative answer.
So will these mtu Series 4000 engines for the Norfolk wind farms be “H2 ready”? The hydrogen needed, could be generated on the platform, using some form of electrolyser and some megawatts of electricity from the wind farms.
Will The Norfolk Wind Farms Generate Hydrogen For Germany?
Consider.
- Germany needs to replace Russian gas and their own coal, with a zero-carbon fuel.
- Germany is developing H2ercules to distribute hydrogen to Southern Germany.
- Germany is developing AquaVentus to collect 10 GW of hydrogen from wind-powered offshore electrolysers in the North Sea.
- The AquaVentus web site shows connections in the UK to Humberside and Peterhead, both of which are areas, where large hydrogen electrolysers are bing built.
- In addition Humberside has two of the world’s largest hydrogen stores and is building a 1.8 GW hydrogen-fired powerstation.
- The Norfolk wind farms with a capacity of 4.2 GW, are not far from the border between British and German waters.
- To the North of the Norfolk wind farm, RWE are developing the 3 GW Dogger Bank South wind farm.
- 7.2 GW of British hydrogen would make a large proportion of the hydrogen Germany needs.
I clipped this map from a video about Aquaventus.
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.
It will also be a massive Magic Money Tree for the UK Treasury.
So why is this vast hydrogen system never mentioned?
It was negotiated by Clair Coutinho and Robert Habeck, back in the days, when Boris was Prime Minister.
Signalling Team Trials Hydrogen Power
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
These two paragraphs outline the project.
The use of hydrogen to provide power for staff welfare compounds and to recharge battery tools and electric vehicles has been tested by Colas Rail UK’s signalling team during a project in the Gloucester area.
H-Power Tower fuel cell stacks designed by AFC Energy to replace diesel generators at off-grid construction sites were used to provide power for Eco-Cabins supplied by Sunbelt Rental. The H-Towers were also used to recharge battery-operated equipment and electric-hybrid vehicles.
There has been a large saving in carbon emission during the work.
Whilst living in the Suffolk countryside for nearly forty years, we had three major power outages.
The first was the smallest and Eastern Electricity or whoever it was around 1980, needed to change the transformer that fed the village where we lived. So a diesel generator was plugged in and it fed the village, whilst the new transformer was connected.
Then in the Great Storm of 1987, where we were without power for fourteen days until a load of happy foreigners from the other side of Offa’s Dyke, got the system up and singing again. I think today, that waiting two weeks to be reconnected would be unacceptable. Although the problems in 1987, were more down to the considerable amount of damage in Suffolk.
The last time, the power went just as we were going to bed on a summer evening.
We woke to find that the power had been restored.
The manner of the restoration was a textbook case of how power outages can be solved.
- Our house and the farm buildings around it, were fed from a transformer up a pole in the hedge by the drive.
- A driver who had known what they were doing had backed a full-size articulated lorry into the field alongside the transformer.
- Inside the trailer was a diesel generator and this had been connected to the transformer.
- When I investigated early in the morning, an engineer appeared from inside the trailer and asked if everything was OK.
- I said it was and asked a few technical questions.
- It turned out, that someone had brought the overhead cables down, whilst moving a load of straw near the prison.
So as our house was on one end of the cable that connected a few villages and farms to the grid, by temporarily connecting their mobile generator to the transformer everybody could be reconnected until the damage done near the prison could be repaired.
How long will it be before emergencies like these are handled by generators powered by hydrogen rather than diesel?
In HS2 Smashes Carbon Target, I describe how High Speed Two are making use of hydrogen electricity generators.
In UK Consortium To Develop Mobile Hydrogen Refuelling For Construction Sites, I talked about a UK government project to develop the hydrogen refuelling technology for construction sites. This would also work for the refuelling of emergency generators.
I can envisage the development of a series of zero-carbon hydrogen-powered trucks with onboard hydrogen generators of different sizes.
Conclusion
Hydrogen will bring a revolution in how we provide power on construction sites, in emergencies and in remote areas.
Cadent’s Hydrogen-Hybrid Solar Toilet
You see some strange sites on the streets of London, but this is one of the strangest I’ve seen for some years.
It describes itself as a Zero-Emission Support Unit, which is solar-powered with hydrogen back-up.
I suspect some of the conversation and banter amongst users is priceless to say the least.
But at least it doesn’t hide its achievement of a zero-carbon toilet under a bushel.
Rolls-Royce And AVK Provide Over 3.5 Gigawatts Of Emergency Power Capacity In The UK
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Rolls-Royce.
The press release starts with these two bullet points.
- UK’s largest technology companies rely on emergency power solutions from AVK and Rolls-Royce
- Focus on Net Zero solutions with sustainable fuels and fuel cells
And then this summary of the business in the UK.
Rolls-Royce has delivered 200 mtu emergency generators to AVK, UK’s leading provider of critical power solutions, in just three years. AVK has already installed and commissioned the majority across Europe, and in total has already provided more than 3.5 gigawatts of power to data centers, the financial, telecommunications and healthcare industries in the UK and Ireland.
AVK is now the largest supplier of emergency power solutions to data centers and the financial sector in the UK, and since signing the exclusive agreement with the Rolls-Royce business unit Power Systems, has been using only mtu brand emergency gensets.
The next two paragraphs describe the business in more detail.
These are some points from these paragraphs.
- Data is now the ‘fourth utility’ required by all.
- The European colocation data center market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.1 percent from 2021 to 2028.
- The most important European markets for data centers are Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, and Paris, where demand is highest.
- AVK provides, installs and maintains systems over their entire service life.
- Emergency power systems based on mtu diesel systems ranging from 825 to 4,000 KVA are tailored to customer needs.
- AVK has been using mtu engines for emergency power systems for over 20 years.
Rolls-Royce And AVK seem to have developed a nice little earner.
Net Zero Emergency Power Solutions
The last section talks about net-zero solutions for generators and emergency power.
This is set about sustainable fuels.
Sustainability already plays a major role for data center operators. As a result, interest in alternative fuels has grown and AVK is increasingly providing support and guidance on switching from using diesel to HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil). mtu Powergen engines from Rolls-Royce can be used unchanged for sustainable EN15940 fuels, such as HVO; no engine hardware or software modifications are required with the same performance. Using HVO can significantly reduce CO2, nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions.
And this is said about the use of hydrogen.
Rolls-Royce is also currently developing its mtu gas engine portfolio for power generation so that the engines can run on hydrogen fuel in future, enabling a Net Zero energy supply. The company is also launching complete mtu hydrogen fuel cell solutions, that emit nothing but water vapor from 2025. This will enable CO2-free generation of emergency power for data centers and many other critical applications.
I certainly think, that they are going in the right direction.
- Data center operators are said to want sustainability.
- Other users of emergency power will probably want the same.
- A full range of solutions is offered.
Hopefully, it will bring more sales, as the market size increases.
Rolls-Royce Chief Warren East Spies Rebound For Air Travel
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
It is a must-read article.
This is the first paragraph.
Warren East, the outgoing chief executive of Rolls-Royce, has sounded a bullish note on aviation’s recovery from Covid-19, reporting increased demand from the jet-engine maker’s airline customers and expressing his belief that China will gradually open up to international travel.
Certainly, with all the chaos at the Channel this weekend, people are starting to travel again.
Support For The Military
This is a paragraph in the article.
Tom Bell, head of Rolls-Royce Defence, said the company was in talks with the US and UK militaries about supplying “deployable” reactors for military bases.
I’m sure that a reactor would have advantages to a large diesel or gas-turbine generator to power a military base.
- Military bases need a lot of power.
- It would not need refuelling every day.
- It could be connected to an electrolyser, to generate hydrogen for vehicles.
- It would be a lot quieter.
- I wonder, if it could be transported in a large transport aircraft.
But I feel, it might have other applications.
- It could provide power support after a large earthquake or natural disaster.
- It could provide power in remote or difficult locations.
- If the only power station for a remote community had a catastrophic failure, a deployable reactor could be brought in.
- It could provide power for a large construction site, which would help to decarbonise the construction.
- Power would be zero-carbon at point of generation.
The reactors might even be rail-transportable, so they could be moved to where they are needed safely and quickly.
But I don’t think they would necessarily be the same size as the Rolls-Royce SMRs, which are 470 MW.
A Scalable Reactor
This is a paragraph in the article.
Rolls also has a contract with the UK Space Agency to develop a “micro reactor” for space vehicles and satellites, Bell added. “These are really exciting opportunities for us to not only perpetuate our business undersea, at sea, on land, in the air, but also to go to space,” he said. East noted the advantage of nuclear reactors in space: “You can’t have air-breathing engines on the moon.”
Note.
- East is Warren East, who is the outgoing Chief Executive of Rolls-Royce.
- Nuclear power sources have been used in space before, usually by using an isotope, that gives out heat, as it decays.
- How small is micro?
- The US deployed a 1.75 MW nuclear power plant in Antarctica under the Army Nuclear Power Program. That reactor also provided heating and hot water. It is worth reading the Wikipedia entry, especially the section about the MM-1 reactor.
It does seem that Rolls-Royce are designing a reactor that can be scaled in size, to cover a whole spectrum of applications.
The Anonymous Widower 