Ireland To Develop National Industrial Strategy For Offshore Wind
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Ireland’s Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Simon Coveney, has announced plans to develop a National Industrial Strategy for Offshore Wind which will set out how Ireland can maximise the economic opportunity arising from the production of offshore wind energy
Ireland’s current objectives for offshore wind are.
- To deliver 5 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
- A further 2 GW of floating wind to be in development by 2030.
- The target for offshore wind could rise to at least 37 GW by 2050.
- There is a target to provide 80 per cent of the country’s electricity to be from renewable sources by 2030.
The government appears to recognise collaborative approach between state and industry is needed.
Nothing is said about co-operation with Northern Ireland or the UK.
This is despite.
- UK and Irish companies like ESB, Flotation Energy, Simply Blue Group and SSE have projects in both countries.
- Irish company; ESB is developing the Malin Sea Wind wind farm in Scottish waters and landing the electricity near Derry City.
- Scottish company; SSE is building biomass power stations in Ireland.
- Some promising waters for wind power are shared between the two countries.
- There are three interconnectors between the two main islands.
I would expect that there could be some multi-purpose interconnectors across the Irish and Celtic Seas.
These would connect windfarms between the islands to both the UK and Ireland. National Grid and TenneT are building the LionLink between England and The Netherlands, which I wrote about in World’s Largest-Of-Its-Kind Power Line To Deliver Clean Power To 1.8m UK Homes And Boost Energy Security.
I very much feel, that there will be a lot of co-operation between the UK and Irish governments as if they work together, the development of Ireland’s offshore wind and that of the West Coast of the UK could be more efficient.
NI Green Hydrogen Projects Win Government Grants
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Two green hydrogen projects in Northern Ireland have won government grants in the first round of the UK Net Zero Hydrogen Fund.
These three paragraphs outline the projects.
Green hydrogen is made by using renewable electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen – a process called electrolysis.
The grants will be used to help fund the construction of electrolysers.
One will be at the Mannok cement plant in Fermanagh, the other at Wrightbus in Ballymena.
I talked about the Wrightbus project in Ballymena: Wrightbus To Develop Hydrogen Production Facility.
Ballymena: Wrightbus To Develop Hydrogen Production Facility
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the sub-heading.
Wrightbus is planning to develop a green hydrogen production facility at its factory in Ballymena.
And these first three paragraphs outline the project.
The proposal is being made in partnership with a sister company, Hygen Energy.
Part of the Wrightbus business is the manufacturing of hydrogen-powered buses, some of which are operated by Translink.
The new facility would help create a reliable source of fuel for those buses and other hydrogen-powered vehicles.
It seems a well-designed project and it appears Hygen are building a similar facility in Bradford.
Some months ago, I had a drink in my house, with three senior London bus company executives.
One has had problems with electric buses, as getting the required power to charge a fleet in some Central London garages is not easy.
I showed them these figures, from the Wrightbus web site.
- A Wrightbus electric double-decker takes 2.5 hours to charge for a 200 mile range.
- A hydrogen double-decker takes 8 minutes to refuel with up to a 280 miles range.
They were impressed. Especially, as a typical duty for a bus in London is almost 200 miles. A hydrogen bus seemed to make a lot more sense.
So why isn’t London preparing for scores of hydrogen buses?
Ask the Mayor!
Landmark Levelling Up Fund To Spark Transformational Change Across The UK
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from the UK Government.
These are the four bullet points.
- More than 100 projects awarded share of £2.1 billion from Round 2 of government’s flagship Levelling Up Fund.
- Projects will benefit millions of people across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and create jobs and boost economic growth.
- £672 million to develop better transport links, £821 million to kick-start community regeneration and £594 million to restore local heritage sites.
- Successful bids include Eden Project North in Morecambe, a new AI campus in Blackpool, regeneration in Gateshead, and rail improvements in Cornwall
The press release expands the last bullet point.
Projects awarded Levelling Up Fund money today include:
Eden Project North
Eden Project North will receive £50 million to transform a derelict site on Morecambe’s seafront into a world class visitor attraction. It will also kick-start regeneration more widely in Morecambe, creating jobs, supporting tourism and encouraging investment in the seaside town.
Note.
- Because of its closeness to the West Coast Main Line, it will have excellent rail connections to all over the North of England and Central and Southern Scotland, through Lancaster, which will only be a shuttle train away.
- One of High Speed Two’s direct destinations will be Lancaster, which will be served by High Speed Two by hourly trains to Birmingham, Carlisle, Crewe, London, Preston, Warrington and Wigan and by two-hourly trains to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lockerbie and Motherwell.
- London and Lancaster will be a journey of just two hours and three minutes.
I believe that this high quality rail access will ensure the success of the Eden Project North.
Cardiff Crossrail
Cardiff Crossrail has been allocated £50 million from the fund to improve the journey to and from the city and raise the economic performance of the wider region.
The Cardiff Crossrail is obviously a good project from the little that I’ve read about it. But it does need a web site to explain the reasoning behind it.
Blackpool Multiversity
Blackpool Council and Wyre Council will receive £40 million to deliver a new Multiversity, a carbon-neutral, education campus in Blackpool’s Talbot Gateway Central Business District. This historic funding allows Blackpool and The Fylde College to replace their ageing out-of-town centre facilities with world-class state-of-the-art ones in the heart of the town centre. The Multiversity will promote higher-level skills, including automation and artificial intelligence, helping young people secure jobs of the future.
Blackpool certainly needs something.
My suggestion in Blackpool Needs A Diamond, was to build a second Diamond Light Source in the North to complement the successful facility at Harwell.
I don’t think the two proposals are incompatible.
Fair Isle Ferry
Nearly £27 million has been guaranteed for a new roll-on, roll-off ferry for Fair Isle in the Shetland Islands. The service is a lifeline for the island, supporting its residents, visitors and supply chains, and without its replacement the community will become further isolated.
Note.
- Will it be a British-built ferry?
- Will it be hydrogen-powered? After all by the time it is built, the Northern Scottish islands will be providing enough of the gas to power a quarter of Germany.
- Surely, a hydrogen-powered roll-on, roll-off ferry will be a tourist attraction in its own right.
I hope the Government and the islanders have a good ship-yard lined up
Gateshead Quays And The Sage
A total of £20 million is going towards the regeneration of Gateshead Quays and the Sage, which will include a new arena, exhibition centre, hotels, and other hospitality. The development will attract nearly 800,000 visitors a year and will create more than 1,150 new jobs.
I don’t know much about the Sage, but this project seems very reasonable.
Mid-Cornwall Metro
A £50 million grant will help create a new direct train service, linking 4 of Cornwall’s largest urban areas: Newquay, St Austell, Truro, and Falmouth/Penryn. This will level up access to jobs, skills, education, and amenities in one of the most economically disadvantaged areas in the UK.
I wrote about this scheme in The Proposed Mid-Cornwall Metro, where I came to this conclusion.
I believe that a small fleet of Hitachi Regional Battery Trains could create an iconic Metro for Cornwall, that would appeal to both visitors and tourists alike.
Judging by the recent success of reopening the Dartmoor Railway to Okehampton in Devon, I think this scheme could be a big success. But it must be zero-carbon!
Female Changing Rooms For Northern Ireland Rugby
There is £5.1 million to build new female changing rooms in 20 rugby clubs across Northern Ireland.
Given the popularity of the female version of the sport in England, Scotland and Wales, perhaps this is a sensible way to level it up in Northern Ireland. As rugby is an all-Ireland sport, perhaps the Irish have already sorted the South?
Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Actions To Expand U.S. Offshore Wind Energy
The title of this post is the same as that of this fact sheet from the White House briefing room.
This is the sub-title.
Departments of Energy, Interior, Commerce, and Transportation Launch Initiatives on Floating Offshore Wind to Deploy 15 GW, Power 5 Million Homes, and Lower Costs 70% by 2035.
Some points from the fact sheet.
- The President set a bold goal of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough to power 10 million homes with clean energy, support 77,000 jobs, and spur private investment up and down the supply chain.
- Conventional offshore wind turbines can be secured directly to the sea floor in shallow waters near the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.
- However, deep-water areas that require floating platforms are home to two-thirds of America’s offshore wind energy potential, including along the West Coast and in the Gulf of Maine.
- Globally, only 0.1 GW of floating offshore wind has been deployed to date, compared with over 50 GW of fixed-bottom offshore wind.
- The Floating Offshore Wind Shot will aim to reduce the costs of floating technologies by more than 70% by 2035, to $45 per megawatt-hour.
- The Administration will advance lease areas in deep waters in order to deploy 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035.
This all seems to be ambitious!
But!
- In ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, I looked at Scotland’s latest round of offshore wind leases.
- If the lessors carry out their proposals Scotland will add 9.7 GW of fixed-foundation offshore wind farms and 14.6 GW of floating offshore wind farms, which I estimate will be built by 2035.
- In Three Shetland ScotWind Projects Announced, I looked at three floating wind farms to the East of Shetland, which are a secondary deal after ScotWind, which could generate 2.8 GW by 2035.
- In Is This The World’s Most Ambitious Green Energy Solution?, I describe an ambitious plan called Northern Horizons, proposed by Norwegian company; Aker to build a 10 GW floating wind farm, which will be 120 km to the North-East of the Shetlands.
It could be possible that little Scotland installs more floating wind farms before 2035, than the United States.
And what about England, Wales and Northern Ireland?
- England hasn’t announced any floating wind farm projects, but has around 17 GW of fixed-foundation offshore wind farms under development in the shallower waters along the East and South coasts.
- In Two Celtic Sea Floating Wind Projects Could Be Delivered By 2028, I looked at prospects for the Celtic Sea between Wales, Ireland and Devon/Cornwall. It is possible that a GW of floating wind could be developed by 2028, out of an ultimate potential of around 50 GW.
- Northern Ireland is a few years behind England and Scotland and might eventually make a substantial contribution.
But Biden’s aims of a strong supply chain could be helped by Scotland, as several of the floating wind farms in Scotland are proposing to use WindFloat technology from Principle Power, who are a US company. The Principle Power website has an explanatory video on the home page.
A Planned Trip To Belfast
I’m thinking about going over to Belfast for a couple of days to have a look at the transport systems in the city and the wider Northern Ireland.
I have several things, I would like to do.
- Ride in the latest Wrightbus hydrogen and battery-electric buses.
- Ride in a Glider. I also intend to go to Pau to ride in a hydrogen-powered version of these Van Hool Equicity articulated buses, but Belfast is nearer.
- Perhaps, if I have enough time, I’ll visit a few touristy bits.
- Do a bit of research into offshore wind farms in Northern Ireland.
Has anybody got any advice?
Longer Duration Energy Storage Demonstration Programme, Stream 1 Phase 1: Details Of Successful Projects
The title of this post, is the same as that of this document from the UK Government.
This is the introduction.
Stream 1 aims to accelerate commercialisation of innovative longer duration energy storage projects through to actual demonstrations. During Phase 1, projects will be expected to mobilise their proposed technologies to prepare for potential deployment on the UK energy system.
These are the projects.
Ballylumford Power-to-X
This is the description of this project in Northern Ireland.
B9 Energy Storage will receive £986,082 to mobilise a 20MW membrane free electrolyser green hydrogen project. Using otherwise curtailed wind power, hydrogen produced will be stored in local underground salt caverns for later use as a fuel in transport and electricity sectors, creating a full-cycle hydrogen economy (production, storage, distribution and usage) on site.
Note.
Ballylumford power station is a 600 MW gas-fired power station, that provides half of Northern Ireland’s electricity.
A 20 MW electrolyser will produce just under nine tonnes of hydrogen per day.
This Google Map shows the location of the power station opposite the port of Larne.
Note.
Ballylumford power station is clearly visible to the East of the channel towards the bottom of the map.
Ballylumford is also the Irish end of the HVDC Moyle interconnector from Scotland, which has a capacity of 500 MW.
Ballylumford would appear to have enough power for a large electrolyser.
Salt Beds In Northern Ireland
This document on the British Geological Survey web site is entitled Geological Storage In Northern Ireland.
The document discusses Irelands energy needs and gives a good description of using compressed air energy storage in salt caverns.
Then these two paragraphs describe the salt bed in Northern Ireland compare them to other deposits under Great Britain.
Thick halite deposits, found both onshore in Northern Ireland and immediately offshore in the North Channel, offer potential for salt cavern storage facilities. The salt deposits occur as bedded deposits with minor halokinesis (geological movement of salt) forming salt swells rather than pillows or domes so that the height of any cavern may be restricted by bed thickness. Pure salt beds tend to be thin (approximately 100-250 metres maximum thickness) compared to those used elsewhere and the presence of significant insoluble impurities and minor intrusive dolerite dykes or sills may reduce their suitability.
The Larne and Carrickfergus area of County Antrim is the only part of the whole island where thick salt beds occur. Elsewhere in the UK parts of Cheshire, Lancashire, Teesside, Humberside and Dorset have similar, or thicker, developments of salt beds and gas storage facilities are either in construction, or are already in operation.
It would appear that the thick salt beds in the Larne and Carrickfergus area could be suitable for gas storage.
Ballylumford might actually be on top of the salt beds, as Carrickfergus is a few miles to the South.
On a personal note, I used to work for ICI Mond Division and during that time and immediately afterwards, I met many people, who had been into the salt mines and worked with boreholes extracting the salt and the one thing everybody said about the salt mine, was that water must not get in.
Membrane-Free Electrolysis
I saw this in operation when I worked at ICI Mond. Most of their hydrogen and chlorine was produced using the main Castner-Kellner process at Castner-Kellner works in Runcorn. That is a nasty process that uses a lot of mercury, which got into the air and plant operators’ bodies.
But ICI also had a much smaller plant, where they used simple electrolysers, that had a metal cell, with a concrete top, with the anode and cathode going through the concrete into the brine. I seem to remember that its main purpose was to provide mercury-free hydrogen, chlorine and sodium hydroxide. I can remember seeing workers rebuilding the cells, as was done on a regular basis.
These were membrane free electrolysers and had been running successfully for many years.
Searching the Internet for “membrane free electrolyser” I found a company in Doncaster called CPH2.
The home page on their web site declares
Clean Power Hydrogen are the manufacturers of the unique Membrane-Free Electrolyser
Turning to the About page, this is said.
Being passionate about hydrogen as clean energy for the future, we wanted to find an alternative to PEM electrolysers as these had barriers to adoption. We realised that the cleanest way to produce hydrogen was by membrane-free water electrolysis, and in doing so, it would be a less expensive and more robust technology.
Dr. Nigel Williamson and Joe Scott established CPH2 (Ireland) in 2012 with the ambition to help clean up the environment for our children and future generations. Entering the green technology sector; a high growth and profitable market, they developed a Membrane-Free Electrolyser™ to produce hydrogen faster, more reliably, and more cost-effectively than other electrolysers.
They also have the ambition to be leading developer and manufacturer of green hydrogen technologies and an Irish connection.
My experience says that their technology will work. Especially, with the application of modern materials.
Have the Government backed the Ballylumford Power-to-X project, as they can back two promising technologies with one grant?
GraviSTORE
This is the description of this project.
Gravitricity Limited will receive £912,410.84 to design their multiweight energy store demonstrator project, which will store and discharge energy by lifting and lowering multiple weights in a vertical underground shaft.
Note.
- I like the Gravitricity concept and have invested through crowdfunding.
- The project will be based on a brownfield site in Northern England.
- Gravitricity’s current demonstrator in Edinburgh, which I wrote about in Gravitricity Celebrates Success Of 250kW Energy Storage Demonstrator, only uses a single weight, but this project talks about multiple weights.
According to other sources on the Internet, the demonstrator will have a storage capacity of 4 MWh and will be built on a brownfield site.
Will we see Gravitricity coming to a disused deep coal mine near you?
Long Duration Offshore Storage Bundle
This is the description of this project.
Subsea 7 Limited and FLASC B.V. will receive £471,760.00 to further develop the Long Duration Offshore Storage Bundle which will store energy as a combination of pressurised seawater and compressed air, using an innovative hydro-pneumatic technology.
Note.
- Subsea 7 Limited are a subsea engineering, construction and services company serving the offshore energy industry, domiciled in Luxembourg with headquarters in London.
- According to their web site, FLASC B.V. is a spin-off of the University of Malta, established in The Netherlands in 2019.
On the page on the FLASC web site, which is labelled The Technology, this is said.
FLASC is an energy storage device that can be integrated directly into a floating offshore platform. Energy is stored using a hydro-pneumatic liquid piston, driven by a reversible pump-turbine.
Charging Mode: electricity is used to pump water into a closed chamber containing pre-charged air.
Discharging Mode: the pressurised water is released through a hydraulic turbine to generate electricity.
FLASC leverages existing infrastructure and supply chains, along with the marine environment itself as a natural heatsink, resulting in a safe, reliable and cost-effective solution.
There is also this video.
The news page on the FLASC web site is a comforting read.
My knowledge of modelling vessel systems for chemical plants, tells my brain to like it.
Vanadium Flow Battery Longer Duration Energy Asset Demonstrator
This is the description of this project.
Invinity Energy Systems will receive £708,371 to demonstrate how a 40 MWh Vanadium Flow Battery could deliver long duration storage-enabled power on demand from UK-based solar generation.
Note.
- I wrote about Invinity Energy Systems in UK’s Pivot Power Sees First Battery On Line By 2021.
- Invinity Energy Systems was formed by a merger of RedT and Avalon Battery.
- The project appears to be located at Bathgate in Scotland.
This picture from EdF shows a large vanadian flow battery.
Invinity Energy Systems flow battery at Energy Superhub Oxford
If this project works out, vanadium flow batteries would be a good replacement for lithium-ion batteries.
Cheshire Energy Storage Centre
This is the description of this project.
io consulting will receive £1 million to enable its consortium to develop an electricity storage facility which could use mothballed EDF gas cavities in Cheshire utilising Hydrostor’s Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage technology
Note.
- This is another project based on salt caverns.
- I wrote about Canadian company; Hydrostor in Gigawatt-Scale Compressed Air: World’s Largest Non-Hydro Energy-Storage Projects Announced.
- Hydrostor have received at least one large order for their system.
I have put Hydrostor on my list of tecnologies that should make it.
Conclusion
This is a well-balanced list of projects.
I would rate success as follows.
- Ballylumford Power-to-X – 60 %
- GraviSTORE – 80 %
- Long Duration Offshore Storage Bundle – 60 %
- Vanadium Flow Battery Longer Duration Energy Asset Demonstrator – 70 %
- Cheshire Energy Storage Centre – 80 %
But then all these projects are a bit of a gamble
Northern Ireland Spends £100m On Clean Buses
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Electrive.
If Wrightbus can’t rely on the Northern Irish government to buy their buses, who can they?
Call For Major Investment In Hydrogen Hub To Help Sector Thrive In Northern Ireland
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Belfast Telegraph.
This is the introductory paragraph.
Northern Ireland is ready to become a global leader in a future hydrogen economy but needs investment of at least £15m from government, politicians have said.
The article makes points about Northern Ireland and hydrogen.
- Hydrogen-powered buses are built in Ballymena.
- There is plenty of wind and water to create the hydrogen.
- Hydrogen could improve export potential and create skilled jobs.
The proposals certainly have good political support.
Think Britain To Belfast Is A Bridge Too Far? Try Tunnelling Across Instead
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Sunday Times.
It is a well-written article, with good graphics and maps, which fills out the descriptive title.
This paragraph sums up the overall objective.
For the rail industry, it is part of a long-term ambition to reduce journeys by rail between London and Glasgow and Edinburgh to below three hours, which it is also advocating in the review. Trains to Belfast would turn west near Carlisle, around the Scottish border, and lorries bound for Ireland could be loaded there.
The article also predicts London and Belfast in four hours, with Dublin in six.
In a A Glimpse Of 2035, I looked into the future and left London at eight in the morning on the first train between London and Dublin and arrived at 13:30.
My predictions were thirty minutes less than The Times.
But I also predicted, that eventually, times will be three hours to Belfast and four to Dublin.
A Deep Water Port At Shannon And Its Consequences
One thing not mentioned in the Times article, is that the Irish Government and the EU have a plan to develop a deep water port at Shannon.
It would have a rail link to any rail link to the UK and would speed goods between Germany and North America, avoiding the increasingly congested ports of Rotterdam and Hamburg. Time savings of as much as a day are predicted.
I should say, that I part-grew up in Felixstowe in the 1950s and 1960s and I can remember a sleepy little dock with a giant crane to lift seaplanes out of the water, before the massive container port we know today. There are now something like forty container trains per day, going along the sleepy branch line to Ipswich and then to the rest of the UK mainland. If anybody had predicted that in 1960, they’d have been laughed at.
If the Shannon Port is built, I can see twenty high-speed freight trains per day between Shannon and the Channel Tunnel. There will probably need to be massive improvements to the freight network in the South East of England, to get all those freight trains through or around London.
Standard Or Irish Gauge
If the EU develops the deep water port at Shannon, this would surely be rail connected to the new tunnel.
But the EU only likes to build standard gauge railways, so everybody can use them. I would expect that all new tracks in the Republic of Ireland would be standard gauge.
If you look at Spain, all their high-speed railways are standard gauge and they have both narrow and Spanish gauge railways as well.
Some of the awkward squad in Ireland will object to the standard gauge railways, but he who pays the piper calls the tune.
As the UK will be paying from London to the place where the tunnel emerges and the EU from South of the Irish border, it would be much cheaper to make all the route standard gauge. But some diehards would be against it!
The Anonymous Widower 