One aspect of doing this that I particularly like is when different stories create links with each other. An example this week is the announcement of the increase in auction prices for the next round of CfD auctions, which links with Octopus Energy’s announcement of a new offshore wind fund.

Maybe Octopus’ timing is good here. On the face of it they are investing just as many of the big beasts in offshore wind are facing challenges, as evidenced by Orsted’s decision to retreat from the sector in the USA.

COMPANY NEWS

UK’s Octopus Energy launches $3.7 bln offshore wind fund
Britain’s Octopus Energy said on Friday its renewables investing arm had launched a dedicated fund with Japan’s Tokyo Gas to invest £3bn in offshore wind projects by 2030. The Japanese utility also owns a 10% stake in Octopus Energy
The Octopus Energy Offshore Wind fund, set up with a £190m cornerstone investment from Tokyo Gas, will invest in offshore wind farms as well as companies creating new offshore wind capacity, with a focus on Europe, Octopus said. The balance Octopus will look to raise from outside investors. (reuters)

Iona Capital Invests in Carbon Capture Scotland Limited
Iona Capital has taken a stake in Carbon Capture Scotland, one of the leading net zero carbon capture and use companies in the UK. CCSL works with multiple industries including distillers, energy-from-waste firms and biomethane plants in the UK to capture green carbon dioxide from their operations.
CCSL’s pioneering technology captures green/biogenic CO₂ from the decomposition, fermentation, or combustion of the organic matter produced by distillers, EFW and biomethane plants and other industries.
Iona’s investment in CCSL follows their commercial agreement, announced in July 2023, for CCSL to capture and reuse the green carbon dioxide emitted from Iona’s biomethane plants in the UK.  The agreement was an extension of their partnership at Iona’s Crofthead biogas plant in Dumfries (south west Scotland), which is the first and only biomethane facility in Scotland to operate with carbon capture. (renewableenergymagazine)

UK NEWS

CfD Prices announced for Auction 6
The administrative strike price for the sixth CfD allocation round will rise by 30 percent for solar power next year, from £47 per megawatt-hour to £61/MWh. This should deliver attractive rates of return for both the Treasury and developers. An auction process may lower the final strike price, to be set by auction.
The cap for onshore wind went up 66% from £44 to £73/MWh, with less established floating onshore wind rising 52%, from £116 to £176/MWh. In the last round, no bids were made as the strike price was set uneconomically low, putting grid decarbonisation targets at risk. The increase should hopefully restore confidence in the CfD regime. (remnewableenergymagazine)

Aussie EV charging company Jolt launches into London and UK
Sydney-based EV charging startup Jolt announced on Wednesday that it has expanded into the United Kingdom with plans to deliver thousands of EV chargers across London and other UK cities.
Jolt, which was founded in 2018, is Australia’s first network of “free” EV fast charging stations, offering EV drivers 7kWh, or around 50 kilometres, of free and 100% renewable fast charging.
Having already crossed the Tasman into New Zealand, and expanding into Canada earlier this year, Jolt’s launch in the UK is part of the company’s goal of reducing barriers to EV ownership and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.
Jolt funds its free EV charging through advertising screens that are integrated into their charging stations.
The first EV charging sites are already operating in the London Borough of Barnet, thanks to a £2.1 million funding grant to Barnet delivered as part of the government’s Local Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (LEVI) Pilot Project, a scheme supporting the rollout of EV charging infrastructure. (thedriven)

photo: Jolt

UK Export Finance backs Taiwanese offshore wind scheme
The UK’s export credit agency has guaranteed £380m in financing for one of the largest-ever offshore wind projects planned in Asia, the 1GW Hai Long project off the coast of Taiwan.
Under the terms of the deal, annouced by UK Export Finance (UKEF) this week, the developers of the offshore wind project have committed to procuring products and services from the UK supply chain. The government said the deal would result in more than £130m in “confirmed” UK manufacturing and services contracts.
UKEF is among seven export credit agencies to guarantee a £3bn project financing package for the scheme, which pools contributions from 15 different lenders. (businessgreen)

EV OF THE WEEK

WEVC partnership looks to cut electric van embedded carbon by 50%
Watt Electric Vehicle Company (WEVC) has begun a collaboration with an aluminium and energy company to drastically reduce production emissions of its new electric light van.
Working in the UK with Norwegian industrial company, Hydro, WEVC will explore the use of certified recycled and low-carbon aluminium to produce bespoke patented extrusions for its eCV1 electric light commercial vehicle, which minimise carbon footprint and ensure responsible production.
Hydro’s low-carbon aluminium carries a CO2 footprint of 4.0 kg CO2 per tonne – versus a world average of 16.7kg – due in part to the renewable energy used in the production process.
Overall, WEVC aims to cut embedded carbon in production of its eCV1 electric light commercial vehicle by significantly more than 50% compared to other electric LCVs.
Real-world testing started earlier this year as the engineering programme builds towards full design verification test sign-off and start of production in 2025. (theenergyst)

photo: Watt Electric Vehicles Company

FOCUS ON: HEAT PUMPS IN THE UK

The UK Government has set a target of installing 600,000 domestic heat pumps a year by 2028. I hardly need to say that we are nowhere near that level. France is managing to achieve that level and there are twenty countries in Europe with higher installation rates than us, led by the Scandinavian countries.

Heat pumps bamboozle Brits
Urban myths that refuse to die continue to slow heat pumps’ take-up in Britain’s homes, new research from supplier Good Energy has found.
Fully a quarter of the population believes – wrongly – that heat pumps are less efficient than gas boilers, the supplier’s survey of its customers found.  In fact, modern heat pumps achieve four times the space heating effectiveness of traditional combi-boilers.
A heat pump is louder than a fridge, according to only slightly less – 23% – of respondents. Wrong again: at maximum 45 decibels, noise from heat pumps rarely exceeds that of a fridge.
The pumps work only in newer homes, say a fifth of Brits, and don’t work at all in cold weather, in the minds of 15%, unaware that 1.4 million homes in Norway are warmed even as winter temperatures drop to 15 degrees below Zero. (theenergyst)

MCS and Benchmark launch new service to aid heat pump commissioning
Benchmark Online and MCS Installations Database are to integrate heat pump commissioning and certification, resulting in a single point of data entry for the first time in order to simplify the process for Benchmark installers.
Benchmark transformed its previous paper-based checklist into an easy-to-use app over two years ago. The addition of heat pumps was made to reflect the growth of the sector and support the UK with its transition to Net Zero.
Combining Benchmark commissioning and MCS certification is a first for the industry. The partnership will see an integration of Benchmark and the MCS Installations Database (MID) to save installers time and effort. Benchmark commissioning engineers will be able to start the process of MCS certification creation with a single click. (renewableenergymagazine)

ECO – SUMMIT MEETING OF THE WEEK

China and the U.S. pledge to step up climate efforts ahead of Biden-Xi summit
The U.S. and China agreed to restart talks on energy policies and launch a working group on enhancing climate action in what they called “the critical decade of the 2020s.” Experts say the world needs to act now to have any chance of achieving the agreed-upon goal of limiting the average increase in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit).
A climate expert described the agreement by both countries to include methane in their next climate action plans as “a major step.”
The U.S. and China also said that together with the United Arab Emirates, they would host a meeting on methane and other greenhouse gases during the upcoming U.N. talks in Dubai.
Commentators expressed disappointment that the joint statement didn’t pledge to phase out fossil fuels. That wasn’t a surprise — even as China has rapidly expanded in wind and solar power, it has encouraged the construction of coal power plants, which it sees as a more reliable source of power for periods of peak demand. (NPR)

GLOBAL STUFF

Quiet electric air taxi takes flight over Manhattan
Electric taxi startup Joby and Delta Airlines are collaborating with the Port Authority of New York and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) to plan initial operations, including infrastructure development at JFK and LaGuardia International Airport. Delta are keen to emphasise the progress toward launching clean, quiet, and convenient air taxi services for Delta customers traveling to and from New York. (interestingengineering)

photo: Joby

Scania Launches Biodiesel Pilot in Côte d’Ivoire
Sustainably produced biofuels from waste are currently the best option to rapidly reduce emissions from most of the public transport systems in African countries. Biofuel used as biodiesel will lower carbon emissions by up to 80%, and by even more when used as biogas. Recent studies have shown that biofuels will be vital for decarbonising heavy-duty transport over the next few decades, for both new and existing fleets.
In 2017, Scania initiated a collaboration with Agence Nationale d’Appui au Développement Rural (ANADER), a public agency that supports rural development in Côte d’Ivoire, to find opportunities for producing local biofuels from cocoa and rubber, as well as other agricultural waste and animal manure, all of which are present in abundance in the country.
In July 2022, ANADER, Scania and TotalEnergies, a multinational energy company, signed an agreement to develop a pilot project to produce 3,500 litres of FAME biodiesel from rubber seeds and test it for 30 days in a Scania bus operated by the local Abidjan transport company, SOTRA.
Over the past year, Scania has delivered 400 biodiesel compatible standard buses and 50 biogas compatible articulated buses to SOTRA, as part of its Sustainable Transport Project with the Côte d’Ivoire Ministry of Transport. (renewableenergymagazine)

photo: Scania

Duke Energy tests end-to-end green hydrogen system
The utility announced plans last week to upgrade one of the four GE 7E gas turbines at its DeBary plant to operate on 100% hydrogen fuel in order to run an experiment in end-to-end hydrogen production and use. Although relatively small scale — the project will draw power from a 74.5 MW solar array to run two 1 MW electrolyzer units to be installed at the DeBary plant — the DeBary Hydrogen Project will represent Duke Energy’s first experiment with both generating hydrogen and with operating a 100% hydrogen-fired turbine. Its anticipated 2024 completion date could also make it one of the first projects of its kind in the nation. (yahoofinance)

Maldives exploring potential of flow batteries
The flow batteries would be deployed as part of the Maldives’ Accelerating Sustainable System Development Using Renewable Energy (ASSURE) Project, for which the largest share of funding, US$41.5 million, is being provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
ADB said in September as it approved its financing package for ASSURE, which totals US$50.5 million including an US$8.5 million concessional loan from ordinary capital resources and US$500,000 from the Climate Change Fund, that the installation of grid-scale energy storage will help attract private sector investment and enable the local deployment of rooftop, ground mount and floating solar PV.
Meanwhile Japan’s government, contributing US$6.2 million in grant funding to ASSURE through its Japan Fund for the Joint Crediting Mechanism (JFJCM) trust fund within the ADB, said it would be directly funding the flow battery systems as part of microgrids on the islands of Dhidhdhoo and Nilandhoo. In addition the JFJCM funding would also go towards an ocean-based renewable energy (presumably tidal) installation. (energy-storagenews)

photo of Dhidhdhoo Island: Wikimedia Commons

Amazon’s renewable energy portfolio powers 6.7m homes
Amazon has announced investments in 78 new solar and wind energy projects this year.
Expected to generate over 71,900GWh annually, these projects can power 6.7 million US homes.
Among these projects is Amazon’s inaugural brownfield solar project in Maryland, repurposing a former coal mine site into a solar farm.
This venture, named Amazon Solar Farm Maryland–CPV Backbone, is set to become the state’s largest solar facility upon completion. (futurenetzero)

TECHIE CORNER

Breakthrough Thermoacoustic Stirling Generator
China has built the most powerful thermoacoustic Stirling generator. The prototype delivered a groundbreaking 102 kilowatts of power from a heat source of 530 degrees Celsius. This is the first time this type of breakthrough generator has gone over 100 kW. Thermoacoustic engine achieves high thermal-to-electrical efficiencies with no moving parts. The new generator converts sound directly into electrical energy.
 The Chinese generator was created by the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry (TIPC) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and is about 2 metres in length with a dumbbell-like shape.
It operates with impressive efficiency, according to Professor Hu Jianying of the TIPC.
“The current thermoelectric conversion efficiency is about 28 per cent; with a hotter 600 degree thermal fluid, efficiency could reach 34 per cent,” he said. TIPC is not alone in researching this area. NASA is also progressing a similar generator, but has yet to publish performance data.
Such efficiency can rival that of steam turbines. (nextbigfuture)

photo: TIPC