Shell And ScottishPower Win Bids To Develop 5 GW Of Floating Wind Power In The UK
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release from Shell.
This is three paragraphs from the press release.
Shell and ScottishPower have secured joint offers for seabed rights to develop large-scale floating wind farms as part of Crown Estate Scotland’s ScotWind leasing. The partners have won two sites representing a total of 5 gigawatts (GW) off the east and north-east coast of Scotland.
The new wind farms will be delivered through two joint ventures called MarramWind and CampionWind. They bring together ScottishPower’s and Shell’s decades of experience working offshore and significant presence in Scotland, as well as their strong innovation capabilities for delivering world-class offshore energy projects.
The development, construction and operation of ScotWind projects is set to bring new skilled jobs and manufacturing opportunities and boost local supply chains.
ScottishPower are actually involved in three large ScotWind projects; one by themselves and two in partnership with Shell.
MacHairWind
MachairWind is a project that Scottish Power is developing alone.
- It has its own page on the ScottishPower Renewables web site.
- It will be a 2 GW wind farm to the North-West of Islay.
- The turbines will be on fixed foundations.
I wrote about this project in MacHairWind Wind Farm.
MarramWind And CampionWind
These two wind farms are being developed in partnership with Shell.
They both have their own web sites.
MarramWind’s web site has this introduction.
ScottishPower and Shell have joined forces to develop the MarramWind offshore windfarm following success in the recent ScotWind auction process by Crown Estate Scotland.
Located 75 kilometres off the North East coast of Scotland in water depths averaging 100 metres, the proposed MarramWind floating offshore windfarm could deliver up to 3 gigawatts (GW) of cleaner renewable energy.
This map clipped from the MarramWind web site, shows the location of the wind farm.
CampionWind’s web site has this introduction.
ScottishPower and Shell have joined forces to develop the CampionWind offshore windfarm following success in the recent ScotWind auction process by Crown Estate Scotland.
Located 100 kilometres from the east coast of Scotland, in water depths averaging 77 metres, the proposed CampionWind floating offshore windfarm could deliver up to 2 gigawatts (GW) of cleaner renewable energy.
This map clipped from the CampionWind web site, shows the location of the wind farm.
Note.
- The two wind farms will be within a few miles of each other.
- Both wind farms will use floating wind turbines.
- The water is a bit deeper at MarramWind, but this surely doesn’t bother a floating turbine.
- MarramWind and CampionWind will have a total capacity of 5 GW.
- Hywind Scotland is the world’s first commercial wind farm using floating wind turbines, situated 29 kilometres off Peterhead. This wind farm is only 30 MW, but in its first years of operation has achieved a capacity factor of over 50 %.
- The proposed turbines at Northern Horizons‘ 10 GW wind farm, which is 130 kilometres to the North-East of Shetland will be 20 MW giants and nearly as tall as The Shard in London.
So will Scottish Power and Shell design and build a combined field, similar in concept to Northern Horizons’ wind farm, using an armada of 250 floating wind turbines?
- The wind turbines might be moored around a fixed or floating mother platform or structure, that will collect the electricity and deliver it to the shore.
- Turbines could be serviced in situ or moved into port, as needed.
- Extending the wind farm could just be a matter of mooring the extra turbines in position and then connecting them to the mother platform.
- Is there a convenient disused oil or gas platform, that could be repurposed as the mother platform?
It certainly would appear to be a way of building large offshore fields in deep waters.
Where Would The Combined MarramWind And CampionWind Rank In Terms of UK Wind Farms?
Consider.
- MarramWind and CampionWind will have a total capacity of 5 GW.
- Phase one of the Hornsea Wind Farm is the largest offshore wind farm in the world, with a capacity of just over 1.2 GW and when complete it will have a capacity of 6 GW.
- Northern Horizons is planned to be 10 GW.
- The East Anglian Array could be as large as 7.2 GW.
- The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is planned to be as large as 4.8 MW.
- Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas are a pair of 1.8 GW wind farms.
- MacHairWind will be a 2 GW wind farm.
Note.
- This is not a complete list of large wind farms in the development pipeline.
- BP have obtained leases, but have not published their plans.
- Most farms under development are at least one GW.
- These farms are a total of 38.6 GW.
The Combined MarramWind and CampionWind would be one of several large wind farms around 5 GW.
There Is A Desperate Need For Energy Storage
If we are generating upwards of 40 GW of wind and solar energy in the UK, there will be a desperate need for energy storage to cover for the times, when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
Scotland should be OK, as there are various energy storage projects in development.
- The 1.5 GW/ 30 GWh Coire Glas project is according to SSE shovel-ready and has planning permission.
- The 450 MW/2.8 GWh Red John project is being constructed.
- Drax, ILI Group and SSE have several other projects under development.
So what would happen in the South?
The government appears to be on the case as I wrote in Ministerial Roundtable Seeks To Unlock Investment In UK Energy Storage.
But there is also the possibility of using hydrogen.
- Hydrogen could be created by a series of giant electrolysers.
- It could be blended with natural gas to eke out our natural gas and save carbon. According to HyDeploy, it appears that up to 20 % can be added, without needing to change boilers and appliances.
- It can be stored in depleted offshore gas fields.
- It can be used to power heavy transport like buses, trucks, trains and ships.
- It can be burned in gas-fired power stations to generate electricity.
Hydrogen can also be used as a feedstock or green energy source for the making of chemicals, concrete and steel.
Conclusion
We are approaching the end of the first phase of the development of renewable energy in the UK.
Massive floating wind farms using armadas of floating wind farms, a large expansion of pumped storage hydro and a huge expansion of the use of hydrogen will see us through to a carbon-free future.
New Electricity ‘Superhighways’ Needed To Cope With Surge In Wind Power
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the Telegraph.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Energy companies are pushing for the rapid approval of new electricity “superhighways” between Scotland and England amid fears that a lack of capacity will set back the country’s wind power revolution.
Businesses including SSE and Scottish Power are calling on the industry regulator Ofgem to approve a series of major new north-south power cables in a bid to ease congestion on the existing electricity network.
These points are mentioned in the article.
- Current capacity is 6 GW, which even now is not enough.
- Another 17 GW of capacity will be needed by 2033.
- Wind farms in Scotland have been switched off and replaced by gas-fired power stations because of a lack of grid capacity.
- Another 25 GW of wind farms could be built after leases were awarded last month.
Two North-South interconnectors are being planned.
Peterhead And Drax
This is being proposed by SSE and National Grid.
- It will be an undersea cable.
- It will be two cables, each with a capacity of 2 GW.
- Peterhead and Drax power station are four hundred miles apart by road and 279 miles as the seagull flies, as a lot of the route would be over the sea. So an undersea connection would appear to be sensible.
- Peterhead is on the coast, so connecting an undersea interconnector shouldn’t be too challenging or disruptive to the locals.
- Drax power station is a 4 GW power station and the largest in the UK, so it must have good grid connections.
This Google Map shows the location of Drax power station in relation to Hull, Scunthorpe and the rivers in the area.
Note.
- Drax is marked by the red arrow in the West of the map.
- The large body of water in the East is the Humber Estuary.
- Hull is on the North Bank of the Humber.
- Scunthorpe, which is famous for its steel industry is South of the Humber in the middle of the map.
- To the West of Scunthorpe the Humber splits into the Trent and the Ouse.
- The Ouse leads all the way to Drax power station.
I suspect an undersea cable could go up the Humber and Ouse to Drax power station.
Is it a coincidence that both Drax power station and the proposed link to Peterhead are both around 4 GW?
Consider.
- Drax is a biomass power station, so it is not a zero carbon power station.
- Drax produces around six percent of the UK’s electricity.
- Most of the biomass comes by ship from North America.
- Protest groups regularly have protests at Drax because of its carbon emissions.
- Drax Group are experimenting with carbon capture.
- Drax is a big site and a large energy storage system could be built there.
- Wind is often criticised by opponents, saying wind is useless when the wind doesn’t blow.
- The Scots would be unlikely to send power to England, if they were short.
This is also said about Drax in Wikipedia.
Despite this intent for baseload operation, it was designed with a reasonable ability for load-following, being able to ramp up or down by 5% of full power per minute within the range of 50–100% of full power.
I take this it means it can be used to top up electricity generation to meet demand. Add in energy storage and it could be a superb load-follower.
So could the similar size of the interconnector and Drax power station be deliberate to guarantee England a 4 GW feed at all states of the wind?
I don’t think it is a coincidence.
Torness And Hawthorn Pit And Torness and South Humberside
These two cables are being proposed by Scottish Power.
- Each will be two GW.
- Torness is the site of the 1.36 GW Torness nuclear power station, which is likely to be decommissioned before 2030.
- Torness will have good grid connections and it is close to the sea.
- Hawthorn Pit is a large closed coal mine to the North of Newcastle, with a large substation close to the site. I suspect it will be an ideal place to feed power into the grid for Newcastle and it is close to the sea.
- Just South of Hawthorn Pit are the 1.32 GW Hartlepool nuclear power station, which will be decommissioned in 2024 and the landfall of the cables to the massive Dogger Bank wind farm.
- As I showed earlier with Drax, the Humber would be an ideal estuary to bring underwater power cables into the surrounding area. So perhaps the cable will go to Scunthorpe for the steelworks.
- As at Drax, there is backup in South Humberside, but here it is from the two Keadby gas-fired power stations.
The article in the Telegraph only gives the briefest of details of Scottish Power’s plans, but I suspect, that given the locations of the ends of the interconnectors, I suspect the cables will be underwater.
Conclusion
It strikes me that all three interconnectors have been well thought thought and they serve a variety of objectives.
- Bring Scottish wind power, South to England.
- Connect wind farms to the two nuclear power station sites at Hartlepool and Torness, that will close at the end of the decade.
- Allow the big 4 GW biomass-fired station at Drax to back up wind farms and step in when needed.
- Cut carbon emissions at Drax.
- Use underwater cables as much as possible to transfer the power, to avoid the disruption of digging in underground cables.
It looks to be a good plan.
Whitelee Green Hydrogen Facility To Power Public Transport
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
Some points from the article.
- It will be the country’s largest electrolyser. Is that Scotland or the UK?
- The facility is being built by Scottish Power, ITM Power and BOC.
- Friends of the Earth think it’s wrong and the electricity should be used immediately.
In ScottishPower’s Green Hydrogen Project Looks To Build UK’s Largest Electrolyser, the title says that the Whitelee project will be the UK’s largest electrolyser.
ScottishPower’s Green Hydrogen Project Looks To Build UK’s Largest Electrolyser
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Current News.
This is the first paragraph.
ScottishPower has submitted a planning application for the UK’s largest electrolyser as part of the Green Hydrogen for Scotland project.
Other points from the article include, these about the electrolyser.
- It will be built close to the Whitelee wind farm.
- It will be 20 MW.
- It will produce eight tonnes of green hydrogen per day.
- The electrolyser will be built by ITM Power in Rotherham.
- It is hoped that green hydrogen will be produced by 2030.
Other points include.
- The windfarm will be backed up by 40MW of solar panels and a battery capable of supplying 50 MW.
- The capacity and type of the battery is not stated.
The article finishes with a must-read section, about how hydrogen will help the UK meet its decarbonisation targets.
The Anonymous Widower 