Renew Extra Weekly

The new Labour government has been quite active in its first phase of office, amongst other things with its flagship Great British Energy programme, formally launched in July . It will be given £8.3bn of public money over the course of the next parliament to invest in green energy technologies and projects- and jobs.  Crucially it will partner with The Crown Estate, which has a £16 bn portfolio of land & seabed assets. With its help, GBE aims to develop 20-30GW of new offshore wind farms by 2030, and will potentially bring in up to £60 bn in private investment to this end. The Crown Estate owns the majority of the seabed out to 12 nautical miles from the mainland and will lease the land on which wind farms can be built. The new agreement is only for projects around England & Wales, but Labour is also in discussions with the Scottish government & Crown Estate Scotland on support for local projects. That’s pretty vital since GBE is to be based in Scotland.   GBE wi...

 Much of China’s best wind resource and some of its largest solar capacity is in the wrong place, the North and West - far from most large industrial and population centres. It’s taking time to deal with the resultant regional power imbalances when using these locally variable sources, which can lead to local renewable curtailment- the wasteful dumping of power that can’t be got to users. The context is very different in the UK, but curtailment is also an issue, and the solutions being developed seem similar, although with some different planning issues emerging. In China, oddly given its centralised state, there does not seem to be enough regulatory planning, in the UK arguably there is too much, slowing down progress.   In an interesting review of the situation in China, relayed by OilPrice.com,  Zero Hedge says ‘ the government aims to reduce curtailment through increased long-distance transmission links and better coordination of generation plans across province...

‘Solar will very shortly overtake every other type of electricity generation and together with batteries, will electrify everything, everywhere’ says the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)  in a new report on the cleantech revolution. Certainly renewables generation is now very cheap and solar PV deployment is doubling every 2-3 years, while battery storage, for backup, is doubling every year.  Wind is also doing well around the world, with offshore wind leading in some locations, as I reported in an earlier post , and some new major projects going ahead.    Overall, RMI say that ‘clean technologies will continue to follow S-curves, cascading across sectors and geographies,’ with China, the world’s largest energy consumer, in the lead.  It explains that ‘China, lacks oil and gas, and cleantech is a path to leadership, clean air, and zero emissions’. And so it will ‘continue to deploy cleantech rapidly’. So it sees China as ‘the pivot nation in the t...

Labour won a stunning election victory, even if radical changes do not seem likely, with Starmer talking about ‘stability and moderation’ on the steps of No 10.  Reactions from green power interests were mostly very favourable , some even euphoric , with for example  Octopus Energy founder Greg Jackson saying ‘The results look clear – voters have rejected anti net zero rhetoric and chosen cheaper, cleaner, more secure energy. This looks like a landslide for a green economy’,  while Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said: ‘This landslide victory has buried Sunak’s divisive anti-green agenda once ...Voters have resoundingly rejected his climate rollbacks and elected a party with a proper plan to turbocharge cheap, clean, renewable energy – promising to slash emissions, lower bills and deliver hundreds of thousands of new green jobs.’ So what does it mean now in terms of green energy? In it’s Election Manifesto Labour said that ‘to deliver our clean power m...

As the public debate unfolded, the basic eco-climate context was clear, at least to some.  Greenpeace UK said ‘We've had the wettest and warmest years on record, but right at the time the government should have been ramping up climate action, they made a series of devastating row backs that have put future generations at risk. We desperately need politicians who prioritise clean cheap energy, warm homes & healthy clean air & water.’ Business Green added that ‘ Ministers have repeatedly argued Labour's plan to deliver a clean power system by 2030 is not feasible and risks driving up energy bills, while also highlighting their record of delivering the deepest decarbonisation in the G20 and engineering a huge increase in renewables capacity & green investment. But Labour has hit back by accusing the government of overseeing policy uncertainty and insufficient infrastructure underinvestment that has hampered the clean energy transition, driven up energy bills, and led ...

Wind and solar PV have expanded rapidly in recent years round the world. Since solar is  easier to install it has grown faster in some countries, but in countries in the north wind has been in the lead -  and in the UK offshore wind now has the edge over onshore wind. That’s in part since wind speeds are generally higher and more consistent offshore (so the capacity factors are higher) and also since the machines can be much larger. That’s important because the energy output from wind turbines is proportional to the square of the blade size and the cube of the wind speed. So, put simply, big and windy is best, and so, depending on location, the cost/MWh offshore can be cheaper than onshore, despite the extra cost of installation/maintenance and undersea power transmission. Moreover, the offshore advantage may increase given the advent of floating devices, which makes it easier to install systems in deep water far out to sea where the wind regime is best.  Given that, alth...

A review of the benefits and challenges of hydrogen and carbon capture utilization and storage, by an international team led by Prof. Ben Sovocool at Sussex University, is based on interviews with engineers and other experts in areas of the UK where local industrial cluster projects are planned or underway. The review adopts a neutral approach, attempting to assess the technical, economic and social pros and cons, but it soon becomes clear form the interview material that there are strong views in this area.   Some is just understandable and reasonable incumbent technological and skills partisanship. For example, one benefit of deploying hydrogen in clusters is said to be that there is already a trained workforce in such areas, as well as existing infrastructure. A participant said that ‘we have been handling and moving hydrogen for 70 years. We have 1600 miles of dedicated hydrogen pipeline. We know how to handle it. We know how to move it. We know how to respond to an emerg...