Crown Estate To Re-Tender 1.5 GW Offshore Wind Site Relinquished by EnBW And JERA Nex BP
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
The Crown Estate will launch a competitive tender process next month to bring the 1.5 GW Morgan offshore wind project in the Irish Sea back to market, with plans to appoint a new developer by late 2026.
These two paragraphs add more detail.
The Morgan site was originally awarded through Offshore Wind Leasing Round 4 in 2021, but development was discontinued in January 2026 by the joint venture between EnBW and JERA Nex BP, which held the lease rights.
After EnBW decided to exit the Morgan and Mona offshore wind projects in the UK, its joint venture partner JERA Nex BP acquired EnBW’s stake in 1.5 GW Mona, while the joint venture discontinued the development of the Morgan project and returned the lease rights to the Crown Estate.
There is no Morgan web site, but there is a joint web site with the Morecambe wind farm, which also has its own web site.
The joint web site has a home page showing both Morgan and Morecambe wind farms connecting to Penwortham substation.
In Mooir Vannin Offshore Wind Farm, I say that this web farm will also have a connection to the Penwortham substation.
There does seem a lot of bitterness about using the Penwortham substation being built.
This Ørsted map shows the large number of wind farms in the Irish Sea.
Note.
- Mooir Vannin is a 1.4 GW wind farm being developed to the East of the Isle of Man
- Morgan wind farm would have been a 1.5 GW wind farm to be South of Mooir Vannin.
- Mona wind farm will be a 1.5 GW to the South of Morgan.
- Mona will connect to the North Wales coast.
- Morecambe will be a 480 MW wind farm to the East of Morgan and Mona.
- Mooir Vannin will connect to the Isle of Man.
- Morgan and Morecambe wind farms were all planned to connect to the Penwortham substation.
- Mooir Vannin will additionally connect to the Isle of Man.
It will be interesting to see, what proposals are put to the Crown Estate for a replacement of the Morgan wind farm.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see something to do with offshore production of hydrogen, as there is much more hydrogen production on the East side of the UK, due to the massive German AquaVentus project.
Offshore Wind Farms Owned By CIP, JERA Nex BP Enter Lease With Crown Estate
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
The 1.5 GW Mona offshore wind farm, owned by JERA Nex BP, and the 480 MW Morecambe, owned by Copehnagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), have entered into lease with the Crown Estate.
It looks like the 1.5 GW Mona and the 480 MW Morecambe wind farms, which were both given development consent in 2025, will be going ahead, but the 1.5 GW Morgan wind farm is to be discontinued, despite having development consent.
Mona and Morecambe would appear to be planned to be commissioned around 2030.
So if all goes well, that would appear to be 2 GW in the oven.
In CIP’s UK Offshore Wind Project Granted Development Consent, there is a comprehensive map of all the wind farms in Morecambe Bay.
CIP’s UK Offshore Wind Project Granted Development Consent
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
The UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has approved the Development Consent Order (DCO) for the Morecambe offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea, owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
The article also shows this map from Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.
Note.
- The 480 MW Morecambe wind farm is shown in yellow.
- The 1.5 GW Morgan wind farm received its DCO in August 2025.
- The 1.5 GW Mona wind farm received its DCO in July 2025.
- Both Morgan and Mona wind farms are being developed by a consortium of EnBW and JERA Nex bp.
- Morgan and Morecambe wind farms will connect to the grid at Penwortham substation.
- Mona wind farm will connect to the grid at Bodelwyddan National Grid substation in Denbighshire, North Wales.
- Morgan and Morecambe wind farms appear to be being developed jointly.
I must admit, I’m a bit surprised that Mona doesn’t connect to Penwortham substation.
£100m ‘Global Players’ Wind Farm Deal To Create 300 Jobs
The title of this post, is the same as this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
A £100m deal which will create about 300 jobs has been agreed between the developers of two Irish Sea offshore wind farms and Belfast Harbour.
These three paragraphs add more detail.
The joint developers of the Mona and Morgan offshore wind farms will lease Belfast Harbour’s D1 terminal for the assembly and preparation of wind turbine components.
Work is being carried out to get the site ready for use from 2028.
Joe O’Neill, chief executive of Belfast Harbour, described it as a “huge deal”, not just for the harbour but for Belfast and the wider region.
Joe O’Neill seems happy with the deal, if you read the full BBC article.
This Google Map shows Belfast Harbour with the D1 Terminal in the centre.
Note.
- The red arrow indicates the D1 Terminal.
- It appears to be within walking distance of Belfast City Airport.
- The harbour is not that far from the city centre.
I would expect, this could be an ideal harbour to prepare wind turbines for erection.
But Where Will The Cruise Ships Dock In Belfast, If The D1 Terminal Is Being Used To Prepare And Assemble Wind Turbines?
Google AI gave this answer to my question!
Cruise ships will dock at a new deepwater berth at Belfast Harbour’s D3 terminal starting with the 2028 cruise season. This new facility is a dual-purpose terminal being built to accommodate both the largest cruise vessels and the assembly and installation of offshore wind turbines.
Note.
- The date fits with the new site for turbine work being ready by 2028.
- The new D3 Terminal will take some of the largest cruise vessels.
- I suspect, it will be able to supply ships with suitable low-carbon fuel, as required.
- Could it also take the very large ships used to install turbines?
- It’s almost as if Belfast Harbour are making an attraction of the turbines.
Google AI gives this overview of the D3 Terminal.
The Belfast Harbour D3 cruise terminal is a new £90 million dual-purpose deepwater quay under construction, designed to accommodate the world’s largest cruise ships and support the offshore wind energy industry. Construction on the project, which is Belfast Harbour’s largest-ever investment, began in April 2025 and is expected to be operational for the 2028 cruise season. The facility will include a 340m quay and new terminal building for passengers, and will be converted for cargo handling during the cruise season.
It certainly looks like Belfast is designing a dual-purpose terminal, that will bring the maximum benefit to the city and its people.
Which Offshore Wind Projects Will Use Belfast Harbour?
Google AI gave this answer to my question!
The Mona and Morgan offshore wind farms, being developed by EnBW and JERA Nex bp, will use Belfast Harbour. The port’s D1 terminal will serve as the hub for the assembly and marshalling of wind turbine components for these projects, which are planned for the Irish Sea and are expected to be operational by 2028.
I suspect there will be others.
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?
BP And EnBW To Run Suction Bucket Trials At UK Offshore Wind Farm Sites
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
On 30 December, the vessel North Sea Giant is expected to start suction bucket trials within the array areas of the Mona and Morgan offshore wind farm sites, located off North West England and North Wales.
These are the first three paragraphs.
The trials will run for an estimated 32 days, during which time the vessel will be lifting a suction bucket and setting it down on the seabed, and using subsea pumps to drive the suction bucket into the seabed and back out.
The campaign is expected to consist of around 20 suction bucket trials, subject to weather conditions.
In their environmental impact assessment (EIA) scoping reports, issued last year, BP and EnBW state that a number of foundation types are being considered for the two proposed offshore wind farms and that the type(s) to be used will not be confirmed until the final design, after the projects are granted consent.
It sounds sensible to try out different types of foundations, but what is a suction bucket?
This page on the Ørsted web site is entitled Our Experience With Suction Bucket Jackets, explains how they work and are installed.
This is the first paragraph.
Monopiles (MPs) are currently the most commonly used foundation solution for offshore wind turbines with 81% of offshore wind turbines in European waters founded on MPs at the end of 2019 (Wind Europe, 2020). Where site conditions do not allow for an efficient or practical MP design, a number of alternative foundation solutions are available, including the suction bucket jacket (SBJ), piled jacket, gravity base or even a floating solution.
These two paragraphs, indicate when Ørsted has used SBJs.
Ørsted installed the world’s first SBJ for an offshore WTG at the Borkum Riffgrund 1 offshore windfarm in Germany in 2014.
Since the installation of the Borkum Riffgrund 1 SBJ, Ørsted has been involved in the design and installation of SBJs at the Borkum Riffgrund 2 and the design for Hornsea 1 offshore wind farms. At Hornsea 1, overall project timeline considerations and limitations of serial production capacities precluded the use of SBJs, and therefore the project chose an alternative foundation type.
It will be interesting to see how BP and EnBW’s trial gets on.
Isle of Man Steam Packet Fears Wind Farm Plans May Disrupt UK Routes
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
These are the first four paragraphs.
Plans to build two new offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea could disrupt Isle of Man ferry services, a Manx operator has warned.
Energy firms have proposed projects named Morgan and Morecambe in areas between the island and Lancashire.
The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company said the developments could cause navigation issues for its sailings to Liverpool and Heysham in bad weather.
But the project’s backers said it was possible to find “ways to co-exist”.
Given, that the approaches to the Ports of Felixstowe, Immingham, Leith, Liverpool, London Gateway and Tilbury, are littered with hundreds of wind turbines, I would suspect that finding a solution will not be difficult.
Perhaps, The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is angling for a subsidy.
The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company has a current fleet of three ships.
- The company serves Belfast, Dublin, Heysham and Liverpool.
- All routes will likely be through wind farms in a few years.
- The ships were all built in 1998.
- A new ship is being built in South Korea for delivery in 2023.
- All ships are diesel-powered.
Does The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company have a decarbonisation policy?
With the three wind farms having the following sizes.
- Mona – 1500 MW
- Morgan – 1500 MW
- Morecambe – 480 MW
Perhaps, some of the nearly 3.5 GW could be used to power electric or hydrogen ships to the Isle of Man.
The Isle of Man is also powered currently by the Isle of Man to England interconnector and an 85 MW combined cycle gas turbine power station at Pulrose, in the capital, Douglas.
With all of the wind power surrounding the island, perhaps there is some scope for repurposing the island’s economy.
It’s not the island for steelmaking or heavy industry, but what about a few data centres?
Morecambe Offshore Windfarm
I found this article on beyondradio, which is entitled Plans Unveiled To Build New Offshore Windfarms Off Morecambe Bay.
These care the first two paragraphs.
Plans are being developed to build new offshore windfarms off the Morecambe Bay coast.
Proposals have been unveiled for ‘Morecambe’ and ‘Morgan’, two new offshore wind farms being developed in the Irish Sea.
I’ve discussed Morgan and its sister; Mona before in Mona, Morgan And Morven, which describes the three projects BP are developing in a joint venture with enBW.
I haven’t come across the Morecambe Offshore Windfarm before and it has its own web site.
It has this summary of the wind farm.
Renewable energy is central to supporting the UK’s ambitions to lead the world in combatting climate change, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and embracing a future where renewable energy powers our homes and businesses.
Morecambe Offshore Windfarm which has a nominal capacity of 480MW. That’s enough to power over half a million households. It will also contribute to the UK Government’s commitment to:
- Generate 50GW of power from offshore wind by 2030
- Reach net zero by 2050.
It is located approximately 30km from the Lancashire coast.
This EnBW-BP infographic describes the Morgan and Mona projects.
it appears that the proposed Morecambe Offshore Windfarm will fit in the notch on the Eastern side of EnBW-BP’s two wind farms; Mona and Morgan.
- All three wind farms are fixed foundation wind farms.
- They have a total output of just under 3.5 GW.
- Could they share infrastructure like cables and substations?
- Heysham 1 is a 485 MW nuclear station, that will be decommissioned in 2024.
- Heysham 2 is a 1815 MW nuclear station, that will be decommissioned in 2028.
- What’s left of the two Heysham nuclear stations can probably generate 2.3 GW
Could it be that over 2.3 GW of wind power is being planned in the Irish Sea to make up for the loss of the four reactors at Heysham?
Could also the 480 MW Morecambe Bay wind farm be replacing what’s left of Heysham 1?
There would probably need to be a battery at Heysham, but it looks like the wind farms could be replacing the Heysham nuclear power station!
There will be consultation with the locals about the Morecambe ans Morgan wind farms, which will take place on Saturday, November 19, 2.30pm – 6.30pm, at Morecambe War Memorial Hall on Church Street.
I think, I might go!
The First Of The Cavalry Arrive To Rescue Kwasi Kwarteng
Most commentators think Kwasi Kwarteng is in trouble, but I feel that he has the strength of the mathematics around him.
This press release from BP was released on Wednesday and is entitled UK Offshore Wind: Laying The Groundwork Today.
These two paragraphs outline the work BP are doing to develop wind power in the Irish Sea.
Plans are critical, but it’s putting them into action that counts. As part of our strategy to get wind turbines turning, specialist vessels and crew are out on the Irish Sea undertaking massive seabed survey work. It’s an early but important step on the road to building some of the UK’s biggest offshore wind farms.
Once up and running, our Morgan and Mona projects could deliver enough capacity to power 3.4 million homes with clean electricity and help the UK to meet its climate goals. Their near-shore location – around 30 kilometres off the coast of northwest England and north Wales – will allow for lower-cost, more reliable transmission infrastructure, making them a core part of our plans for more secure and lower carbon energy for the UK.
This EnBW-BP infographic describes the project.
Note.
- BP’s partner is EnBW, who are a publicly-traded German energy company.
- There is a project web site.
- The press release and the graphic are showing the same numbers.
- Morgan and Mona will use proven fixed-foundation wind turbine technology.
- The combined site is around 800 km² or a square of under thirty kilometers, so it is only quite small in the context of the Irish Sea.
- First operation is given on the web site as 2028.
As BP and enBW have massive financial, engineering and project management resources, I believe they will look to bring the 2028 operation date as far forward as is possible.
If you do the cash flow for a project like this, especially when you have the financial and engineering resources of BP and enBW, the mathematics show that if you can accelerate the installation of the turbines, you will start to have a cashflow earlier and this will finance the debt needed to install the wind farms.
Consider.
- I believe the 2028 date, is one that BP know they can keep, to satisfy the Stock Market and investors.
- BP have large cash flows from their profitable oil and gas businesses.
- BP have probably reserved places in the manufacturing queues for wind turbines, foundations and all the electrical gubbins to connect the turbines to shore.
- BP want to prove to themselves and sceptics, that they can handle the building of wind farms.
- The are already lots of wind farms along the North Wales Coast, so I suspect that the problems of building wind farms in the Irish Sea are well known.
I will not speculate on the date that Mona and Morgan are complete, but I very much doubt it will be in 2028.
These are some more thoughts from the BP press release.
What’s Happening And Why?
The purpose of these deep geotechnical investigations, carried out by specialist Geo-data company Fugro, up to 100 metres below the seabed is to determine soil characteristics for foundation design (find out how it’s done in the short film, above). Collecting this data will enable bp and EnBW to build efficient offshore wind farms with the least environmental impact. It is crucial for securing government consents for the projects and defining the structure and location of the individual turbines.
Even thirty kilometres off shore, there needs to be detailed planning permission.
Our Other Offshore Wind Projects
We aim to become a leader in offshore wind and, over the past three years, we’ve built up a pipeline of projects with partners in both the US and UK that have the potential to power more than 5 million homes.
And earlier this year, we agreed to form a partnership with Marubeni to explore an offshore wind development in Japan.
It’s all part of our aim to have 20GW of developed renewable generating capacity by 2025 and 50GW by 2030 – that’s broadly enough to power the needs of 36 million people.
Note.
- Their ambitions are high, but then so much of the experience of offshore oil and gas can be applied to offshore wind.
- BP has the cashflow from oil and gas to reinvent itself.
- Assuming a strike price of £40/MWh and an average capacity factor of 30 %, that is an income of around five billion pounds for starters.
- If they added energy storage to the wind farms, there’s even more money to be generated.
As Equinor, Ørsted and SSE have shown, you have to be big in this business and BP aim to be one of the biggest, if not the biggest.
Conclusion
Wind farms like Mona and Morgan, and there are several under development, will create the electricity and revenue, that will come to the rescue of the Chancellor.
As I update this after a busy day, it looks like Jeremy Hunt has inherited KK’s excellent groundwork and mathematics.
BP To Charge Up Vehicle Battery Research
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
This is the title on a stock picture at the top of the page.
BP, whose profits benefited from soaring oil and gas prices, plans to invest heavily in research to develop solutions to help to decarbonise the transport sector.
I’m unsure about the picture, but it could be a number of buses or trucks connected to a large battery.
This press release on the BP web site, is the original source for The Times article and it is entitled BP To Invest Up To £50 million In New Global Battery Research And Development Centre In Britain.
The press release starts with these bullet points.
- bp continuing to invest in the UK, with new investment of up to £50 million for new electric vehicle battery testing centre and analytical laboratory in Pangbourne.
- Aims to advance development of engineering, battery technology and fluid technology and engineering into new applications such as electric vehicles, charging and data centres.
- New facilities at its Castrol headquarters and technology centre expected to open in 2024, supporting the technology, engineering and science jobs housed there today.
I find these sentences interesting.
new applications such as electric vehicles, charging and data centres
This sentence is a bit of a mess as electric vehicles are not new, charging is well established and what have data centres got to do with batteries.
I have a friend, who runs a large fleet of electric buses and charging is a problem, as getting the required number of MWhs to the garage can be a problem in a crowded city.
But could it be, that BP are thinking of a battery-based solution, that trickle-charges when electricity is affordable and then charges buses or other vehicles as required, throughout the day?
I believe that a battery based on process engineering like Highview Power’s CRYOBattery could be ideal in this situation.
- Effectively, the bus garage or transport parking would have its own high capacity battery-powered charging network.
- The storage capacity of the battery would be geared to the daily charge load of the vehicles.
- It would reduce the cost of electricity to the operator.
Such a battery might also be ideal to power a battery charging station.
I don’t know much about data centres, except that they need a lot of electricity.
Would driving data centres from a battery, that was trickle-charged overnight mean that the cost of electricity was reduced?
bp today unveiled plans to invest up to £50 million (around $60 million) in a new, state-of-the-art electric vehicle (EV) battery testing centre and analytical laboratory in the UK
There are a lot of battery ideas in the pipeline, so will one of the tasks be to find the best batteries for BP’s needs?
The site already undertakes research and development of fuels, lubricants and EV fluids and aims to become a leading hub for fluid technologies and engineering in the UK
You don’t think of lubricants being associated with electric vehicles, but obviously BP thinks it’s a serious enough topic to do some research.
The new facilities will help advance the development of leading fluid technologies and engineering for hybrid and fully battery electric vehicles, aiming to bring the industry closer to achieving the key tipping points for mainstream electric vehicle (EV) adoption.
This is self-explanatory.
Castrol ON advanced e-fluids manage temperatures within the battery which enables ultra-fast charging and improves efficiency, which help EVs to go further on a single charge and extend the life of the drivetrain system
Lubrication helps the world go round.
In addition, the advanced e-fluid technologies and engineering can be applied to other industries such as thermal management fluids for data centres where demand is rising exponentially
This is an interesting application and it will become increasingly important.
The growth of EV fluids is a huge opportunity, and we aim to be the market leader in this sector
I didn’t realise that EV fluids were so important.
The press release says this about the current status.
Two thirds of the world’s major car manufacturers use Castrol ON EV fluids as a part of their factory fill and we also supply Castrol ON EV fluids to the Jaguar TCS Racing Formula E team.
This press release on the Castrol web site is entitled CASTROL ON: Range Of Advanced E-Fluids For Mobility On Land, Sea And In Space.
This is the Castrol ON E-Fluids home page.
Where Will BP Need Batteries?
I can see the following applications are in BP’s sight from this press release.
- Charging fleets of buses and trucks at their garage.
- Powering battery-charging stations at filling stations.
- Providing uninterruptable electricity feeds.
- Powering data centres.
I will give a simple example.
Suppose a bus company wants to electrify the buses in a town.
- They will have thirty double-deck buses each with a 500 kWh battery.
- Wrightbus electric buses charge at 150 kW.
- Charging all buses at the same time would need 4.5 MW
- Each bus will need to be charged overnight and once during the day.
- This means the bus company will need 30 MWh of power per day.
- The largest wind turbines today are around 12 MW and have a capacity factor of 30 %.
- A single turbine could be expected to generate 86 MWh per day.
It looks to me, that a battery in the garage which could provide an output of 5 MW and had a capacity of 100 MWh would link everything together and support the following.
- A fleet of thirty buses.
- All buses charged overnight and at one other time.
- A 12 MW wind turbine.
- Power for the offices and other facilities.
- The battery would provide backup, when there is no wind.
- There would also be a mains connection to the battery for use, when the wind turbine failed.
The size of the battery and the turbine would depend on the number of vehicles and how often, they were to be charged.
BP could replace diesel sales to the bus or transport company, with leasing of a zero-carbon charging system.
Simple systems based on one or two wind turbines, solar panels and a battery would have several applications.
- Charging fleets of buses and trucks at their garage.
- Powering battery-charging stations at filling stations.
- Providing uninterruptable electricity feeds.
- Powering data centres
- Powering farms
- Powering new housing estates
- Powering factories
I can see this becoming a big market, that big energy companies will target.
Are BP planning to develop systems like this, as many of those, who might buy a system, are already their customers?
Choosing the best batteries and designing the system architecture would appear to be within the remit of the new Research Centre at Pangbourne.
Supporting Wind Farms
BP could certainly use a 2.5 GW/30 GWh battery at each of the three large wind farms; Mona, Morgan and Morven, that they are developing in the Irish Sea and off Aberdeen. These wind farms total 5.9 GW and a battery at each one, perhaps co-located with the offshore sub-station could mean that 5.9 GW was much more continuous.
The wind farms would be like virtual nuclear power stations, without any nuclear fuel or waste.
It would also mean that if the wind farm wasn’t needed and was told to switch off, the electricity generated could be stored in BP’s battery.
How many of BP’s other developments around the world could be improved with a co-located battery?
Process Technology
I am very keen on Highview Power’s CRYOBattery, but I do think that some parts of the design could benifit from the sort of technology that BP has used offshore and in the oil industry.
So will BP’s new battery research include offering advice to promising start-ups?
The Anonymous Widower 