Accoridng to a BBC news article, there is another problem with wind turbines. According to a Taiwanese farmer many of his goats have died due to lack of sleep because of excessive turbine noise.
My fear is that this will prove to be another issue which is used against UK wind farms in planning. At present wind farms in the UK have problems with planning due to noise and this may make thing worse, especially as the land around wind farms is often used for grazing. Whilst it is unlikely that the risk of livestock deaths will solely be used as grounds for rejecting a wind farm there is the chance that it will further encourage protestors. However, there are a few things which may mitigate this risk. As far as I am aware, this is not a recognised problem so far in the UK. In addition, many farmers earn quite handsomly from wind turbines on their land, and so this extra income will more than make up for the potential loss of grazing land. As such, I believe the majority of farmers will not bother too much about this latest 'problem', with the only farmers who vociferously object being those who don't get any financial incentive from having windfarms (for example tenant farmers and those who's land borders win farms).
Vestas Closing Isle of Wight Factory
You may have realised that the Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas have announced a raft of job losses worldwide, including the closure of the factory on the Isle of Wight which employs 450 people and more details on this can be found on the BBC.
Whilst I realise that this is a business decision, one has to ask why this has been done. Despite the credit crunch, there is still demand for wind turbines in the UK. At the same stage, recent currency fluctuations have made foreign manufactured turbines much more expensive. As such, it would be expected that the plant should be financially viable, and so it has been suggested that the only reason it is not is due to the UK having a regulatory environment which isn't as generous as that in other countries. This is a view I would also subscribe to, and this is why I have signed a petition addressed to the Prime Minister, asking that chnages be made, and I would urge you to do it as well.
Whilst I realise that this is a business decision, one has to ask why this has been done. Despite the credit crunch, there is still demand for wind turbines in the UK. At the same stage, recent currency fluctuations have made foreign manufactured turbines much more expensive. As such, it would be expected that the plant should be financially viable, and so it has been suggested that the only reason it is not is due to the UK having a regulatory environment which isn't as generous as that in other countries. This is a view I would also subscribe to, and this is why I have signed a petition addressed to the Prime Minister, asking that chnages be made, and I would urge you to do it as well.
World's first wave energy farm in uncharted waters
In today's Guardian there is an article on the Aguçadoura wave farm in Portugal. This has been billed as the world's first offshore wave farm, and consists of 3 Pelamis wave energy devices. However, the project has had a number of teething problems. At present all three devices have been towed ashore for repairs, although this would probably be expected with such a new and innovative scheme.
However, there has been another setback for the project in recent days. The parent company of the Portuguese utility which owns the wave farm has gone into administration due to lack of credit, linked directly to the credit crunch. Many of the assests of the company, including the Aguçadoura wave farm, are now up for sale. However, until the project has been sold, the repairs on the devices can not be carried out which leads to a Catch 22 as it is unlikely that there will be much interest in a new technology that currently needs repairs, especially in the current economic climate.
As such I feel that there should be some sort of intervention, possibly by the gorvernments of Portugal, UK or the EU to allow repairs to be carried out on the devices and get them back in the water as soon as possible to demonstrate the economics of such devices. This is especially important for the UK as Pelamis is a UK based company and if the device is proven to be successful then Pelamis could be a major international company providing loads of jobs within the UK. Whilst the lack of progress on the Aguçadoura wave farm will not be fatal for the Pelamis device as there are other wave farms planned using this device, it will prove to be a major setback. This is why I would urge the government to see if there are any simple measures which they can do (finanical or otherwise) which will prove to be a cost effective way of getting the Aguçadoura wave farm back into action, and once again demonstrating the Pelamis wave device.
Related posts: More on wave energy
However, there has been another setback for the project in recent days. The parent company of the Portuguese utility which owns the wave farm has gone into administration due to lack of credit, linked directly to the credit crunch. Many of the assests of the company, including the Aguçadoura wave farm, are now up for sale. However, until the project has been sold, the repairs on the devices can not be carried out which leads to a Catch 22 as it is unlikely that there will be much interest in a new technology that currently needs repairs, especially in the current economic climate.
As such I feel that there should be some sort of intervention, possibly by the gorvernments of Portugal, UK or the EU to allow repairs to be carried out on the devices and get them back in the water as soon as possible to demonstrate the economics of such devices. This is especially important for the UK as Pelamis is a UK based company and if the device is proven to be successful then Pelamis could be a major international company providing loads of jobs within the UK. Whilst the lack of progress on the Aguçadoura wave farm will not be fatal for the Pelamis device as there are other wave farms planned using this device, it will prove to be a major setback. This is why I would urge the government to see if there are any simple measures which they can do (finanical or otherwise) which will prove to be a cost effective way of getting the Aguçadoura wave farm back into action, and once again demonstrating the Pelamis wave device.
Related posts: More on wave energy
Solar photovoltaic grants stopped
I read today's Guardian with absolute despair. Up until recently it was possible for public buildings, such as schools, hospitals and museums to apply to the Department of Energy and Climate Change for grants to help cover part of the cost of the installation of renewable technologies. There was a funding of £50,000,000 for this, and it was split up into the various different technologies. However, recently the last of the money for solar photovoltaic systems was used up, and there will be no more funding until at least the summer.
This is even more amazing as the article goes on to say that there is excess money which was supposed to be used for other renewable technologies, but is unlikely to due to lack of demand.
This seems like madness to me, as one of the key goals of providing funding for grants is to improve the take-up of renewable schemes, thus providing jobs and hopefully leading to better efficiencies with the supply of these technologies, leading to lower costs to the consumer. However, as the grant supply has run out is likely that there will be a dramatic reduction in the installation of photovoltaic schemes, both because many schemes will now be classed as unviable whereas with a grant they were, and even those that are viable without a grant may be delayed until there is once a again more support. This will lead to a lot less demand for photovoltaic systems, and as a result many companies which deal with the supply of such technologies will need to reduce in size to survive, most likely through redundancies, which is the last thing that is needed in a recession. This will also likely to lead to a boom and bust cycle, as when the next round of financial support is provided there will be a lot of pent up demand, leading to a great need for companies to expand rapidly. In this rapid expansion process there is a chance of less reputable companies and individuals entering the business, which is damaging for the whole industry.
For these reasons, I personally feel that it is madness to stop the grants. Considering how much has been spent bailing out other industries, the required money needed to continue the grants until the summer is relatively nothing, and it will help to keep the green jobs revolution which politicians like to talk so much about going.
This is even more amazing as the article goes on to say that there is excess money which was supposed to be used for other renewable technologies, but is unlikely to due to lack of demand.
This seems like madness to me, as one of the key goals of providing funding for grants is to improve the take-up of renewable schemes, thus providing jobs and hopefully leading to better efficiencies with the supply of these technologies, leading to lower costs to the consumer. However, as the grant supply has run out is likely that there will be a dramatic reduction in the installation of photovoltaic schemes, both because many schemes will now be classed as unviable whereas with a grant they were, and even those that are viable without a grant may be delayed until there is once a again more support. This will lead to a lot less demand for photovoltaic systems, and as a result many companies which deal with the supply of such technologies will need to reduce in size to survive, most likely through redundancies, which is the last thing that is needed in a recession. This will also likely to lead to a boom and bust cycle, as when the next round of financial support is provided there will be a lot of pent up demand, leading to a great need for companies to expand rapidly. In this rapid expansion process there is a chance of less reputable companies and individuals entering the business, which is damaging for the whole industry. For these reasons, I personally feel that it is madness to stop the grants. Considering how much has been spent bailing out other industries, the required money needed to continue the grants until the summer is relatively nothing, and it will help to keep the green jobs revolution which politicians like to talk so much about going.
Updated Privacy Policy
To help you make decisions about the information you provide anywhere on this site, this notice has been provided to outline our practices. You should know that we respect your privacy, and that I will never sell your information to anyone. Also, we hate spam as much as you do, so you will only ever get email from us that you have asked for and we have personally approved for distribution to the list.
We use secure hosting accounts and other security measures to protect our database and any information provided.
Any e-mail you receive from this site will contain the option to unsubscribe at the end of the e-mail. You can unsubscribe at any time.
If and when we offer products on this site, when you order a product, the information you provide will only be provided to outside parties if it is necessary to complete and deliver the order. Your information will never be shared or disclosed to other parties for any other reason.
Non-identifying information may be used to improve the site or shared with advertisers. For instance, information that is collected regarding traffic to the site or specific pages may be shared, but this will never include any identifying information.
Tracking
We don’t directly track your presence on this website. Your IP address is logged and we look at the server logs on occasion, but this is in an aggregate fashion for the purpose of determining why people come to visit us. What we are most interested in specifically are two things: The websites that link to us and send traffic here, and what keywords people use to find us via search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Cookies
We don’t directly set cookies, but we do run a number of scripts from providers such as Google. Some of these set web browser cookies. Google in particular quietly collects a tremendous amount of data on your browsing habits, and we participate in that data collection.
“Cookies” are data sent to your web browser from a web server (such as Google) that can uniquely identify your computer and store information about user preferences. Most web browsers will accept cookies by default, but they can be set to reject cookies, either from all websites or from specific sites. You can also manually delete cookies from your web browser. These options are generally set through a “Privacy” setting in your browser setup.
Content
Some material was used as the original copyright holder could not be contacted and I assume this content to be available for public use under public domain. If you are the party who owns the copyright to this material, please let me know and I will gladly comply right away and remove any copyrighted material you may object to.
We use secure hosting accounts and other security measures to protect our database and any information provided.
Any e-mail you receive from this site will contain the option to unsubscribe at the end of the e-mail. You can unsubscribe at any time.
If and when we offer products on this site, when you order a product, the information you provide will only be provided to outside parties if it is necessary to complete and deliver the order. Your information will never be shared or disclosed to other parties for any other reason.
Non-identifying information may be used to improve the site or shared with advertisers. For instance, information that is collected regarding traffic to the site or specific pages may be shared, but this will never include any identifying information.
Tracking
We don’t directly track your presence on this website. Your IP address is logged and we look at the server logs on occasion, but this is in an aggregate fashion for the purpose of determining why people come to visit us. What we are most interested in specifically are two things: The websites that link to us and send traffic here, and what keywords people use to find us via search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
Cookies
We don’t directly set cookies, but we do run a number of scripts from providers such as Google. Some of these set web browser cookies. Google in particular quietly collects a tremendous amount of data on your browsing habits, and we participate in that data collection.
“Cookies” are data sent to your web browser from a web server (such as Google) that can uniquely identify your computer and store information about user preferences. Most web browsers will accept cookies by default, but they can be set to reject cookies, either from all websites or from specific sites. You can also manually delete cookies from your web browser. These options are generally set through a “Privacy” setting in your browser setup.
Content
Some material was used as the original copyright holder could not be contacted and I assume this content to be available for public use under public domain. If you are the party who owns the copyright to this material, please let me know and I will gladly comply right away and remove any copyrighted material you may object to.
Energy storage
I read with interest the other day about plans in northern Ireland for a relatively unique way of energy storage, and the first of it's kind within the UK. The plan would be to use cheap electricity to pump air into underground caverns. Then, when the electricity price increases, release this compress air through generators to produce electricity. In particular this will be useful as it will provide a good way of matching up electricity with electricity demand, which of course is one of the biggest problems with most forms of renewable electricity generation. This is not completely unproven technology, as there are also schemes in Germany and America, and so presumably there is less risk.
I also see another potential economic benefit of such energy storage schemes - as the energy is generally stored at peak output this means there will be less need for expensive grid works. For example, if a wind farm would normally produce a peak output of 30MW, and do so for a third of the time and for the other two thirds of the time under a conventional scheme where all eletricity is pumped straight into the grid, the local grid will need to be able to cope with 30MW of extra generation. However, if an energy storage scheme is used, the output could be changed to 10MW all of the time, meaning less has to be spent on grid re-inforcement and there will be greater predictability in production, meaning less need for back-up generators.
The only issue will be whether such storage schemes will qualify for ROCs, and if so at what rate.
I also see another potential economic benefit of such energy storage schemes - as the energy is generally stored at peak output this means there will be less need for expensive grid works. For example, if a wind farm would normally produce a peak output of 30MW, and do so for a third of the time and for the other two thirds of the time under a conventional scheme where all eletricity is pumped straight into the grid, the local grid will need to be able to cope with 30MW of extra generation. However, if an energy storage scheme is used, the output could be changed to 10MW all of the time, meaning less has to be spent on grid re-inforcement and there will be greater predictability in production, meaning less need for back-up generators.
The only issue will be whether such storage schemes will qualify for ROCs, and if so at what rate.
Wave Energy
At the present time UK companies are arguably world leaders in wave energy conversion technologies. These include companies such as Pelamis. However, it is clear that in terms of offshore facilities there is a risk that the UK will be left behind. The European Marine Energy Centre is based off of the coast of Scotland, and was and still is at the forefront of wave energy device testing. However this is most suited for prototype devices, and now many of these devices are past this and on to the demonstration or commercial stages.
There have been plans for a while to give the UK the advantage at the next phase of the development process by setting up a project known as Wave Hub off of the Cornish coast which would be a site suited for the demonstration of commercial scale devices. However, this has been delayed several times, and as a result other similar schemes elsewhere in the world are catching up fast.
This may not appear to be a big problem, but there is the risk that many of these UK based companies will relocate to where the assistance given to them is more suitable, such as Portugal where the government has provided enough assistance to allow commercial wave farms to be operational. This will result in many jobs within the industry going abroad, and should the wave industry grow to be as big as the wind industry the number of jobs could be in the tens of thousands. Thus the UK is not grasping the opportunity to create a new industry, unlike what Denmark did with the wind industry 20 years ago - and that led to Vestas being the world leader in wind turbine manufacture.
However, the UK wave energy industry could be assisted in three ways. Firstly there needs to be funding released immediately for not only Wave Hub but further similar schemes around the UK coastline. Secondly, there needs to be improvements to the planning regulations to allow wave farms to be built easier. Finally, the price paid for electricity should be increased. Ideally this should be done with a tariff mechanism with a price per unit for electricity produced to be guaranteed for the lifetime of the project to reduce investment risk. However, it is more likely that the UK government will prefer to continue with the renewables obligation system, and as such there should be an increased number of ROCs given per unit of wave energy generated.
There have been plans for a while to give the UK the advantage at the next phase of the development process by setting up a project known as Wave Hub off of the Cornish coast which would be a site suited for the demonstration of commercial scale devices. However, this has been delayed several times, and as a result other similar schemes elsewhere in the world are catching up fast.
This may not appear to be a big problem, but there is the risk that many of these UK based companies will relocate to where the assistance given to them is more suitable, such as Portugal where the government has provided enough assistance to allow commercial wave farms to be operational. This will result in many jobs within the industry going abroad, and should the wave industry grow to be as big as the wind industry the number of jobs could be in the tens of thousands. Thus the UK is not grasping the opportunity to create a new industry, unlike what Denmark did with the wind industry 20 years ago - and that led to Vestas being the world leader in wind turbine manufacture.
However, the UK wave energy industry could be assisted in three ways. Firstly there needs to be funding released immediately for not only Wave Hub but further similar schemes around the UK coastline. Secondly, there needs to be improvements to the planning regulations to allow wave farms to be built easier. Finally, the price paid for electricity should be increased. Ideally this should be done with a tariff mechanism with a price per unit for electricity produced to be guaranteed for the lifetime of the project to reduce investment risk. However, it is more likely that the UK government will prefer to continue with the renewables obligation system, and as such there should be an increased number of ROCs given per unit of wave energy generated.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
