Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

ABrass

Martyn1981 said:

Might be something or nothing?

The floating off-shore wind pilot just posted a massive capacity factor of 66% for February (typically the ever larger off-shore wind giants are around 50%, with the older installs around 40%). But the articles I've found don't seem to explain if it's weather related (Feb was a stormy month) nor why output in the second half of 2019 was double that of the first half - downtime during testing perhaps, or just 'better' weather? Total for 2019 seems to be around 34%cf. So it seems to be comparing a good month, against annual average cf's for normal off-shore wind (I think).

But potentially excellent news, since the higher the cf, the less storage that will be needed in the long term as a good mix of RE will make overall supply less and less intermittent.

FloatGen floating wind pilot hits new heights in French Atlantic

The pioneering FloatGen floating wind pilot in the French Atlantic Ocean has outreached production levels seen to date at the project, hitting a new record in February with over 920MWh of output for the month.

The 2MW unit, based around a Vestas turbine and ‘damping pool’ foundation from Ideol, also saw its highest-ever monthly capacity factor, 66.3%, a percentage significantly better than the average bottom-fixed offshore machine, which averages around 50%.

I'm betting more nothing than something.

2/ A record month in terms of wind conditions :

• The average capacity factor in February 2020 was 74%.

• The previous record was 70% in December 2015.

• Over the last 5 years, the average capacity factor for February was 53%

https://www.belgianoffshoreplatform.be/en/news/record-belgian-offshore-wind-energy-broken-in-february/

2MW is tiny for a modern offshore system though. So it might be doing better than most 2MW turbines. Still it doesn't really count until they put one of the current gen 9.5-10MW monsters on a float.

Martyn1981

ABrass said:

2MW is tiny for a modern offshore system though. So it might be doing better than most 2MW turbines. Still it doesn't really count until they put one of the current gen 9.5-10MW monsters on a float.

Yeah, potentially meaningless without knowing more. If it did twice as much in H2 19 as H1, then that's 4GWh (of the 6GWh total) which is ~46%cf. Not unusual for today's monster WT's, but very good for a 2MW WT (as you suggest), but I don't know if that was down to weather conditions in H2 19.

Perhaps the 'big' takeaway is simply that a floating WT did so well, so that opens the market up for deep water wind gen, and targeting the windiest spots ...... which might be another reason for the good cf.

I know nothing, just guessing and speculating ..... and blind optimism, of course !!!!!!!!!!!!

Martyn1981

Quick shout out for Salford

Salford beats Brighton and Bristol to title of ‘greenest place to live’

Salford may have been fondly dubbed a “dirty old town” by folk singer Ewan MacColl and depicted as full of smoky chimneys by LS Lowry, but new research has crowned it the greenest place to live in England and Wales.

The city, part of Greater Manchester, is more sustainable than places such as Brighton, where Caroline Lucas is Britain’s only Green party MP, and Bristol, a former European Green Capital, according to a study to be released this week by the Centre for Thriving Places.

In this socialist stronghold of the north-west – represented by the Momentum-backed Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey – the leftwing council, run by Labour mayor Paul Dennett, is building the most energy-efficient new homes in England and Wales and preserving and creating more green space than any other council.

The city also has lower-than-average CO2 emissions, lower-than-average energy consumption levels and higher-than-average recycling rates.

Martyn1981

Something nice to read on a Coronavirus-heavy-news Monday morning:

Planning applications for UK clean energy projects hit new high

The number of new renewable energy projects applying for planning permission reached a four-year high in the UK last year as energy companies raced to meet the rising demand for clean electricity.

There were 269 planning applications for new wind, solar and bioenergy projects in 2019, up from 204 the year before, according to an analysis of government data by energy consultancy PX Group.

Geoff Holmes, the chief executive of PX Group, said: “It goes without saying that as more of these projects get off the ground, the faster the UK can get to a point where clean, green sources provide an even greater share of the UK’s energy.

“Of course, there is a lag time between submitting plans to councils and projects becoming fully operational, so more projects being in the pipeline is not a quick fix.”

Planning submissions for clean energy projects are expected to rise in the years ahead due to the government’s decision earlier this month to lift a block against subsidising onshore wind projects that was put in place almost five years ago.

From next year, onshore wind developers will be allowed to compete for subsidies at auction alongside solar power developments and floating offshore wind projects, the government said last month.

Martyn1981

US shale companies already struggling financially are facing a tough time ahead with low oil prices as their production costs are among the most expensive. Trump to the rescue?

White House likely to pursue federal aid for shale companies hit by oil shock, coronavirus downturn

The White House is strongly considering pushing federal assistance for oil and natural gas producers hit by plummeting oil prices amid the coronavirus outbreak, as industry officials close to the administration clamor for help, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.

President Trump has touted the growth of oil and natural gas production under his administration, celebrating their rise in politically crucial swing states such as Pennsylvania. But many oil and gas firms were hammered Monday by the price war that broke out between Saudi Arabia and Russia, driving oil prices down in their steepest one-day drop in almost 30 years.

White House officials are alarmed at the prospect that numerous shale companies, many of them deep in debt, could be driven out of business if the downturn in oil prices turns into a prolonged crisis for the industry. The federal assistance is likely to take the form of low-interest government loans to the shale companies, whose lines of credit to major financial institutions have been choked off, three people said.

Not directly linked to the US news, but a counter argument for investing in / emergency support targeted at RE instead for a more stable future:

Oil & Epidemics: How A Virus Makes The Case For Renewable Energy

In an interview with Forbes last week, Charles Donovan, executive director of the Center for Climate Finance and Investment at Imperial College Business School in London, laid out the reasons why he thinks building a global economy based on fossil fuels makes the world more vulnerable to market disruptions like the one caused by the coronavirus.

“I think we’re entering a whole new phase of volatility,” Donovan said. “These are the unfortunate repercussions of a global market that’s exposed to the volatility of the oil markets and suffers when unforeseeable events like coronavirus arise at the worst time. We are now seeing the downsides of the choices we’ve made about the kind of energy economy that we have.” He suggests that rather than shoveling cubic miles of dollars at energy companies, we should prioritize developing economies that are not coupled to oil and gas.

Donovan maintains that while renewable energy sources such as wind may may appeal to many because of their positive effect on a gathering environmental crisis, it is economic factors that should make them attractive to investors and policymakers.

Economies built around more durable, sustainable energy rather than those built on finite, volatile hydrocarbons will be better able to withstand unexpected disruptions such as the one created by the coronavirus, he argues.

“It’s not that by having more wind turbines and solar panels we could avoid coronavirus. But [the world’s major economies] have been like the frog in a pan of water that’s slowing warming up. The fire has just been turned up several notches and the only thing we can do now is jump out of the pan. This is about building an energy infrastructure that creates resilience.”

Martyn1981

Extracts from this wekk's Carbon Commentary newsletter, and somewhat ironically it's very heavy hydrogen this week! Worth noting how many of these items slot together as part of a high RE future which requires more storage, and/or will make use of hydrogen which will be a popular form of storage after short term (intra-day) batts are maxed out.

1, Vehicle-to-grid. Volkswagen in Germany began a push into the retail electricity business early last year as part of its expansion into EVs. It promised green electricity and a fast charger for its electric car customers. The head of strategy for VW indicated last week that it would now develop a vehicle-to-grid product that will use the batteries of its EV to supply electricity when needed. By 2030, he said, the company expected to have about 1 terawatt hour under its control. (This is more than the daily consumption of electricity in the UK).  Details were not provided, and the advance publicity for Volkswagen’s new ID.3 makes no mention of V2G, but the logic is unavoidable: electric car batteries could provide highly competitive short term storage capability. Car manufacturers may become important participants in the energy market. German utility E.ON is already in a partnership with Nissan to provide V2G.

2, Seasonal storage. DNV, the security and risk management agency, has produced impressive papers on the energy transition. In its latest work it looks at the need for storage of energy over long periods. It suggests that the need for is more limited than expected and that ‘compressed hydrogen is the first viable option for seasonal storage’. (Car batteries will dominate the short-term storage market, as paragraph 1 suggests). As I say in What We Need To Do Now, the cheapest option for decarbonisation is likely to be apparent overbuilding of renewables and conversion of surpluses into hydrogen and synthetic fuels. I hypothesise that a carbon price of $100 a tonne is necessary to incentivise the switch but DNV says that an eventual cost of $60/tonne will be sufficient. (Thanks to Gage Williams).

3, Hydrogen storage at Australian solar farm. A new 4.5 MW community-owned solar farm in New South Wales will be accompanied by a conventional battery system and by hydrogen storage. The hydrogen store will use a new technology that absorbs the gas into a solid (a metal hydride). This makes it possible to store hydrogen at high density but at low pressure. The innovative technology is a product of research at the University of New South Wales and the team behind the new approach also promises a product that will offer hydrogen storage at very small scale. If this works, it is a hugely important advance.
 
4, Utility moves to zero carbon. Uniper is one of Germany’s largest utilities, operating more than 30 GW of mostly fossil fuel electricity production, and a considerable role in gas storage and transport. It recently announced its intention to cease producing power from coal in Germany and now says it will become a carbon-free electricity generator by 2035, a remarkable turnaround from one of world’s major utilities. It intends to achieve this by power purchase agreements with wind and solar and by a large-scale expansion into ‘green’ gas and hydrogen. It is already a pioneer in power-to-gas technologies in Europe.
 
6, Microgrids. Towns in northern California are vulnerable to power disruptions due to wildfires. This makes the region an important market for solar-based microgrids that can be isolated from the wider distribution system. The wastewater treatment plant at McKinleyville will be powered by a 580 kW PV array and a battery system that will provide about 1.4 MWh as well as a supplementary diesel generator. This is therefore a small system but the interesting fact is that it will be providing electricity at about 17 cents per kilowatt hour, compared to about 20 cents for grid-delivered electricity. And for the local community it has the major advantage of providing power even when the links to the rest of California are down. 
 
7, Hydrogen manufacture at refineries. Much of today’s industrial demand for hydrogen comes from oil refineries, where the gas is needed for producing and for purifying liquid fuels. Several refineries have begun the switch from H2 made from natural gas to producing it by means of electrolysis. This week Neste, the world’s largest supplier of renewable diesel, said it was working with Sunfire to add high temperature electrolysers to its Rotterdam refinery to replace hydrogen made from gas. (Last week’s newsletter wrote about Neste’s investment in Sunfire). This week’s story is particularly significant since it involves another new hydrogen project in the Netherlands, which is rapidly becoming the centre of green H2 production. Also notable is Sunfire’s assertion that this process will be 85% efficient at turning AC electricity into hydrogen energy. This is higher than has been generally assumed for conventional electrolysers.
 
9, Hydrogen trains. The Coradia iLint, the world’s first model of hydrogen train, completed new trials in the Netherlands on a 55 km line in the north of the country. The maximum speed of the iLint is an impressive 140 km/hour and it could be used on 1000 km of non-electrified lines across the Netherlands. I suspect that the Netherlands will be the first country to completely switch to hydrogen from diesel used on railways.

Martyn1981

Good news, bad news, promising news, take your pic. Large increase in World ocean energy generation in the last decade, but it's 'only' equal to 1hr of UK leccy demand. But you have to start somewhere, most schemes are still only 'tests' and the seas/oceans contain one hell of a lot of energy. Fingers crossed?

Wave and tidal stream 'delivers 45GWh in 2019'

Global wave and tidal stream energy production has risen tenfold over the last decade, according to a report by Ocean Energy Systems (OES).

The OES annual report found cumulative energy produced from wave and tidal stream sources rose to 45 gigawatt-hours in 2019 from less than 5GWh in 2009.

Numerous other wave and tidal stream devices have been deployed in open-sea waters for testing, while further ‘push and pull’ mechanisms are stimulating the ocean energy sector in various regions of the world, it added.

 

Coastalwatch

Oil, seemingly maintaining its reputation from cradle right through to grave!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/ao726ind7u/shipbreaking

Martyn1981

Speaking of Big Oil, after New York fired some legal warning shots, now it's Hawaii's turn to 'ask' them to take responsibility for their actions in AGW denial and misinformation ..... despite knowing better!
Terrible analogy, but if Big Oil loses one case, then the dam will break, as it did for Big Tobacco (eventually).

Honolulu Sues Petroleum Companies For Climate Change Damages to City

"Defendants had actual knowledge that their products were defective and dangerous and were and are causing and contributing to the nuisance complained of, and acted with conscious disregard for the probable dangerous consequences of their conduct's and products' foreseeable impact upon the rights of others, including the City and its residents," according to the 119 page lawsuit filed in in the First Circuit Court of Hawaii.

Hawaii sues big oil for climate cleanup costs

The fossil fuel industry, of course, does not think it should be the one to clean up the mess it made. And judging by companies’ responses, they think they’ve already won because of other cases ruled in their favor.

The central claim to Levy’s piece (reposted by various deniers) is that climate litigation suits have been struck down so Honolulu’s suit is doomed to failure. In what is surely just a coincidence, it is also core to Big Oil’s pushback, as Energy In Depth’s post responding to the Honolulu suit demonstrates. While it is true that the NYC case, the first big suit to take the industry on, was unsuccessful, that’s hardly game over. After all, it took some 800 cases over 40 years for the tobacco industry to finally be held accountable. It’s probably a little premature to claim that one or two losses means that the litigation effort has failed.

Martyn1981

Just some numbers for anyone wondering how off-shore wind deployments compare to it's big sister the on-shore industry, and how the technology is progressing.

Global offshore capacity nears 30GW with 6GW 2019 surge

The offshore wind industry installed just over 6GW of new capacity in 2019, taking total capacity to 29GW, according to figures released by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
Last year’s installations marked a 35.5% increase on 2018, which saw 4.5GW installed.

Offshore wind accounted for approximately 10% of new wind power installations in 2019, an increase from 5% in 2015, GWEC’s analysis found.
The council expects over 50GW of new offshore wind capacity to be installed from 2020-2024, as projects in emerging markets with ambitious targets for offshore wind, such as the US, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea, are realised.