It would seem that, from this week’s stories, the network companies have been listening to Ed Milliband’s four horsement speach.
COMPANY NEWS
Microsoft and Brookfield Sign $10-Billion Renewable Power Deal
The agreement is for bringing around 10.5 GW of solar and wind power between 2026 and 2030—a capacity that would cost over $10 billion to develop, according to recent industry trends.
Microsoft’s deal with Brookfield Asset Management would be the biggest such corporate power purchase agreement and nearly three times bigger than the 3 GW of power that data centers in Virginia’s Eastern Loudoun County – dubbed Data Center Alley and the world’s “largest data center market” – currently consume, according to the FT.
The surge in AI technologies and the massive build-out of data centers in America have had the biggest tech corporations scrambling for grid connection and reliable power supply to power the technologies of the future. (baystreet)
photo: Brookfield Asset Management
UK NEWS
Labour identifies four key barriers in UK energy transition
Ed Miliband, the Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero, outlined that the Labour Party will tackle the “four horsemen of the apocalypse” for the UK’s energy transition: grid delays, planning delays, supply chain problems and the skills gap.
Speaking at Innovation Zero in London this week, the Labour politician emphasised the importance of solving these four primary pillars to ensure the UK can achieve a net zero grid by 2030, one of the party’s primary policies. (current-news)
National Grid’s new supply chain model to deliver Great Grid Upgrade
A new form of supply chain cooperation has been announced by National Grid, called the Great Grid Partnership, to enable a major upgrade of the electricity network in an alliance with seven major contractors and consultants.
It said the model would coordinate planning and execution of projects and pooling of resources, skills, insights and experience between National Grid and its supply chain, which it said would result in faster and more cost-efficient delivery.
Under the partnership, Aecom Arup JV and WSP are the design and consenting service partners and Laing O’Rourke, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, Morrison Energy Services, Murphy, and Omexom and Taylor Woodrow (OTW) are the construction partners.
The idea is to deliver benefits beyond the new Asti framework. Asti (Accelerated Strategic Transmission Investment) is the fast track programme for nationally significant projects where certain competition rules are waived. (newcivilengineer)
Now UKPN trumpets its speed-up of new renewables connections
UK Power Networks, England’s biggest distribution network operator, is the latest to put numbers to accelerated connection of new low carbon assets across its region, achieved under a national initiative.
Serving 20 million customers across London, southern England and east Anglia, the DNO says it has used the ‘Technical Issues’ collaborative programme between netcos to speed up 25 new generation projects on its patch.
A total of 836MW of new capacity can now connect as soon as the projects are built, says the DNO, cutting waiting times in some cases by years. (theenergyst)
B&Q to launch over 100 plastic plant pot recycling stations
DIY retailer B&Q is to launch over 100 plastic plant pot recycling stations in its UK stores in 2024, as it looks to encourage customers to make greener choices.
The home improvement chain is installing plant pot recycling stations for people to drop off unwanted plastic plant pots which will then be recycled and turned into new pots.
B&Q says the highlight of its eco initiative is the Blacksmith Planter, a durable, all-weather plant pot made entirely from recycled plastic, which costs £4 to buy. (sustainabilitybeat)
EV OF THE WEEK
As the EV market enters a new phase to look beyond early adopters and re-focus towards value, is it not possible that India might become a manufacturing hub to challenge China?
Tata Nexon EV – the little SUV that’s big on the subcontinent
It doesn’t have a jaw-dropping design. Its internals are rudimentary. Its driving range and charging times pale compared to Western models. Yet, at a starting price of $17,000, it’s a massive sales hit in India.
In India there are tax incentives to cars under 4 metres in length, which explains why short stubby SUV’s are popular. This one has a 40kWh battery and is good for a claimed 250 mile range, a target that is very unlikely to be hit on India’s roads. It has all the internal tech features you would expect in a modern EV and is fast enough (0-60 in 8.5 seconds). Despite it’s unremarkablesness by western standards it is an important car for the future of the global electric car industry. (insideevs)
Photo: Tata
EUROPEAN STORIES
‘World’s first’ wooden wind turbine blades installed
German manufacturer Voodin Blade Technology has announced the world’s first prototype installation of 19.3-metre wooden wind turbine blades on an existing turbine in Breuna, Germany.
These blades, made of laminated veneer lumber (LVL), offer a more sustainable alternative to current materials and boast better recycling capabilities, automation and flexibility.
While wind energy plays a pivotal role in transitioning away from fossil fuels, the challenge lies in making its production as sustainable as possible, particularly in addressing the recycling issue of fibreglass and epoxy resin blades.
Voodin Blade Technology’s solution aims to tackle this problem by utilising wood, a highly durable material and implementing CNC milling technology for automation and flexibility. (energylivenews)
Photo: Voodin Blade Technology
FOCUS ON: LONG DURATION ENERGY STORAGE
Hydrostor look to break ground on their first two plants
Toronto-based Hydrostor Inc. is one of the businesses developing long-duration energy storage that has moved beyond lab scale and is now focusing on building big things. The company makes systems that store energy underground in the form of compressed air, which can be released to produce electricity for eight hours or longer.
It is accepted that the energy transition needs storage solutions that are longer than the 4 hours that batteries can achieve, and a number of companies and technologies are competing to establish themselves. Hydrostor are one of the first to announce full scale plants are to be built.
Hydrostor’s first large project to go online is likely going to be Silver City Energy Storage Centre in Australia, which will have the ability to discharge at 200 megawatts for up to eight hours. Construction should begin around the end of 2024 and the plant should be running by mid-2027, VanWalleghem said.
The next project would be Willow Rock Energy Storage Center, located near Rosamond in Kern County, California, with a capacity of 500 megawatts and the ability to run at that level for eight hours. Hydrostor is aiming to begin construction by late next year and have it running before 2030. (insideclimatenews)
photo: hydrostor
Swiss gravity battery contributes to China’s energy transition
Sun and wind produce electricity even when we don’t need it. How can we prevent it from being lost? A gravity battery developed in Switzerland by a start up called Energy Vault stores renewable energy in heavy blocks of material – an idea that is attracting interest around the world, especially in China.
It is an imposing building without doors or windows. Inside there are 3,500 “bricks” weighing 25 tonnes. A system of elevators and tracks moves them up and down, placing them next to each other, in what looks like a modern 3D Tetris. It is not a new housing concept, but a battery that uses the force of gravity to store and release energy.
The first battery with this technology was connected to the power grid in the Chinese county of Rudong, near Shanghai, in late 2023. (swissinfo)
photo: Energy Vault
RheEnergise to demonstrate high density pumped hydro technology
A long duration energy storage demonstrator is to be deployed at Sibelco’s mine near Plymouth.
RheEnergise, which is developing a new and advanced form of long-duration hydro-energy storage system, is to build its “first-of-a-kind” demonstrator of the system at Sibelco’s mining operations at Cornwood, near Plymouth.
Work on-site to build the demonstrator will start imminently with its commissioning to start in September.
RheEnergise’s HD Hydro demonstrator has a peak power production of 500kW.
The power generated will support Sibelco’s mining operations at times of high energy demand and support the company’s work to decarbonise its operations.
How does it work. It operates in a similar fashion to pumped storage hydro, but uses a bespoke high-tech fluid with 2.5 times the density of water. (insidermedia)
photo: RheEnergise
Gravitricity to demonstrate energy storage tech in deep mine
Gravitricity aims to demonstrate its gravity energy storage technology at full scale in one of Europe’s deepest mines, near a small town in central Finland.
Gravitricity said the plan to transform a disused mine shaft into an underground energy store – using its technology – could “offer new opportunities” for the remote community of Pyhäjärvi.
The Edinburgh company has developed an energy storage system, known as GraviStore, which raises and lowers heavy weights in underground shafts, which it says offers “some of the best characteristics of lithium-ion batteries and pumped hydro storage”.
The company is testing an alternative storage solution using its skills at repurposing disused mineshafts. This is to create a storage facility for green hydrogen. Both technologies are demonstrated in the company’s graphic below. (theherald)
diagram: Gravitricity
** I have connections with both Gravitricity and RheEnergise. Anyone who might be interested in having a funding related conversation, let me know.
First full scale Energy Dome CO2 storage system to be built in Wisconsin
A first-of-its-kind project for the United States has received a grant of up to $30 million from the government, the project’s developers announced.
Alliant Energy and WEC Energy Group, co-owners of Wisconsin’s Columbia Energy Center, will use the funding from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations to create the country’s first compressed carbon dioxide long-duration energy storage system.
The idea of the system is that it can turn carbon dioxide gas into a liquid for easier storage when energy is abundant. When energy is needed, it turns the carbon dioxide back into gas, which then powers an electricity-generating turbine.
Crucially, the setup operates as a closed-loop system, meaning that it should release no carbon dioxide and require no additional carbon dioxide after it is built out.
In addition to being first in the U.S., the Columbia Energy Storage Project will be the largest compressed carbon dioxide long-duration energy storage system in the world. A much smaller version of the same project is already operational in Sardinia, Italy. The two projects were designed by the same company, Energy Dome, which is based in Italy.
The Sardinia system has achieved an enviable 75% efficiency rate — which the much larger Wisconsin one will hope to match. (thecooldown)
photo: Alliant Energy
NATURAL CAPITAL VIEW
The Rise of the Carbon Farmer
Soil is second only to the ocean in its carbon-absorbing capacity—it holds more than the atmosphere and all the planet’s plants and forests combined. But centuries of damaging, industrialized agriculture have left the earth depleted and spewed tons of CO2 into the ether.
According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, many cultivated soils have lost 50 to 70 percent of their original carbon. By some counts, a third of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere started life in the soil, having been released not by burning fossil fuels but by changing how the planet’s land is used.
“People ask, ‘Where is the excess carbon coming from?’ It’s where we’ve destroyed the soil,” says Elaine Ingham, an American soil microbiologist and the founder of Soil Food Web, an organization that teaches growers how to regenerate their soil. “Every time you till, you lose 50 percent of soil organic matter,” she says, referring to the compounds that lock carbon into the earth.
Exactly how much carbon soils can hold isn’t agreed on, and estimates vary widely on the potential impact of regenerative farming. For instance, the Rodale Institute, a regenerative agriculture nonprofit, has looked at peer-reviewed research and agronomists’ observations and concluded that regenerative agriculture, if adopted globally, could sequester 100 percent of annual carbon emissions, although some experts are more cautious in their predictions. (wired)
Photo: Creative Commons
GLOBAL STUFF
UN global plastics treaty in sight
Negotiations for a global plastics treaty were said to be on a “knife edge”, as the penultimate round of talks at the United Nations ended in Ottawa this week.
Delegates have made a commitment to working together on remaining issues in the run-up to the final round of talks in November, in South Korea.
Tearfund, which is campaigning for a global treaty (News, 19 April), sent a delegation to the conference, including representatives from communities most affected by plastic pollution.
The 66 nations, calling themselves the High Ambition Coalition — which includes the EU and the UK — are pushing for bold limits on plastic production, but the United States and other oil-producing nations, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, are resisting the inclusion of production controls in any treaty.
Among the thousands of delegates who attended the Ottawa conference were many lobbyists for the fuel and chemical industries. (churchtimes)
Battery price war!
The main cost of an electric vehicle (EV) is its battery. The high cost of energy-dense batteries has meant EVs have long been more expensive than their fossil fuel equivalents.
But this could change faster than we thought. The world’s largest maker of batteries for electric cars, China’s CATL, claims it will slash the cost of its batteries by up to 50% this year, as a price war kicks off with the second largest maker in China, BYD subsidiary FinDreams.
What’s behind this? After the electric vehicle industry experienced a huge surge in 2022, it has hit headwinds. It ramped up faster than demand, triggering efforts to cut costs.
But the promised price cuts are also a sign of progress. Researchers have made great strides in finding new battery chemistries. For example CATL and BYD now make EV batteries without any cobalt, an expensive, scarce metal linked to child labour and dangerous mining practices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. (thedriven)
photo: Creative Commons
Lenders show increasing appetite to back energy storage projects
Lender confidence in utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) is increasing, according to a new report from global energy storage company Pacific Green, boosted by milestone deals that have demonstrated the key ingredients of a workable project financing template.
The report draws on experience from the £120 million debt financing of its 249MW/373.5MWh Sheaf Energy Park project in the UK, closed in November 2023.
The report, Making project finance work for battery energy storage projects, includes contributions from NatWest, the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB) and legal advisor Gowling WLG. It highlights that, despite a limited number of BESS project financing deals to date, the market is reaching a turning point, as projects increase in scale and lenders work with storage developers to overcome barriers to capital deployment.
Key obstacles standing in the way of widespread BESS project financing have included the small scale of projects, complexity of revenue generation models, and limited technological track record compared to established generation technologies such as wind and solar.
Lender concerns around these factors are now easing, as early projects establish a track record of successful operation, the market better understands long-term revenue opportunities, and assets scale up from 50-100 MW to reach capacities of 250-500 MW. (renewableenergymagazine)
Read the report HERE
TECHIE CORNER
Startup addresses global agricultural challenges with cutting-edge seed enhancement technology
As our planet heats up, farmers worldwide are struggling to maintain yields in the face of intensifying heat, drought, and soil salinity. Over 830 million hectares of farmland are now salty, contributing to a 30%-50% loss in agricultural productivity, according to Salicrop.
That innovative company is tackling these challenges with cutting-edge seed enhancement technology.
Rather than the time-consuming process of breeding new crop varieties, Salicrop has developed treatments that activate plants’ innate stress-response mechanisms, enabling crops to better handle periods of intense heat, prolonged dry spells, and salty soil.
The best part? Farmers can use these treatments with the same commercial seed varieties they know and trust.
Through extensive field trials conducted by co-founder Dr. Sharon Devir, SaliCrop has demonstrated yield increases of up to 15% for open-field tomatoes and 10%-17% for other commercial crops in poor quality, highly saline soil.
While big seed companies are also tackling these environmental stressors, Salicrop’s treatments can get to market much faster and work with organic farming since they don’t coat the seeds. (thecooldown)
photo: Salicrop
