The renewables equivalent of Groundhog Day: technologies that keep coming round without getting any closer to generation. This week we have two: Tidal bays and CCS. No doubt next week nuclear fusion will be back.
Company news
Drax, Equinor and National Grid to create UK’s first zero carbon cluster
They have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to work together to explore how a large-scale carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) network and a hydrogen production facility could be built in the region in the mid-2020s.
The companies will look into scaling up the innovative bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) pilot project at the Drax Power Station to create the world’s first carbon negative power plant, according to Drax.
They will also explore the potential development of a hydrogen demonstrator within the site. (energylivenews)
UK news
Viridor plans £65m plastics recycling plant powered by waste
Viridor has today unveiled plans for a “ground-breaking” £65m plastics recycling facility near Bristol that will produce over 60,000 tonnes of recycled polymers each year, using power generated by an on-site waste-to-energy plant.
The recycling firm said the project would be the UK’s biggest plastics recycling plant, producing 60,000 tonnes of recycled plastic during its first year of operation from 81,000 tonnes of plastic waste including 1.6 billion plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays.
By year three the company aims to increase production to 63,000 tonnes of recovered plastic for use in new products, taking in 89,000 tonnes of plastic pellets and flakes recovered from 1.7 billion bottles, pots, tubs and trays.
The new plastics plant, due to begin operations in 2020-21, will be powered by Viridor’s £252m energy recovery facility, which is currently under construction on the same site in Avonmouth. (businessgreen)
Zenobe offers over $150m in electric bus funding
UK battery storage firm Zenobe has become the latest to bring an end-to-end EV solution to market, announcing up to £120 million of funding for bus fleets.
Zenobe’s service will provide financing for charging infrastructure, stationary battery storage located in the depot for overcoming grid constraints, batteries on the vehicles and the vehicles themselves.
A range of solutions will be provided, including upfront financing for local authorities, OEMs and bus and other fleet operators. Depending on the requirements, Zenobe will own and operate the depot batteries, smart charging infrastructure and the batteries on the vehicles. This will create the option of a ‘one-stop’ solution for customers in exchange for a pence per-mile service fee or fixed monthly charge.
The offering will lower the upfront cost of electrification, making the price similar to diesel buses as well as lowering total lifecycle costs by up to 30%.
Zenobe will work with the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership to ensure all projects are zero emission and compatible with the standards in the government’s Ultra-Low Emission Bus (ULEB) scheme, which Zenobe’s scheme can be used alongside.
Zenobe, originally started up as Battery Energy Storage Solutions Ltd and then rebranded in 2017, had around 73MW of battery assets in operation in the UK as of February this year and has netted investment from the likes of Japanese utility TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) and power company JERA. (energystoragenews)
Goodbye Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon…Hello ‘Dragon Energy Island’
New plans for a tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay are ‘credible and financially viable’, according to report for Swansea Council. When the government finally confirmed last year it would not back plans to build a giant tidal energy lagoon in Swansea Bay, supporters of tidal power feared their dreams of an array in the Welsh bay had been sunk forever. But their hopes have resurfaced this week, thanks to an independent report commissioned by Swansea Council which suggests a version of the scheme, reimagined as a major infrastructure project, could prove financially viable.
Dragon Energy Island, widely seen as a replacement for the doomed Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, would feature a floating island with thousands of modular commercial and residential buildings. Adding homes and businesses to the scheme for a tidal lagoon would help bridge the funding requirement for the energy scheme, the report from Holistic Capital concluded. It also calculated that savings of up to 30 per cent could be made on the capital costs of the original £1.3bn lagoon plan, making the project as a whole financially viable. (businesgreen)
Waitrose to launch ‘invisible door’ that could save retailers £1.5bn on energy bills
Waitrose & Partners will introduce an “invisible” door” to combat the amount of avoidable energy that is lost at entrance doors to retail stores, with research suggesting that a widescale rollout could help British retailers save £1.5bn annually on energy bills.
Waitrose & Partners will trial the first “invisible door” at its Berkhamsted store later this year. Developed by Wirth Research, the AirDoor concept places an archway outside of the frame of the existing entrance that prevents conditioned air from being lost when the door is opened or stays open. The solution is inspired by Formula One racing technology to guide air towards appliances to heat or cool appropriately. (edie)
EV of the week
EAV shows off the P1 delivery e-bike
Electric Assisted Vehicles Limited unveiled its new e-cargo bike designed to reduce the carbon footprint of urban home deliveries. The Project 1 eCargo bicycle, nicknamed P1, has a range of 7-20 miles depending on battery size, making it a great addition to any courier or food delivery service with little to no carbon emissions. At just under 6.5 feet in length and 3.4 feet in width, the quadricycle can easily wind its way through streets and roads without causing added congestion. A stable platform allows for the transportation of 330 lbs of cargo. (inhabitat)
Europe
Bill Gates and EU launch €100m clean energy investment fund
A new €100 million clean energy investment fund has been launched by a fund led by Bill Gates, the European Commission and European Investment Bank (EIB). Initially announced in October last year, Breakthrough Energy Ventures Europe (BEV-E) will support Europe’s best clean energy entrepreneurs whose solutions can deliver “significant and lasting” reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The fund will invest in five major energy-related sectors where efforts are essential in fighting climate change: electricity, transportation, agriculture, manufacturing and buildings. Investments are expected to start in the second half of 2019 – funding for BEV-E will include a €50 million contribution from the EIB and €50 million from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investor-led fund committed to supporting cutting-edge companies in the energy sector. (energylivenews)
Focus on: Gas generation
Who would be a gas generator?
Who would be a gas generator? Despite the ejection of coal plants from the generation stack (and good riddance, I say), gas has got less and less of the wholesale energy supply market. It has been squeezed out between our growing renewables portfolio and the floor provided by nuclear, and it is increasingly missing out on lucrative high-priced periods because of the addition of gas engines and storage.
What’s the problem? For all that gas plant have done to talk up the flexibility they can bring to the system, the fact is that they are not best placed to do it. They have done an excellent job of running plant as flexible units, even though they were designed to operate best at baseload, and gas turbine manufacturers have responded with upgrades that will allow them to be operated more flexibly – Uniper will be carrying out such an upgrade at its Enfield plant shortly. But all that cranking up and down places extra stress on the plant and ages it faster – and a battery, or a wind farm feathering its blades, can ramp up and down much faster. In open markets for ancillary services, gas will often be beaten.
An additional unwelcome shock is the news from National Grid that it wants to be able to operate the grid with all those services from other sources – renewables, storage, demand side response etc – at times when demand is covered by low-carbon generation. The newly independent Electricity System Operator has set out a road map to develop the necessary markets for ancillary services and it is aims to reach that goal by 2025.
Of course, that applies only when the wind blows or the sun shines. At other times – at the moment – gas will have far less competition.
Where does that leave gas? Lobbying against interconnectors, being queasily hopeful that nuclear reaches the end of its life (and perhaps that new nuclear is further delayed), fighting it out for what’s left of those revenue streams and hoping for a still, cold winter. It’s a hard model to build a business on – and it makes a Capacity Market that pays those plant to stay on the system throughout long periods of inaction even more important.
Who would be a gas generator? Fewer and fewer companies, is my guess. (energyst)
Canadian mountain eco-resort of the week
Luxury resort recognized globally for contribution to eco tourism
The Fairmont Chateau Lake Lodge in Alberta, Canada is setting the bar high when it comes to sustainable eco tourism. As a popular accommodation choice for outdoor enthusiasts with an unparalleled location inside Banff National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), preserving the national wildlife around the resort is of the utmost importance. The hotel was the very first in Canada to receive the highest possible rating from the Hotel Association of Canada’s Green Key Eco-Rating Program in 2005, and won the award again in 2016. The business also holds an award from the 26th Annual Emerald Awards recognizing outstanding environmental achievements for its sustainability program. Over the past ten years of operation, the Fairmont Chateau Lake Lodge has implemented a “No Net Negative Environmental Impact” incentive for its eco tourism hotel operations, with full transparency and results reported annually to Parks Canada. The resort also purchases half of its total energy from wood biomass-generated Green Power and uses energy efficient heating sources throughout the property. 80 percent of the hotel operations use energy-efficient lighting, holiday decorations use LED lighting and free parking is awarded to guests driving hybrid vehicles.
Water-saving fixtures installed at the hotel save 3.9 gallons of water per toilet flush and 1.5 gallons of water per minute in the shower. The new fixtures along with the construction of a water treatment plant helped the hotel decrease its water consumption by 38 percent between 1995 and 2015.
The Fairmont CAREs Program — Westslope Cutthroat Trout Restoration Project works to preserve Canada’s wild trout population; the hotel has donated $12,000 to the cause since 2012. The resort’s culinary program works with Ocean Wise, a local conservation program that allows consumers to make sustainable choices when purchasing seafood. All possible food and beverage containers are recycled, as well as all paper products, batteries, light bulbs, electronics and toner cartridges. The hotel also works with suppliers and vendors to reduce the amount of packaging for delivered products. (inhabitat)
Global
Hyundai introduces electric double-decker bus
Hyundai Motor unveiled an electric double-decker bus which is a first of its kind for Hyundai, and is part of the company’s effort to help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.
The all-new electric double-decker bus is shown at the ‘Land, Infrastructure and Transport Technology Fair’ held in Korea, co-hosted by Hyundai and the national Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
To develop the company’s first electric double-decker bus, Hyundai worked for 18 months on a project supported by the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, which began in 2017.
The bus allows up to 70 passengers – 11 seats on the first floor and 59 seats on the second floor – 1.5 times as many passengers as compared to that of a regular bus.
As part of the company’s effort to increase efficiency and to reduce vehicle emissions, Hyundai equipped the all-new electric bus with a 384 kWh water-cooled high-efficiency polymer battery, with a maximum 300 km driving range on a single charge. A full charge can be completed in 72 minutes. (electriccarsreport)
The all-new electric double-decker bus is shown at the ‘Land, Infrastructure and Transport Technology Fair’ held in Korea, co-hosted by Hyundai and the national Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
To develop the company’s first electric double-decker bus, Hyundai worked for 18 months on a project supported by the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, which began in 2017.
The bus allows up to 70 passengers – 11 seats on the first floor and 59 seats on the second floor – 1.5 times as many passengers as compared to that of a regular bus. As part of the company’s effort to increase efficiency and to reduce vehicle emissions, Hyundai equipped the all-new electric bus with a 384 kWh water-cooled high-efficiency polymer battery, with a maximum 300 km driving range on a single charge. A full charge can be completed in 72 minutes. (electriccarsreport)
Hydrogen-powered flying vehicle to beat Southern California traffic
Developers of a multi-rotor hover craft billed as the first flying vehicle to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells unveiled a full-scale model on Wednesday in Southern California, in a show-and-tell that raised some eyebrows but never left the ground.
A mockup of the futuristic aircraft, dubbed “Skai” by its inventors, was put on exhibit for investors, the news media and other invited guests outside the BMW Group’s Designworks studio in Newbury Park, a suburb north of Los Angeles.
Engineering and avionics for the drone-like vehicle were developed by Alaka’i Technologies, a privately held company based in Massachusetts but named for a tropical forest in Hawaii ranked as one of the wettest spots on Earth. The BMW unit contributed to the craft’s design. While several car makers have struggled to bring hydrogen fuel cell technology into the automotive mainstream, Alaka’i describes its invention as the “world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered air mobility solution.” (reuters)
A mockup of the futuristic aircraft, dubbed “Skai” by its inventors, was put on exhibit for investors, the news media and other invited guests outside the BMW Group’s Designworks studio in Newbury Park, a suburb north of Los Angeles.
Engineering and avionics for the drone-like vehicle were developed by Alaka’i Technologies, a privately held company based in Massachusetts but named for a tropical forest in Hawaii ranked as one of the wettest spots on Earth. The BMW unit contributed to the craft’s design. While several car makers have struggled to bring hydrogen fuel cell technology into the automotive mainstream, Alaka’i describes its invention as the “world’s first hydrogen fuel cell-powered air mobility solution.” (reuters)
Techie corner
TEPCO uses blockchain to trial bi-directional energy system
Tokyo’s main power company is using blockchain distributed ledger technology to assess how customers on its new renewable energy tariffs could use solar, batteries and electric vehicles to trade energy via the grid.
TEPCO, formerly the monopoly utility supplier and grid operator for a large region surrounding the Japanese capital city, launched TRENDE, a renewable energy-backed retail supplier into Japan’s newly liberalised electricity market a short while back.
Yesterday, TRENDE announced the start of a joint experiment to create a “next generation peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity system”, in conjunction with carmaker Toyota and the University of Tokyo, using a blockchain ledger to trade electricity from homes, business and EVs, all connected to the local grid.
The experiment is to be conducted at Toyota’s high tech campus, Higashi-Fuji Technical Center in Shizuoka, on the southern coast of Japan’s main island, Honshu. TEPCO said in its release that the trial paves the way for the creation of a two-way flowing, intelligent or ‘autonomous’ electrical system, which is the natural progression from today’s centralised, large-scale electricity networks in which energy only flows one way – outwards from the grid and central generators connected to it. (energystoragenews)
James
