Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

michaels

silverwhistle said:

thevilla said:

Shows the advantage of such a distributed architecture. Wind farm hoped to be back online today. Any glitch in a traditional generator would likely take weeks or months.

( fan, flames....very good 😊)

Also an opportunity to repower with a bigger turbine! ;-)

Seems this windfarm is 20 years old. I wonder what the original design lifetime was?

ABrass

20 years design lifespan for that particular turbine model.

The life time of the wind plant is assumed to be 20 years. This corresponds to the design life time of the V80-2.0MW turbine and applies to all components of the wind plant, except for certain replacement parts. However, as the wind turbine industry is still relatively young (starting up in 1979, 32 years ago) the actual lifetime of a particular wind plant is uncertain and some variance around this assumed 20 year figure is expected. For instance, Vestas has direct knowledge of a number of its turbines exceeding the design life time of 20 years. Additionally, other site components such as the site cabling and foundations may have a significantly longer useful lifetime (around 50 years). The effects of varying the lifetime of a wind plant on potential environmental impacts are discussed in

Given they're only tiddly little 2W, 70m ones and so close to shore I doubt they'll be able to put in any of the new 15MW, 150m (hub height) monsters. Which is a shame.

Martyn1981

michaels said:

silverwhistle said:

thevilla said:

Shows the advantage of such a distributed architecture. Wind farm hoped to be back online today. Any glitch in a traditional generator would likely take weeks or months.

( fan, flames....very good 😊)

Also an opportunity to repower with a bigger turbine! ;-)

Seems this windfarm is 20 years old. I wonder what the original design lifetime was?

I'd been wondering the same, so did a bit of Googling, but wasn't sure if anyone else would be interested.

But, I did find an article, that actually mentions Scroby Sands:

Turbine lifetime limits require a reality check

According to recent figures from WindEurope, within the next 5 years, approximately 38GW of European wind farms will reach 20 years of operations. With the industry standard lifetime for a wind turbine between 20-25 years, this means decisions will soon need to be made around life extension, repowering or full decommissioning for these assets.

However, it is not that straightforward. In reality, offshore wind turbines are expected to last up to 35 years once operational. This is not a one-off either, with turbines in early projects such as North Hoyle, Scroby Sands, Kentish Flats, Barrow and Beatrice all proving - through asset management methodologies and O&M activity - that it is realistic to expect the lifespan of a turbine to exceed 30 years.

Possibly bad timing to suggest the WT's (wind turbines) would last 30yrs, but depends on the average, I suppose.

This scheme was under ROC's, I believe, but the CfD mechanism for newer schemes, paying for 15yrs, looks reasonable.

The fact that the 30 turbine farm is 'only' 60MW also caught my eye. Nothing wrong with that for 2004, but shows how times have changed with 10MW+ rolling out, and 16MW being tested.

I did wonder if the farm could now be upgraded, with larger WT's. It might mean less WT's, as the spacing needs to be greater for larger WT's. But some of the infrastructure will be in place, including the leccy side, thus reducing the capital cost, v's a completely new scheme. However (totally guessing here), I assume that the current monopiles wouldn't be big enough, so newer, larger ones would have to be installed.

An old number I once saw, and have probably waffled on about before, is that ~40% of the cost of an offshore wind farm is - the build out of the grid, construction of the sub-station, underwater cables, and the mono-piles. So that gives an idea of how much cheaper the generation could be, in the future, when projects are renewed, but the issue of growing WT size, does muck up the mono-pile cost issue.

Martyn1981

Small "big battery" demonstration project for grid scale sodium-ion battery.

I appreciate that 5MW/10MWh isn't huge, but the more chemical options there are for battery storage, then the better for costs. Less material demand on any given resource (such as Lithium), or cheaper options like Sodium, will help to keep costs down, and also accelerate the roll out of storage.

So the big news here, isn't so much this specific storage facility, but the boost for all battery storage, as the technology choices widen.

At 150Wh/kg, the sodium-ion batts are actually as dense as some LFP batts, so could be viable for BEV's too, and have made it into a few small Chinese EV's recently.

‘World-first’ grid-scale sodium-ion battery project in China launched

A battery energy storage system (BESS) project using sodium-ion technology has been launched in Qingdao, China.

The demonstration project of 5MW/10MWh was officialised last month (14 July) in a definitive agreement between project partners Great Power, a battery technology company, Qingdao Beian Holdings and Noan Technology Co.

The released added: “In the polyanion systems, a highly stable system has been constructed through material innovation, breaking through the core pain points of low energy density and revolutionising the life of sodium-ion batteries to over 6000 cycles. For the layered oxide system, a high-voltage system has been developed to increase the energy density to 150Wh/kg, with a cycle life reaching up to 3000 cycles.”

michaels

ABrass said:

20 years design lifespan for that particular turbine model.

The life time of the wind plant is assumed to be 20 years. This corresponds to the design life time of the V80-2.0MW turbine and applies to all components of the wind plant, except for certain replacement parts. However, as the wind turbine industry is still relatively young (starting up in 1979, 32 years ago) the actual lifetime of a particular wind plant is uncertain and some variance around this assumed 20 year figure is expected. For instance, Vestas has direct knowledge of a number of its turbines exceeding the design life time of 20 years. Additionally, other site components such as the site cabling and foundations may have a significantly longer useful lifetime (around 50 years). The effects of varying the lifetime of a wind plant on potential environmental impacts are discussed in

Given they're only tiddly little 2W, 70m ones and so close to shore I doubt they'll be able to put in any of the new 15MW, 150m (hub height) monsters. Which is a shame.

However any generation they are getting out of them now at 20+ years old is all extra CO2 free energy on top of what went into the calculations when they were installed.

I suspect rooftop solar will be the same, no reports of panels degrading badly as they get older afaik.

BEVs the jury is still out, not sure what the 'expected lifetime' is in terms of years/miles.  Definitely there seem to be lots of high miles EVs with still useable batteries.  When it comes to older ones we do see degradation but not are that old yet and obviously battery chemistry is constantly evolving so even if the original leaf batteries have not fared so well in all cars, newer batteries start bigger and may (or may not) last better.

(single data point:  Our leaf is not 8.5 years old and 80k miles, range is just over 80% of what it was when new which means it still pretty much supports the same use case but will it still be useful at 16 years old perhaps only 60% or less of original range?)

Martyn1981

Nice to see some on-shore wind being built, and this is a really big windfarm for onshore, at 443MW. As are the WT's at 4.3MW. Not sure if the estimate of generating 1.8TWh pa is reasonable, but if so, then that's a capacity factory of ~46%, which is huge for UK onshore wind. But given the location, and the large WT's, I hope it's correct.

Final turbine installed at Viking Wind Farm

Just over three years since breaking ground on the project, SSE Renewables has successfully installed the final turbine at the 443MW Viking Wind Farm in Shetland.  

The process began in February 2023 and in just over six months the team of technicians has safely and successfully installed all 103 Vestas V117 4.3MW machines on the site. 

Over the last month, the project has progressed rapidly. The final unit went up well ahead of schedule, as the original programme had been due to complete in autumn 2023. 

The project remains on track for completion in 2024, with commissioning works set to continue over the next year.  

When fully operational, Viking’s turbines will operate in 4.3MW power mode and comprise 443MW of capacity, capable of generating up to 1.8TWh of renewable electricity annually – enough to power almost half a million typical British homes, including every home in Shetland.

silverwhistle

Martyn1981 said:

So that gives an idea of how much cheaper the generation could be, in the future, when projects are renewed, but the issue of growing WT size, does muck up the mono-pile cost issue.

There must be a degree of improvement due to efficiencies, technology, better blades even with the same size monopile foundations, I would have thought? Even a 10/20% improvement would be worthwhile.

Martyn1981

silverwhistle said:

Martyn1981 said:

So that gives an idea of how much cheaper the generation could be, in the future, when projects are renewed, but the issue of growing WT size, does muck up the mono-pile cost issue.

There must be a degree of improvement due to efficiencies, technology, better blades even with the same size monopile foundations, I would have thought? Even a 10/20% improvement would be worthwhile.

Totally agree. I may be over-egging it a bit, but if the existing infrastructure, including mono-piles could be used, and with a 'better' WT, then perhaps a 50% reduction in generating costs (40% CAPEX saving and 10% WT cost/efficiency)? Not sure if it's fair to include all of the build out costs to the original scheme, but presumably the generation cost and payments reflected that. So a repowering would be very beneficial.

But ...... (why is there always a 'but' when I start waffling) ..... I think there may be issues actually acquiring some of the older/smaller WT's as manufacturers have scaled up. So those 2MW off-shore machines, may not now be available. But even if 10 or 15 new larger monopiles and 4-6MW WT's are installed it's hopefully still a great step forward.

RE, the gift that keeps on giving.

Martyn1981

Is it just me, or have storage rollouts become so large and common now, that 150MW/300MWh doesn't sound as big, as it did a year or so ago?

Plus the developers have planning consent for another 470MW of schemes.

SSE breaks ground on 150MW BESS in West Yorkshire

SSE Renewables has broken ground on its 150MW/300MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in West Yorkshire.

The renewable energy arm of SSE confirmed that the project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024 and will be able to provide the GB national grid with 300MWh of flexible capacity for two hour periods.

[I suspect the article means 300MWh over a two hour period, or something like that.]

Martyn1981

Progress on one of the large planned interconnectors to move leccy between England and Scotland. 2GW and target completion date of 2029.

Scotland-England cable link clears planning

Planning consent for a new subsea electricity superhighway between Scotland and England has now been granted by all relevant authorities.

Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL2) is a 525kV, 2GW high voltage direct current (HVDC) subsea transmission cable from Peterhead in Scotland to Drax in England, to be delivered as a joint venture between National Grid and SSEN Transmission.

Planning consent has now been granted for all onshore and offshore elements of the project, including new converter stations and onshore and offshore cables.

Sarah Sale, EGL2 Deputy Project Director, said: “We are delighted that our plans for the onshore and offshore elements of our project have been approved by all local planning authorities and marine licencing organisations.

“What was particularly pleasing to hear, was the support for the project and its purpose from a number of those planning authorities.”

Construction is expected to begin in 2024, with a targeted operational date of 2029.