Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Netexporter

I noticed something today on the IamKate, Nat Grid live monitoring site, that I thought was interesting, but it may have happened previously, and I just missed it. FF generation dropped just below 1GW (2.30pm to 3.30pm). I'm sure it wasn't very long ago that I noticed gas generation dipping below 3GW, and now FF is under 1GW.

I noticed gas generation below 1GW some time ago. Previously it never seemed to go much below 3GW but I guess there are enough other measures, such as grid scale batteries, to cover for, say, a nuke going off-line unexpectedly, that they are a bit less risk-averse, these days.

What is curious is that whilst gas has been at minimum levels, whilst the gales have been blowing, the coal station has been running. I can only conclude that they are using up their remaining permitted hours of operation, and any coal stocks, so perhaps coal generation will end even sooner than the September date previously announced?

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

Here's the Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall:

8, Heat storage. Construction of the world’s largest heat storage ‘battery’ will start this summer. It will feed the district heating system in Vantaa, a suburb of Helsinki. The capacity is estimated at 90 GWh, or enough to cover the annual heat demand of roughly UK 8,000 homes. The size of the underground cavern used to store the hot water will be 1.1 million cubic metres in size (equivalent to a cube with sides about 100 metres long) and will pressure the liquid, enabling water storage temperatures to rise to around 140 degrees without boiling.  The full budget for the project is put at €200 million, a very large figure in the context of an estimated value for the annual heat stored of around €8m.

Article on the huge heat storage project mentioned above.

Vantaa Energy To Build 90 GWh Thermal Battery For District Heating In Finland

Many European cities use district heating — something that is unfamiliar to most Americans. Instead of having individual furnaces in every home and building, they produce heat in bulk and distribute it to all the buildings in the community using a system of hot water pipes. Conceptually, it is like the cooling system in a conventional car. Vantaa is the fourth largest city in Finland, which means it already has a well-functioning district heating system. But the heat for that system comes from many sources, not all of which are free of carbon emissions.

Vantaa Energy has a plan to convert the city’s district heating system to one that takes advantage of renewable energy instead. The project, known as Veranto, is set to begin construction later this year and will use two 60 MW electric boilers to heat the water for the system. Waste heat from local industries will also be captured to help heat the water. The hot water will be stored in three massive underground chambers buried deep underground. Just like the cooling system in a conventional car, the system will be pressurized to allow the temperature of the water to reach 140º C (284º F). Vantaa Energy says the completed system will store up to 90 GWh of energy — enough to heat a medium-sized city like Vantaa for a year and making it the largest thermal energy storage system in the world.

Martyn1981

I think this vid is useful to watch, looking at the changes that are and may happen to improve the distribution of RE generation around the UK.

Ocean Electricity Grid. How do they do that?

Pylons are ugly and nobody likes them! Filling up our countryside with thousands more of them to facilitate a massive electricity grid expansion is proving to be a very tricky challenge with lots of local opposition. But what if you could build your electricity grid out at sea and just bring cables to shore where they’re needed?

Martyn1981

A huge PV and wind project being developed in India. Just to say, India can be a little hit and miss with what it plans and announces, and what it actually delivers, but this scheme is progressing.

Adani Building World’s Largest Hybrid Solar & Wind Park In India — 30 GW!

The Adani Renewable Energy Park in northern India is unique for several reasons. First, it is a hybrid clean energy project that will harvest electricity from both solar panels and wind turbines. Second, it will be the largest such facility in the world when complete. Third, it will have a nameplate capacity of 30 GW — the Three Gorges Dam in China produces a mere 22.5 GW. Fourth, it is being built in a salt desert near the border with Pakistan where there is not a living soul for more than 20 miles in any direction — so there is no NIMBY backlash to worry about.

At the present time, 70% of all the electricity in India comes from thermal generating stations that burn either coal or methane gas. That’s why India is the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution in the world today, behind only China and the United States. But the country plans on  having 500 GW of clean power available by 2030. Germany, by comparison, is targeting 330 GW of renewable energy by then.

Hybrid Solar & Wind Park Is Seven Times Larger Than Paris

When completed, the Adani hybrid solar and wind project will be about as large as Singapore, spreading out over 726 square kilometers (280 square miles). Up to eight thousand workers and 500 engineers will be needed to construct the new clean energy park. Today most of them are living in makeshift camps while construction is under way.

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter from Chris Goodall:

[No. 4 is significant. Very annoying, but also positive, showing the massive interest in, and potential for rapidly expanding RE generation.]

1, Low carbon clothing fibres. Spiber is a Japanese company that makes a clothing fibre from what is termed a ‘brewed protein’. Plant materials are fermented to make a textile fibre that can eventually be easily recycled back into a usable protein. (There’s a section on Spiber in Possible, including a nice photograph of a lovely outdoor jacket). It has just raised another $70 million to continue its work with clothing suppliers around the world. 15 Japanese and international brands now cooperate with Spiber to develop clothing based on its fermented proteins. Spiber emphasises that its recycling techniques can potentially process all plant based fibres, such as cotton. It also stresses the importance to the clothing industry of avoiding mixtures of plant fibres and polyester and other plastics made from oil, making recycling much more difficult than it needs to be. Clothing design has to bear in mind the need to avoid mixing materials that cannot be recycled together.

2, Another brewed protein, this time for food. Solar Foods opened its first factory in Vantaa, a city in the Helsinki region. (The same city that will install the world’s largest heat battery, as featured in a recent newsletter). The company has been making small quantities of a protein suitable for adding to foods, such as meat alternatives or vegan ice cream, for several years from green electricity, hydrogen and single cell microbes. So far only Singapore has actively encouraged its use in foods but the company expects European and US permission soon. Entry into the US is targeted for late 2024. The new Finnish factory, Solar Foods says, will make about 160 tonnes of its Solein product a year, equivalent to the protein output of a 300 cow dairy farm but with a tiny environmental impact and very limited land use. The inputs to the Solein process are just carbon dioxide, oxygen, hydrogen and small amounts of other nutrients used to feed the microbe.

3, Climeworks strategy change. Direct Air Capture specialist Climeworks shifted its approach. It will now sell carbon credits for non-DAC projects alongside its existing business of asking customers to pay money to remove CO2 directly from the air. Its proposition is that it will provide buyers with guarantees of high quality carbon removal using techniques such as biochar and enhanced rock weathering. This is a surprising change of strategy for the world’s best known DAC specialist. I assume that the company is finding it difficult to provide sufficient volumes of CO2 removal certificates from its present and future DAC plants in Iceland and elsewhere. Climeworks probably believes it can fund its expansion more rapidly by also selling credits from providers of ‘nature-based’ carbon extraction techniques. But the change in approach must also raise the question of whether the company has come to recognise that its industrial technology may continue to be significantly more costly than other genuine carbon capture routes, such as biochar, which are promising prices that are a small fraction of Climeworks.

4, Interconnection queues. In November of last year the International Energy Agency said that about 1,500 GW of renewable energy projects around the globe were unable to connect to local grids. That’s about 5 times the renewables capacity that was added globally in 2022. But a new report suggests that the queue in the US alone is this size in early 2024 with over 900 GW added to the waiting list in 2023. If the projects in the queue were connected, it might provide a third of US electricity needs.  While many of the projects will never be built, the delays to those that are eventually constructed continues to increase. The typical project actually constructed in 2023 had been in the queue for 5 years, up from an average of 3 years in 2015. This situation is replicated in many countries around the world.

5, Green steel. Austrian manufacturer Voestalpine said it had produced its first steel for roller bearings from hydrogen direct reduced metal. Quantities weren’t specified but this announcement is important because it suggests that manufacturers are confident that they are able to produce even the strongest and most corrosion resistant steels using hydrogen. As with several other manufacturers, Voestalpine is switching from using blast furnaces to installing hydrogen direct reduction to make iron, combined with new electric arc furnaces to turn that product into different types of steels.

6, More on green steel. Nippon Steel, the huge Japanese steel maker, will experiment with hydrogen use, probably partly because of the potentially adverse impact of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism which will impose tariffs on high carbon imports. CBAM is having a demonstrable effect encouraging heavy industry that wants to import into the EU to move to low carbon technologies. However Nippon Steel does not commit to using green hydrogen in its experimentation. Interestingly the company is intending to use a technology made by Italian specialist Tenova that can work with low grade iron ore and mixtures of hydrogen, methane and other gases. Other steel producers, such as H2 Green Steel in Sweden, have chosen technologies that need to use more expensive ore with a high iron content. Nippon Steel also says it is focusing on ensuring that the slag that remains after the steel is produced is sufficiently pure to be used as a raw material in the manufacture of very low carbon cement. As also tends to be the case in Europe, the Japanese state is paying over half the costs.

7. Impact of climate change on GNP. I’ve noticed a rise in the number of people saying that they believe that the economic and other impacts of climate change won’t be particularly severe. Two academic studies published this week gave some rigorous estimates of the financial effect. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) forecasts that global GNP will be 19% below what it would be in 2050 in the absence of impacts from global warming. It goes on to estimate a much higher figure of 60% by 2100. These costs are a many times multiple of the costs of decarbonisation, says PIK.  The estimates also seem to exclude the impact of rising sea levels, which would increase economic losses even further. Economic damages in the PIK model are even higher in lower income countries such as Brazil, parts of West Africa and Pakistan. The other study from ETH in Zurich has lower estimates of lost global income at 10-12% assuming a 3 degree temperature rise above pre-industrial averages. As with the PIK work, the economic costs are forecast to be far more severe in lower income countries.

8, Methanol availability for shipping. Singapore says that it expects to require about 1 million tonnes of methanol to supply the demand from ships visiting the port in 2030. (It has the biggest fuel needs of any shipping port in the world). That is about a quarter of one per cent of global fuel requirements for the entire industry. (Methanol has a lower energy value per tonne than heavy fuel oil). The port authority said it had received over 50 expressions of industry from companies offering to supply the new fuel. In addition to the 30 or so methanol ships on the ocean today, there are orders for about 230 new vessels, mostly large global container carriers. The evidence thus far is that building a methanol supply network across the world is not going to be an impossible task, although finding truly green sources of the fuel may be more demanding.

9, Electrolysers. German electrolyser manufacturer Sunfire told us it was producing a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for a 500 MW alkaline electrolyser to make green hydrogen. Recent orders in Europe have typically been around 20 MW so the Sunfire FEED is an order of magnitude bigger. Sunfire didn’t say who the customer is, but it seems likely to be a European refinery operator.  The last few weeks have seen growing concerns about the slow pace of growth of the hydrogen industry so this is a significant announcement although it will be several years before the plant is constructed. NEL, the best established European electrolyser manufacturer, reported a reduction in its order backlog, down 15% year-on-year. Sales were about $10m for the last quarter, less than 5% of the probable value of the Sunfire FEED.

10, Availability of car chargers. NGO Transport and Environment reproduced data showing the progress of electric car charging across the EU. DC units (‘fast’ or ‘rapid’ chargers) almost doubled in 2024, up to about 82,000 across the bloc. This equates to around 1 DC charger for every 100 hydrid and pure battery cars. The number of all types of charger rose by 42% in 2023 compared to a 35% rise in the number of EVs on the road. Transport and Environment comments that EU countries now have sufficient chargers to almost meet official 2025 targets. Of course we don’t know how many of them will actually work when the weary driver turns up with 10 km of range left.

Martyn1981

Never thought I'd be interested in, nor get excited about new substations!

National Grid commissions 2GW UK substation

National Grid has successfully commissioned a new substation (pictured), in Dartford, Kent, enabling 2GW of low carbon and renewable energy to power around 1.5 million homes.

National Grid and its contractors Balfour Beatty and GE Vernova’s Grid Solutions have been working since June 2019 to build a replacement for Littlebrook 400kV substation.

The new facility will help to reduce the use of sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), a gas commonly used in the electrical industry to prevent short circuits and to keep the network safe and reliable, National Grid said. 

Construction of the new substation is now complete, and all circuits have now been successfully commissioned. 

Martyn1981

Martyn1981 said:

I noticed something today on the IamKate, Nat Grid live monitoring site, that I thought was interesting, but it may have happened previously, and I just missed it. FF generation dropped just below 1GW (2.30pm to 3.30pm). I'm sure it wasn't very long ago that I noticed gas generation dipping below 3GW, and now FF is under 1GW.

The National Grid did say that they'd have the grid ready to operate on 100% low generation by 2025 - but to stress, not suggesting UK leccy will be 100% low carbon for 2025, but capable of managing the grid if it happens at times.

Also, noticed that we continue to burn very small amounts of coal (most of this year), even when FF demand is low. Perhaps it's very cheap (low demand), or to run the boilers, or maybe to use up coal stocks before October, since the 100MW to 300MW (or so) could easily be provided by gas instead.

Looks like the 15th April was a 'special' day, and pointing towards many more.

Share of electricity generated by fossil fuels in Great Britain drops to record low

The share of Great Britain’s electricity generated by burning fossil fuels plummeted to unprecedented lows this month, ahead of plans to begin running a “zero-carbon grid” for short periods from next year.

Electricity generated by burning gas and coal fell to a record low of just 2.4% for an hour at lunchtime on Monday 15 April, according to an analysis of data from National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO).

The same data has revealed that earlier this month the share of fossil fuels in the generation mix taken over an entire day fell to a record low of 6.4%, on 5 April.

The research, undertaken by Carbon Brief, found a dramatic increase in the frequency of short periods when fossil fuels made up less than 5% of Great Britain’s electricity generation in recent months.

There have been 75 half-hour periods in the year to date when fossil fuels have accounted for less than 5% of the country’s electricity needs, more than four times the number recorded last year. Just five ultra-low carbon half hours were recorded in 2022, the analysis said.

Coastalwatch

Came across this today for the first time and thought it worth posting as I'd not seen it shown previously in the month since it was published so apologies if it's a repeat..

UK’s net zero economy grew 9% in 2023, report finds

The UK’s net zero economy grew by 9% in 2023, a report has revealed, in stark contrast to the 0.1% growth seen in the economy overall. Nevertheless, the report pointed out that strong future growth from green businesses was being put at risk by government policy reversals, lack of investment and competition from the EU and US.

Thousands of new green companies were founded in 2023 and overall the sector was responsible for the production of £74bn in goods and services and 765,000 jobs, according to the report by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

Hotspots of net zero businesses and the well-paid jobs they provide occur across the country, rather than being concentrated in London and the south-east, the report found. It also highlighted strong net zero activity in some of the most deprived areas and in marginal constituencies that will be focal battlegrounds in the coming general election.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/27/uk-net-zero-economy-grew-in-2023-report-finds?utm_term=662a3a0d8bf37995865d711500c604bf&utm_campaign=DownToEarth&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=greenlight_email

Martyn1981

Part 1.

The UK closes its last coal power station this year, and Ratcliffe-on-Soar appears to be down to one turbine, and using up the coal stocks.

With that in mind, this news from the US is hopeful, but I actually posted it due to a funny bit towards the end, with the coal industry getting its bluff-called on CCS (clean(er) coal):

Regan denied that the rules were aimed at shutting down the coal sector, but acknowledged in proposing the power plant rule last year that “we will see some coal retirements”.

The proposal relies on technologies to limit carbon pollution that the industry itself has said are viable and available, Regan said. “Multiple power companies have indicated that [carbon capture and storage] is a viable technology for the power sector today, and they are currently pursuing those CCS projects,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

New rule compels US coal-fired power plants to capture emissions – or shut down

Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Coal plants that plan to stay open beyond 2039 would have to cut or capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032, the EPA said. Plants that expect to retire by 2039 would face a less stringent standard but still would have to capture some emissions. Coal plants that are set to retire by 2032 would not be subject to the new rules.

Martyn1981

Part 2, as it links nicely with the previous article on US coal generation, and their shift to gas:

Global battery rollout doubled last year – but needs to be six times faster, says IEA

The rollout of batteries across the global electricity industry more than doubled last year but will need to be six times faster if the world hopes to meet its renewable energy targets, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A report from the global energy watchdog found that new batteries totalling 42 gigawatts (GW) were plugged into electricity systems around the world last year, increasing total capacity by more than 130% from the year before to 85GW.

However, the IEA warned that an estimated 1,500GW of battery storage would be required worldwide by the end of the decade to avoid stalling the global clean energy transition and help meet the UN’s net zero targets.

Batteries have emerged as one of the world’s fastest-growing clean energy technologies after a 90% decline in costs over the past 15 years driven by the rapid growth of electric vehicles.

[Not sure about that +130% maths. I suspect the increase relates to YoY increase, rather than cumulative total.]

“The combination of solar PV and batteries is today competitive with new coal plants in India. And just in the next few years, it will be cheaper than new coal in China and gas-fired power in the United States,” Birol said.