Offshore Wind Developers Answer Scotland’s Call For Innovation, Oil And Gas Decarbonisation
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Crown Estate Scotland has received a total of 19 applications for its Innovation and Targeted Oil and Gas (INTOG) offshore wind leasing process.
INTOG
Note that there are two sections to INTOG.
This document on the Crown Estate Scotland web site, is entitled INTOG – Public Summary and it defines the two sections.
Innovation:
- To enable projects which support cost reduction in support of commercial deployment of offshore wind including alternative outputs such as Hydrogen.
- To further develop Scotland as a destination for innovation and technical development which will lead to risk reductions and supply chain opportunity.
Applications in this section should be no more than 100 MW in capacity.
Targeted Oil and Gas:
- To maximise the role of offshore wind to reduce emissions from oil and gas production.
- To achieve target installed capacity in a way that delivers best value for Scotland, creating supply chain opportunity in alignment with Just Transition principles.
A rough estimate is that powering rigs by using offshore wind would increase gas production by around ten percent.
The Applications
The article says this about the applications.
Of the 19 applications, ten are for the Innovation part, while nine have been submitted for the TOG element.
It is expected that up to 500 MW will be awarded to innovation projects and around 4 GW for projects looking to decarbonise oil and gas assets.
The article also lists the known bidders.
Conclusion
I believe that there is going to be some outstanding applications for leases under the INTOG scheme.
I have already written about Cerulean Winds ambitious proposal in Cerulean Winds Is A Different Type Of Wind Energy Company, which could result in 6 GW of wind turbines installed amongst the oil and gas fields to provide electricity and decarbonise the platforms and rigs.
Wabtec Planning For Transition From Diesel
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on trains.com.
It has this sub-title.
At InnoTrans, company looks at role of batteries, hydrogen in railroading’s future.
It is very much a must-read, that gives a road-map of their plans to decarbonise rail freight, by the use of both battery and hydrogen power.
NET9 Open Ocean Aquaculture Demonstrator Design Unveiled
The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item on the Impact9 web site.
Funding Available For Rail Construction Innovation Projects
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Railway Gazette.
These are the two introductory paragraphs.
Innovators from across the UK are being invited to submit proposals for the Innovation in Railway Construction Competition, which is making £7·44m available for ideas which could be tested at the Global Centre of Rail Excellence in South Wales.
The competition is being run by Innovate UK with GCRE and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
£7.44m doesn’t seem much, but it is only for feasibility studies, as the article explains.
Entries for the first phase close at 12.00 on December 14, with funding available for feasibility studies of up to £25 000. This would be followed by an invite-only phase two, with successful first phase projects able to develop and demonstrate their innovations.
As Innovate UK keeps coming up with these competitions, they must be judged to be worthwhile.
Do they use the same technique in areas like Health and the NHS? If not, why not!
Project To Develop 20+ MW Floating Offshore Wind Technology Kicks Off
This is the introductory paragraph.
New Nanomaterial Offers Efficient Hydrogen Production – Just Add Light
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Central.
These are the first two paragraphs.
A new nanomaterial catalyst needs only light to convert ammonia into hydrogen, its developers have said.
Made of inexpensive raw materials, the catalyst was developed by a team from Rice University in Texas, Syzygy Plasmonics Inc., and Princeton University in New Jersey.
I am not surprised, as I am a great believer in the power of catalysts.
In Hydrogen Fuel Cells Could Get A Lot Cheaper With Newly Developed Iron Catalyst, I wrote.
In the early 1970s, I worked with one of ICI’s catalyst experts and he said, that improvements in this area will be large in the future.
Increasingly, I see his prediction being proved right, in the varied fields, where catalysts are used.
It may be over fifty years ago, but then scientific truths don’t fade away and die. They just sit there quietly waiting to be rediscovered.
It is worth looking at the Syzygy Plasmonics web site.
Under a heading of Deep Decarbonisation For Chemical Manufacturing, this is their mission statement.
Syzygy is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry. We use breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from LED light to power chemical reactions. This new technology has the potential to partially or fully electrify the chemical industry, shifting it to renewable electricity, and cost-effectively reducing its carbon footprint.
The energy transition is here. The time to act is now.
That is some mission statement! But possibly one to expect from Houston.
First Of A Kind 2022 Winners Announced
The title of this post, is the same as that of this news item from Innovate UK.
This paragraph explains the competition.
The Department for Transport and Innovate UK are delighted to announce the first set of winners for the First of Kind (FOAK) 2022 competition. Winners will receive funding to help develop novel technology which improves rail freight services and lowers carbon emissions from trains.
I shall cover some of the winning ideas in future posts, which I will link to this post.
10039629 – Decarbonising Auxiliary Load In Freight Today
10037240 – Levelling Up Freight
10038447 – Transforming High-Speed Rail Logistics
10039606 – “Freight Skate” A Self-Powered Freight Bogie And Platform
10039559 – A Rapidly Deployable Rail Stress Sensor For Next Generation Freight Monitoring
10037294 – EventGo – Intelligent Rail Service Demand Forecasting for Event-Based Travel
10037862 – NextGen Data-Driven Timetable Performance Optimisation Tool
10039201- Protection and Resilience for OLE using ComputerVision Techniques (PROLECT)
10038989 – FEIDS – FOAS Enabled Intruder Detection System
10038342 – Rail Flood Defender
10039258 – Optimal Prediction of Sand For Adhesion
10038790 – Unauthorised Cable Removal And Fault Triage
10036632 – Trains With Brains(R)
10038228 – SBRI: FOAK 2022 Optimising Railway Possessions
10037542 – Portable Track Geometry Measurement System
10038973 – State Of The Railway Compiler Data Solution (SORClite): Open Access Real-Time Signalling Data
10036245 – ECML Net Zero Traction Decarbonisation
10039100 – UBER – Ultra-High Power Battery For Low Emission Rail
10037562 – ZERRCI – Zero Emissions Repowering Of Railway Construction Infrastructure
10038683 – Axle Mounted Motor For Retrofit To DMU’s To Enable Zero Emissions In Stations
10038972 – Zero Emission Powering of Auxiliary Loads In Stations
10038627 – ERiCS – Emissions Reductions in Closed Stations
10037158 – 25kV Battery Train Charging Station Demonstration
UK Group Plans First Large-Scale Liquid Air Energy Storage Plant
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the FT.
This is the first paragraph.
Highview Power is attempting to raise £400mn to fund project with capacity to supply 600,000 homes.
Note.
- This battery will have an output of 30 MW and a storage capacity of 300 MWh.
- The battery will be built at Carrington, near Manchester.
- Highview Power hope it will be opened by the end of 2024.
- It appears that the £400 million will also be used to start the engineering for another four batteries.
The article gives a detailed history of the company.
Ocergy Floaters Selected For 100 MW Project Off Scotland
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Splash247.com.
These two paragraphs outline Ocergy’s OCG-Wind foundation technology.
The Salamander floating offshore wind project, a joint venture between Simply Blue Group, Ørsted and Subsea 7, has awarded the pre-FEED (front-end engineering design) deal to Ocergy for its OCG-Wind foundation technology.
The US-based Ocergy has developed a novel semisub floater called OCG-Wind, to support turbines larger than 10 MW, designed for the development of large-scale wind farms. It is targeting a levelised cost of energy (LCOE) that can start to drive reductions in floating offshore wind farms to eventually be competitive with fixed offshore wind farms.
Note.
- There is a picture showing two turbines on OCG-Wind floats.
- Salamander is intended to be an INTOG project of 100 MW.
- The floaters are expected to be fabricated at Global Energy Group’s Port of Nigg.
- ERM’s Dolphyn electrolysis, desalination and hydrogen production concept is also planned for the project.
The Salamander project is certainly going for a lot of innovation.
RWE Looking for Innovators To Boost UK’s Offshore Wind Supply Chain
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
RWE appear to be looking for innovators in three areas.
- Autonomous solutions and the best way to integrate them into wind farm site investigations, construction, and operations and maintenance (O&M) is the first challenge for which RWE is looking for responses.
- The second challenge is about solutions to measure and reduce the environmental impacts of offshore wind farm construction and operations on birds.
- The last challenge focuses on ideas and innovations in cable monitoring and protection, aiming to secure a reduction in offshore wind farm cable failures.
As sums of around £25,000 are talked about in the article, it could be worth applying, if you have a relevant idea.
Is it slightly flattering to the UK’s skills, that a German company is backing British innovation?
But then I was involved in a British invention, which was also backed by the Germans and made me a reasonable amount of money.
The Anonymous Widower 