Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

2nd_time_buyer

Thanks. Sounds promising.

I must admit, I only thought about it because I forgot to login (and so it didn't automatically go the last post) and saw the story, and though that looks interesting before checking the date. 

Martyn1981

Nice big water battery in Portugal, 1.2GW / 40GWh. [For scale, Dinorwig is 1.8GW / 9.1GWh ]

Portugal, Switzerland launch pumped storage hydropower plants of over 2 GW in total

Spain-based Iberdrola has just contributed to the cause by inaugurating its Tâmega Gigabattery in Portugal. At 1.16 GW, it is one of the biggest pumped storage projects in Europe in the last 25 years, the company said.

The Tâmega Gigabattery is scheduled to be upgraded to a hybrid power plant by integrating two wind parks

It is located in the country’s north between Porto and the Spanish town of Ourense. The facility is worth EUR 1.5 billion and it is not yet finished.

The construction of Tâmega Gigabattery began eight years ago. The reservoirs of Gouvães and Daivões and their generators, 880 MW and 118 MW respectively, have been commissioned, while the remaining unit, Alto Tâmega, is scheduled to be completed by June 2024.

The system will have an overall storage capacity of 40 GWh, equivalent to the electricity needs of 11 million residents over 24 hours, Iberdrola said. The Gouvães dam is on the Torno river and the other two are on the Tâmega. Additionally, the utility plans to integrate the complex with two future wind power plants of 300 MW in total, which would make it a hybrid power plant.

Martyn1981

Looks like Swindon is taking an interwoven approach to RE, storage and EV's.

Public Power Solutions commissions battery to support Swindon’s net zero transition

Swindon Borough Council’s development arm Public Power Solutions (PPS) has commissioned its Waterside Battery project.

The 500kW/832kWh lithium-ion battery is co-located at Swindon’s Household Waste Recycling Centre at Waterside Park, which is already powered by the 2.5MWp Barnfield solar array.

This site is set to become the electric vehicle (EV) hub of Swindon Borough Council’s fleet, with 16 EV chargers commissioned earlier this year.

By integrating the battery energy storage into the existing power system, the council can help reduce its electricity costs by storing excess power from the solar farms and using it during times when the sun is not shining, it noted.

gefnew

Here is the next stage of the East Riding Of  Yorkshire efforts.

Dogger Bank: Work starts on 'world's largest' offshore wind farm - BBC News

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

This article is worth a read, explaining how we bought some extremely expensive leccy from Belgium, nearly £10/kWh, on July 20th.

It wasn't a huge amount, but was necessary due to bottlenecks in the UK network, plus some additional local issues. Certainly suggests to me that the need for storage on the transmission or distribution networks is growing. Also that a VPP (virtual power plant) using demand side storage, such as domestic batts being paid to export, might have helped a bit.

Looks like we are entering the next phase of the shift to RE/low carbon - distribution and storage - fun/exciting times ahead.

How London Paid a Record Price to Dodge a Blackout

Last week, unbeknown to many outside the power industry, parts of London came remarkably close to a blackout — even as it was recovering from the hottest day in British history. On July 20, surging electricity demand collided with a bottleneck in the grid, leaving the eastern part of the British capital briefly short of power. Only by paying a record high £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour — more than 5,000% higher than the typical price — did the UK avoid homes and businesses going dark. That was the nosebleed cost to persuade Belgium to crank up aging electricity plants to send energy across the English Channel.

The world is investing about $300 billion per year in power grids, an amount that has barely changed since 2015, according to the International Energy Agency. It isn’t enough, as the global economy electrifies and deals with a shifting generation map, with intermittent renewable energy like solar and wind replacing polluting — but dependable — coal- and gas-fired stations.

Now, grid bottlenecks create perverse situations. In Spain, for example, there are times when solar electricity producers in the south have to switch off their plants while, in the north, gas-fired power stations are turning on to meet demand. In some corners of the US, electricity prices often drop below zero, with power plants forced to sell their energy due to grid constraints. Meanwhile, in other corners of the US, consumers are facing calls to reduce power demand on peak days and face record prices.

Aging infrastructure, often 30 or 40 years old, needs to be replaced. But refurbishment and expansion come up against local opposition to more pylons and overhead cables. In the UK, authorities are bypassing popular resistance by moving some parts of the grid offshore, using undersea cables. “Fish don’t vote,” goes the industry’s joke. It is, however, an expensive undertaking.

Also read that piece and was wondering if national grid were perhaps asleep at the wheel in terms of making sure we actually had the infrastructure to match our generation/usage pattern.  they are making record profits and are obviously a regulated monopoly....

Martyn1981

Flow batteries are progressing, but slowly. I hope this technology is viable as it requires different ingredients, so spreads the material demand around more products and industries.

The article also gives a run through of other locations where flow batts have been / are being installed, including the UK.

First phase of 800MWh world biggest flow battery commissioned in China

Commissioning has taken place of a 100MW/400MWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) energy storage system in Dalian, China.

The biggest project of its type in the world today, the VRFB project’s planning, design and construction has taken six years. It was connected to the Dalian grid in late May, according to a report this week by the China Energy Storage Alliance (CNESA) industry group.

The system is in Dalian City’s Shahekou District, which is in Liaoning Province in northeastern China. It will contribute to lowering the peak load on the grid in Dalian City and could even play a role at provincial level, improving power supply and the capability to connect new generation sources like renewable energy to the grid.

gefnew

Funding for battery plant approved from automotive fund.
Britishvolt: Electric car battery plant's funding confirmed - BBC News

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall.

No 9 is promising, though I shan't be counting my chickens just yet.

Industry news

Things I noticed and thought were interesting

Week ending 31st July 2022
 
1, Hydrogen storage. In countries lucky enough to have the appropriate geology, constructed salt caverns will provide the lowest cost storage of hydrogen. A layer of thick salt sits under impermeable rocks across north western Europe, offering near-perfect conditions. The German utility Uniper said that it had received the funding necessary to build a trial salt cavern near Wilhelmshaven. This will be operational by 2024 and hold 250,000 cubic metres - equivalent to 100 metres by 100 metres by 25 metres - of compressed hydrogen. (The energy value of the storage will depend on the pressure of the gas in the cavern). In the US, the prime contractor was selected to create the salt caverns for the pioneering hydrogen Intermountain power station in Utah. Here two caverns will hold about 11,000 tons of hydrogen, with a total energy value of 300 gigawatt hours.
 
2, BP and Iberdrola. Without extensive publicity, BP continues to move towards green hydrogen (as opposed to the blue variant). This week it announced it would develop a JV with Iberdrola in Spain to produce 600,000 tonnes a year. This project alone is greater than the company’s stated aim of manufacturing 500,000 tonnes a year by 2030. It adds to the huge proposed investment of 40% of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub in Australia, planned to make 1.6 million tonnes a year. Surprisingly, the new plans in Spain were announced as the second item on a press release that focused on a joint venture in car charging. But, very approximately, BP’s new plans for hydrogen in Iberia and the UK will cost €10bn compared to just €1bn for its EV charging expansion. The new solar capacity in Spain required will be about 14 gigawatts, or more than the UK’s total installed figure for solar PV today. It seems that BP isn’t making clear the full scale of its hydrogen plans to the outside world, perhaps because the financial markets are not  yet convinced about the commercial viability.
 
3, Recycling textiles. The New Cotton Project, the textile industry consortium aiming for full recycling of clothing, said it was starting commercial production. Textiles are collected and sorted. A mixture of fabrics is then processed using the Infinited Fibre technology which produces a new material very similar to cotton. The first fashion items from H&M and Adidas will be on sale later this year. Project obstacles have included difficulties in ensuring that the mix of fabrics coming into the process is appropriate for the Infinited Fibre approach. Research by Adidas also demonstrated considerable lack of understanding of circularity among consumers but more than 50% support for recycling schemes that allow products from all manufacturers to be returned to a single place.
 
4, Plug-in share in Europe. Vehicle sales continue at their lower rate in Europe, but pure EVs are rapidly gaining share. Last month 21% of all new registrations were electric across the EU, of which 13% were fully electric. Plug-in hybrids appear to be in decline as customers begin to get more confident about charging facilities. (I saw this on CleanTechnica). 
 
5, Indian green hydrogen. Another large national oil company began the process of shifting into hydrogen. India’s ONGC said it would team up with a major renewables developer to build a 1 million tonnes per year ammonia plant, using about 150,000 tonnes of hydrogen as a raw material. ONGC said it would need about 6 gigawatts of renewables capacity to provide the hydrogen, along with its partner’s pumped hydro power, and the total project has a budget of over $6bn. India has a target of 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year by the end of this decade.
 
6, Chinese electric trucks. A Chinese medium weight electric truck was certified for sale in the EU. I think this may have been the first approval of such a vehicle. We cannot know whether this may be the start of a rapid growth of Chinese exports of freight trucks into the EU but it is a further indication that the electrification of transport will include larger commercial vehicles. Chinese suppliers of EVs and electric trucks, now with superior scale, will be well positioned to address Western markets if geopolitics allows.
 
7, Green fertiliser. Ammonia is currently made with hydrogen manufactured using natural gas. The spike in gas prices has added to the incentive to switch to hydrogen made using renewable electricity. European innovator Fertiberia in Spain inaugurated a plant to make green H2 last month. It will provide 3,000 tonnes per year of the gas made by electricity from a 100 MW solar facility.  This week the Brazilian manufacturer Unigel promised a much larger plant to be completed in 2023, producing about 10,000 tonnes a year. This will be the largest green fertiliser plant in the world by some margin. Unigel admits that initially not all the electricity used to make the hydrogen will come from renewable sources whereas the Fertiberia electricity is produced at a solar plant built specifically for the purpose. If high natural gas prices persist, fertiliser manufacturing will probably be the first industry to largely decarbonise using hydrogen.
 
8, Public opinion. A survey in the UK carried out just after the European heatwave of mid-July showed a striking rise in concerns about climate change. In the previous survey in April, 20% said they were ‘very worried’ but in late July the number rose to 33%, roughly equal to the higher figures from southern Europe of early 2022. However the survey company commented that ‘Britons are unwilling to make major lifestyle changes to benefit the environment’. Analysis of responses suggests that this conclusion is too pessimistic. Yes, only 13% said that they would give up meat and dairy products but a much larger percentage - 37% - are willing to only consume these products ‘2/3 times a week’ compared to 32% who would not want to do this. (The same survey in April had 34% willing and 33% unwilling, showing some swing towards an acceptance of a reduction in meat eating in the last few months). Other questions about readiness to change behaviours showed similar patterns. Concerns about climate change and willingness to act do not vary substantially according to the age of the respondent. But there are large differences between right of centre voters and their left-wing compatriots. Whereas only 18% of voters for the right of centre Conservative Party are ‘very worried’ about climate change, over 50% of the supporters of parties of the left wing are very concerned.
 
9, Trends in electricity generation using coal. New coal plant construction peaked at 107 gigawatts globally in 2015. By 2021 this had fallen to around 45 gigawatts. The first half of 2022 saw another sharp fall to about 13.8 gigawatts of newly build coal-fired power generation, over two thirds of which was in India and China. Global retirements of coal plants in the same six month period totalled about 11.4 gigawatts, meaning that incremental capacity was only about 2.4 gigawatts, far lower than in previous years. If current trends continue, the world will reduce the total amount of coal-fired generating capacity in 2023. 
 
10, Fuel cell trains. Spanish manufacturer CAF started field trials of a new hydrogen fuel cell train. It will operate as an electric train on lines with overhead power cables but will switch to hydrogen in parts of the rail network currently operated by diesel locomotives. This is a small project but if successful will set up another competitor making hydrogen fuel cell railways trains to add existing participants Alstom and Siemens.  

Coastalwatch

I know there is a long way to go and the 60.4% figure includes nuclear generation but the quarter figures continue to follow the trend set in recent years and surely must encourage further build out of renewables as each MW increase sees our reliance on gas reduce accordingly.

UK generation mix moves increasingly toward renewables

Power generation from low carbon sources secured more than 60% share of the UK’s total energy mix

Renewables continue to bring extra green juices into Britain’s grid pushing gas out of the energy mix.

Government data shows renewable electricity generation totalled 38.2TWh in the first quarter of the year, up 9.3% compared to the same period in 2021.

The report suggests this increase was primarily driven by wind farms – wind generation rose by 15%.

Solar increased its generation by 21% in the first three months of the year.

The analysis estimates that low carbon electricity generation represented a 60.4% share of the UK’s total generation.

Gas generation fell by 14% to 28TWh between the first quarter of 2021 and 2022.

Jess Ralston, a Senior Analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: “For every megawatt of renewable power this winter, that’s basically a megawatt less of gas power we have to source and pay for.

“This trend is only set to continue with recently commissioned wind projects four times cheaper than current gas and new farms coming online every year. This will protect us from gas price shocks in the long term particularly as the North Sea is a declining basin and fracking is so unpopular with voters.”

new research finds

https://www.futurenetzero.com/2022/08/01/uk-generation-mix-moves-increasingly-toward-renewables/?swcfpc=1

michaels

Coastalwatch said:

I know there is a long way to go and the 60.4% figure includes nuclear generation but the quarter figures continue to follow the trend set in recent years and surely must encourage further build out of renewables as each MW increase sees our reliance on gas reduce accordingly.

UK generation mix moves increasingly toward renewables

Power generation from low carbon sources secured more than 60% share of the UK’s total energy mix

Renewables continue to bring extra green juices into Britain’s grid pushing gas out of the energy mix.

Government data shows renewable electricity generation totalled 38.2TWh in the first quarter of the year, up 9.3% compared to the same period in 2021.

The report suggests this increase was primarily driven by wind farms – wind generation rose by 15%.

Solar increased its generation by 21% in the first three months of the year.

The analysis estimates that low carbon electricity generation represented a 60.4% share of the UK’s total generation.

Gas generation fell by 14% to 28TWh between the first quarter of 2021 and 2022.

Jess Ralston, a Senior Analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: “For every megawatt of renewable power this winter, that’s basically a megawatt less of gas power we have to source and pay for.

“This trend is only set to continue with recently commissioned wind projects four times cheaper than current gas and new farms coming online every year. This will protect us from gas price shocks in the long term particularly as the North Sea is a declining basin and fracking is so unpopular with voters.”

new research finds

https://www.futurenetzero.com/2022/08/01/uk-generation-mix-moves-increasingly-toward-renewables/?swcfpc=1

Just lost 3% of low carbon leccy today with the closure of HPB