Busy time for renewables

There’s usually a steady trickle of renewable energy stories arriving on my desk, and it’s generally possible to handle them individually, but the past week or so seems to have been busier than usual, and if I try and note them individually, I’ll never finish the job, so I’ll try summarising them in the hope that it will be quicker.

If you haven’t seen or visited the web site for Scottish Renewables, the home page at least is worth a look, as it carries a small graphic displaying the relative amounts of Renewable Energy Generation Capacity in Scotland (MW), together with the date of update. I’m not taking a dig at this, and I merely point out that it shows Generation Capacity, not and not the amount actually being delivered, to avoid misinterpretation.

An event known as the Scottish Renewable Festival took place over the weekend of June 13/14 2009, intended to celebrate green energy and allow members of the public to visit installations they would not normally be open to visitors. These included small scale community and household applications using solar power, wood heating, wind power and heat pumps, together with some of the largest renewable energy installations in Europe, and included displays of new technologies such as marine power.

Education and information seems to be the theme, and it’s good to see that it doesn’t concentrate solely on promoting wind power.

In fact, the BBC mentioned it, and then went on to provide an article based entirely on hydro power, looking at the past, present, and potential future for this option in an interview with the British Hydropower Association.

Indeed, following the Queen’s recent visit to the new Glendoe hydro power scheme above Loch Ness, near Fort Augustus, two more major hydro power schemes have been announced for the Highlands. Last year, Glendoe operated at its maximum level for a period of 24 hours during a rehearsal ahead of coming on stream, and is capable of generating up to 100 megawatts, said to be sufficient to power some 250,000 homes.

SSE (Scottish and Southern Energy) has currently declined to identify the areas involved, and is still seeking permission for the scheme. This particular scheme is clearly intended to be a pumped storage scheme, and will involve two bodies of water. Surplus power available when demand is low will be used to pump water from the lower to the higher reservoir, then released to generate power during periods of high demand. According to Scottish Power, it will be able to generate ten time that produced by Glendoe, and said: “If we build those two then the total amount of hydro output in Scotland would be able to power every house in Scotland at the time of system peak.”

SSE said that it would submit planning applications for both in 2011, and that it could be operational by 2017 if permission is granted.

A similar scheme is planned for Sloy, the hydro electric power station at Loch Lomond, which we mentioned a few weeks ago.

Also, we mentioned that the Crown Estate was due to begin leasing areas of the sea bed around Scotland for developers who want to generate tidal electricity. While we haven’t spotted any update to this storyt, ministers recently approved new wind power sites for the Crown Estate around the the UK’s coastline – the government is relying heavily on wind to meet its European commitments to provide 15% of all energy from renewables by 2020.

This news was accompanied with the convenient release of a National Grid study which concluded that the electricity distribution grid could cope with on-off wind energy without spending a lot on back-up fossil fuel power stations – an apparent lack of security of supply had been used by opponents to argue against wind power, as they argued that fossil fuelled power stations would still need to be built, to bridge gaps in supply when the wind failed. Although the reason for this improvement was not explicitly stated, it seem safe to assume that new pumed storage systems, such as the two described above, are key to ensuring supplies are maintained in the absence of wind.

Ministers have also stated that they no longer see any difficulties arising from the installation of wind farms within the Crown Estate limit of 12.5 miles of the coast, but no specific reason for this change is reported. This could mean that currently proposed wind farms (planning permission permitting) could be in place by 2016, and add 33 GW of capacity by 2020.

However, there seems to be a further hurdle, as demand for wind turbines is now reported to significantly exceed supply, inflating their price. A further hit is taken when it is realised that wind turbines are prices in euros, not good when the pound is weak.