Renewables

Jeremy Corbyn says plans to manufacture parts for a £2bn wind farm off the Fife coast at a site thousands of miles away are not credible. It comes after energy giant EDF said no Scottish company had the capability to manufacture and supply the steel required for the Neart na Gaoithe site. Mothballed manufacturer BiFab had hoped to secure the work to build wind turbine jackets for the project. There is growing speculation the work will be done in Indonesia. The GMB and Unite unions have been campaigning for the work to come to the Bifab yards in Methil and Burntisland, a few miles from where the new wind farm will be created. EDF said it was currently in a structured procurement process, which started with tier one contractors who would deliver large sub packages of the NnG project. The French-owned energy giant said it was working closely with its tier one preferred suppliers to encourage them to use Scottish suppliers for tier two work packages, such as the manufacturing of some of the jackets for the turbine foundations and the manufacturing of towers. A spokesman for EDF said: “It is essential whichever supplier is chosen that they are competitive so UK energy consumers are not overpaying for their energy.” The issue was raised at an event in Kirkcaldy on Saturday, where the UK Labour leader addressed workers and trade unionists at a rally following the Fighting For Our Future march. Mr Corbyn, who called for a “Green industrial revolution”, said it was not credible to “drag” manufactured parts 8,000 miles to the wind farm site. Scottish Greens Fife MSP Mark Ruskell also addressed the STUC rally. He said there should be no offshore wind farm leases issued from the Crown Estate without the guarantee of local jobs, and that government subsidies should be conditional on local input. He added: “We can’t rely on the dead hand of the free market to grow jobs. Oil and gas companies will extract every last drop until production goes over the cliff and takes communities dependent on the jobs with it.”

BBC 14th Sept 2019 read more »

On the sugar plantations of America’s southern states, Will Gardiner hopes he may have found an answer to some of the UK’s power needs – and his company’s survival. The American boss of FTSE 250 power generator Drax has made several trips to Louisiana to investigate whether bagasse – a residue from sugar cane – could help fuel Drax’s power station in North Yorkshire more cheaply than the sawdust and tree thinnings that have replaced coal in four of its six turbines. His trips are urgent: the giant power station, which supplies up to 6% of the UK’s electricity, is dependent on subsidies that will end in 2027. While coal plants have been closing apace, Drax has clung on by swapping to wood chips. That may not last. The finite subsidies bring the business some £800m a year – a fifth of its £4.2bn revenue. One of its turbines is guaranteed £100 per megawatt hour (MWh), well above the current electricity wholesale price of £35 per MWh. “Biomass has a long-term role to play,” insists Gardiner, the former finance chief promoted to chief executive at the start of 2018, “but it has to be economically viable”. To survive, Drax is aiming to cut the cost of its biomass generation from £75 per MWh to £50, by cutting supply chain costs and, possibly, using the Louisiana bagasse.

Times 15th Sept 2019 read more »

Aviva Investors has unveiled a green fund focusing on firms that aim to combat climate change. The Aviva Investors Climate Transition European Equity fund will invest in companies with low-carbon business models or offering goods or services that help the environment.

Times 15th Sept 2019 read more »

Glasgow moots climate bonds. National, local and regional governments are facing hefty up-front costs as they strip carbon out of some of their economies. Some are turning to the debt market – issuing special “climate bonds” – to raise the capital they need to carry out green reforms. Glasgow council has been urged to considering doing so by a working group of influential councillors and advisers. The city has ambitious plans for the city to become the first in the UK to get to zero-net carbon, when it takes out as much of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as it puts in. The authority has concrete proposals to replace its entire fleet of 2000 cars, bin lorries and gritters with electric and hydrogen vehicles. It has already secured some Scottish Government funding to convert some of its snow-clearers in to dual-fuel hydrogen power. Its aim? N t just to make its own services green but to seed a market so commercial operators can change too. In the long run electric vehicles have lower running costs, experts believe. But they are more expensive to buy than their diesel equivalents. At least for now. Such initiatives will take municipal leadership. And municipal cash. The council has set up a working group to trash out how it gets to zero net carbon. Its recommendations are still under consideration. One is for climate bonds. That means the up-front costs of things like new vehicles could be spread out over years. In its report, the group said it “heard of action by other cities to develop municipal climate bonds in order to fund low carbon developments. “We commend this model and think the city should explore its potential application to Glasgow.

Herald 14th Sept 2019 read more »

An Aberdeen-based advisory and management services firm has claimed it will become the first in the UK to open a business stream for the storage of hydrogen in the subsurface.

Energy Voice 11th Sept 2019 read more »

Solar panel installations have slumped as suppliers struggle to cope with the end of subsidies and a damaging mis-selling scandal. European Union rules forcing the government to quadruple VAT on certain installations from next month is expected to further damage the industry considered crucial to the UK meeting its ambitious carbon reduction targets. Installations last year were down more than 75 per cent than those of 2015 as generous subsidies guaranteeing homeowners an income from selling power back to the grid have been eroded. From March this year, those subsidies, paid through a levy on everyone’s energy bills, were removed. One million British homes — about one in 25 — have solar panels and they collectively generate the same amount of energy as Britain’s biggest power station. However, that number is now expected to stagnate despite growing awareness of the threat of climate change. Confidence in the industry has also been hit by a mis-selling scandal that has seen thousands of homeowners given false promises about the income their panels would generate to encourage them to take out high-cost loans to pay for them.

Times 14th Sept 2019 read more »

Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia. The Global Commission to End Energy Poverty met for the first time this week to set out plans to accelerate the UN’s sustainable development goal to ensure access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for all people by 2030. The commission, established by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative and the Rockefeller Foundation, plans to bring together leading investors, utilities and policymakers to tackle energy poverty.

Guardian 13th Sept 2019 read more »

A public consultation is being held on Flintshire Council’s renewable energy plans. In 2018-2019, the council generated 4.6 million kWh of electricity from solar PV, wind, landfill gas and combined heat and power. This is around 5 per cent of the council’s electricity usage, or equivalent to the power used in around 1,500 homes and approximately 2,090 tonnes of carbon. Now under the ‘Green Council’ Council Plan priority and the Renewable Energy Action Plan; the council is seeking to further its commitment to renewable energy through developing a ground mounted solar PV scheme on land to the south of Dock Road, Connah’s Quay. It is proposed to install 1.6MW of ground mounted solar PV and associated infrastructure such as inverters and transformers. This will generate around 1.4 million kWh of electricity per year which is enough to power around 480 homes, saving approximately 439 tonnes of carbon a year. This will not only help reduce carbon emissions; mitigating climate change and air pollution but will also contribute towards the council’s own carbon reduction target of 60 per cent by 2021 and the Welsh Government’s target of Wales generating 70 per cent of its electricity consumption from renewable energy by 2030. A planning application is being prepared and as part of the pre-application consultation the council is holding a public exhibition between September 11 and October 9 at Connah’s Quay Library, Wepre Drive, Connah’s Quay.

The Leader 11th Sept 2019 read more »

A solar carport backed up with battery storage is set to be built in York as part of its ‘HyperHubs’ project. The solar carport has a proposed generation capacity of up to 400kW, powering a mix of 160kW and 7kW electric vehicle (EV) chargers. The solar for the eight ultra rapid chargers is to be located on canopies located over 254 parking spaces in the adjacent Park and Ride car park, with solar also going onto canopies above the five 7kW chargers, which will service 10 parking bays. A battery storage unit is also set to go onto the site to store any excess solar, with the solar expected to generate up to 380,000kWh of electricity per year. The carport is the first in the HyperHubs element of the Go Ultra Low York Programme and will be located at the Park and Ride site at Monks Cross. A second site at Poppleton Bar has also gone into planning. The plans are still subject to approval from the City of York Council. If approved, building will commence in January 2020 with an aim of completion in six months. Northumberland County Council had similar plans for a 800kW solar carport with battery storage approved in July. However, local councils were this month warned they may face legal challenges if climate change plans are not implemented, with environmental law group ClientEarth describing it as a “collective failure”

Solar Power Portal 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Dave Elliott: After an initially slow start in the 1980s and 1990s, when it lagged far behind the pioneers – Denmark and then Germany – the UK has done quite well on wind energy. That’s not really surprising since it has about the best wind resource in the world, in Scotland especially. Now the UK has reached around 21.5 GW, including 8.5 GW offshore, and leads the world in offshore deployment. More offshore wind is planned and with prices falling, to around £50/MWh in recent French auctions, the next round of the UK’s Contract for Difference (CfD) competitive auction subsidy scheme may see up to 6 GW added. Meanwhile, several already-agreed projects are in the pipeline, e.g. the 588 MW Beatrice deep water array should be on-line soon. The UK is also host to two floating offshore wind projects. The still-being-developed 10 MW Dounreay Trì Floating Wind Demonstration Project, 10 km off Thurso, with two machines mounted on a Hexicon triangular platform, and the 30 MW Hywind scheme, billed as the world’s first commercial wind farm. Five machines have now been installed on spar buoys 29 km off Peterhead, Scotland. It has been doing well.

Physics World 11th Sept 2019 read more »

A giant wind turbine at Hunterston in Ayrshire is to be blown up in a controlled explosion. The 177m-high (580ft) turbine had been used a test site for offshore wind farms such as the massive Beatrice field in the Outer Moray Firth. The other turbine on the Hunterston site was dismantled by a crane last year. But operators SSE Renewables said no safe method of dismantling was possible in this case.

BBC 13th Sept 2019 read more »

Largs & Millport News 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Offshore Wind-Power Prices Are Plunging. The cost of offshore wind in the U.K. could soon drop below the level where renewable developers get compensated to add capacity in the latest round of an auction that has subsidized the industry.

Bloomberg 12th Sept 2019 read more »

The first turbine on the biggest windfarm off the East Anglian coast has started turning and generating green electricity for the first time. Eventually more than a hundred wind turbines will produce enough renewable energy to power 630,000 homes – enough for 85% of the households in Norfolk and Suffolk. The £2.5 billion windfarm called East Anglia ONE is 27 miles off the coast of Lowestoft.

ITV 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Study: Renewables rollout must accelerate, as peak oil demand looms. The world needs eight times more renewable power capacity than today along with a massive increase in the rate of battery manufacturing, carbon capture and storage deployment, hydrogen production.

Business Green 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Technical consultancy DNV GL has published its Energy Transition Outlook 2019. While the electric vehicle, storage and renewable energy industries are likely to see significant rises in demand, the sobering conclusion is the world will miss carbon reduction targets by a long shot. Just over a week ahead of the Fridays for Future global climate strike, which will seek to unite voices young and old, technical consultancy DNV GL has published its Energy Transition Outlook 2019. If any further motivation were needed to hit the streets in protest, the report’s sobering conclusion is that on our current path, climate change targets are going to be missed by some distance.

PV Magazine 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Scientists have created a device that harnesses the cold of space to generate electricity at night. The technique offers an alternative to solar power, which works while the sun shines, by taking advantage of “radiative cooling”. During the night a surface that faces the sky will lose energy, in the form of infrared light, and reach a cooler temperature than the surrounding air. “Some of the heat effectively escapes to some place much colder: the upper atmosphere and even outer space,” said Aaswath Raman, of the University of California, Los Angeles, a co-author of a paper published in the journal Joule. The phenomenon explains how frost forms on grass on nights when temperatures do not dip below freezing. It can also be used to generate electricity. At the heart of the new device is a thermoelectric generator. It takes advantage of a property many materials exhibit called the Seebeck effect. Roughly speaking, a difference in temperatures between, say, two ends of a wire can result in a voltage and the movement of electrons from one end to the other – an electric current. Thermoelectric devices have already been used to generate electricity from “waste heat” in power plants. Scientists have also tried to embed them in clothing and watches to harness temperature differences resulting from body heat.

Times 13th Sept 2019 read more »