Tag: biomass energy

The 8 biggest things in renewable energy

18 July 2018

Power generation

Powering a whole country is a big task. The equipment that make up power stations and electricity systems are measured in tonnes and miles, and pump gigawatts (GW) of electricity around the country. With the world’s electricity increasingly coming from renewables, this big thinking is key to powering long-term change.

From taller wind turbines to bigger batteries, these are the massive structures breaking energy records.

Germany’s giant wind turbine and the plan to beat it

As wind power becomes ever more prevalent, one of the key questions that needs answering is how to get more out of it. One way is to build taller turbines and longer blades. Putting turbines higher into the air sets them into stronger wind flows, while longer blades increase their generating capacity.

The world’s tallest wind turbines are currently in Gaildorf, Germany and stand at 178 metres with the blades tips reaching 246.5 metres. Built by Max Bögl Wind AG, the onshore turbines house a 3.4 megawatt (MW) generator that can produce around 10.5 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year.

However, turbines continue to grow and GE has announced plans for the Haliade-X turbine, which will ship in 2021. At 259 metres in total the offshore turbine is almost double the height of the London Eye and will spin 106 metre blades, generating 67 GWh per year.

China’s ‘Great Wall of Solar’

China has pumped substantial investment into solar power, including the world’s biggest solar plant in electricity generation and sheer size. Dubbed the ‘Great Wall of Solar’, the Tengger Desert Solar Park has a capacity of more than 1.5 GW and covers 43 km2 of desert.

The next largest, by comparison, is India’s Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park, which covers just 24 km2 and generates 1 GW. However, rampant investment by the country means there are several projects in the pipeline that will break the 2 GW mark and will set new records for solar power plants.

Morocco takes solar to new heights

Concentrated solar power (CSP) takes the technology skywards by using thousands of mirrors, known as heliostats, and focusing the sun’s rays towards a central tower. This heats up molten salt within the tower, which is then combined with water to create steam and power a turbine – like in a thermal power plant.

Morocco’s Noor Ouarzazate facility (pictured in the main photo of this article) is home to the world’s tallest CSP towers. At 250 metres tall, 7,400 heliostats beam the sunlight at each tower, which have a capacity of 150 MW and can store molten salt for 7.5 hours. Its record will soon be matched by Israel’s 121 MW Ashalim Solar Thermal Power Station when it begins operating this year.

However, never one to be outdone when it comes to tall structures, Dubai plans to build a 260 metre CSP tower in 2020 as part of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, which at 700 MW will be the world’s largest single-site CSP facility.

Three Gorges Dam

China’s monster mountain dam

The Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtza river might be the world’s most powerful hydropower dam with its massive 22.5 GW capacity, but a different Chinese dam holds the title of the world’s tallest.

Jinping-I Hydropower Station is a 305-metre-tall arch dam on the Yalong River. It sits on the Jinping Bend where the river wraps around the entire Jinping mountain range. The project began in 2005 and was completed with the commissioning of a sixth and final generator in 2014, which brought its total capacity to 3.6 GW.

Itaipu Dam and hydropower station

Brazil and Paraguay’s river arrangement

While it may be tall, at 568 metres-long, Jinping-I is far from the longest. That mantle belongs to the 7,919 metre-long Itaipu Dam and hydropower station that straddles Brazil and Paraguay and has an installed capacity of 14 GW.

The power station is home to 20, 700 MW generators, however, as Brazil’s electricity system runs at 60Hz and Paraguay’s at 50Hz, 10 of the generators run at each frequency.

Biomass domes that could hide the Albert Hall

Using a relatively new material, such as compressed wood pellets as a renewable alternative to coal in large thermal power stations creates new challenges. Biomass ‘ecostore’ domes help tackle storage problems by keeping the materials dry and maintaining the right temperatures and conditions.

Unlike cylindrical, concrete silos, domes also offer greater resistance to hurricanes and extreme weather. This is important in areas such as Louisiana where this low carbon fuel  is stored at the Drax Biomass port facility in 35.7 metre high, 61.6 metre diameter domes before it is shipped to Drax Power Station.

The power station itself is home to four of the world’s largest biomass domes. Each is 50.3 metres high and 63 metres in diameter – enough to hold the Albert Hall, or in Drax’s case 71,000 tonnes of biomass.

South Korean coastline takes the most from the tides

Beginning operation 1966, the Rance Tidal Power Station, in France was the first and largest facility of its kind for 45 years. The power station made use of the 750 metre-long Rance Barrage on France’s northern coast with a 330-metre-long section of it generating electricity through 24, 10 MW turbines.

It was overtaken, however, in 2011 with the opening of the Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station in South Korea. The facility generates power along a 400-metre section of the 12.7 km Sihwa Lake tidal barrage and generates a maximum of 254 MW through ten 25.4 MW submerged turbines.

The battle to beat Tesla’s giant battery

South Australia has become a battlefield in the race to build the world’s biggest grid scale storage solution. Tesla constructed a 10,000 m2, football pitch-sized 100 MW lithium-ion battery outside of Adelaide at the end of 2017 which is connected to a wind power plant and can independently supply electricity to 30,000 homes for an hour.

However, rival billionaire to Tesla’s Elon Musk, Sanjeev Gupta plans to take on the storage facility with a 140 MW battery to support a new solar-powered steelworks, also in South Australia.

The excitement around battery technology’s potential means the title of world’s biggest will likely swap hands plenty more times over the next decade. This contest won’t just be confined to batteries. As countries increasingly move away from fossil fuels, bigger, wider and taller renewable structures will be needed to power the world. These are the world’s largest renewable structures today, but they probably won’t stay in those positions for long.

6 start-ups, ideas and power plants shaping biomass

4 June 2018

Sustainable bioenergy

Humans have used wood as a source of fuel for over a million years. Modern biomass power, however, is a far cry from human’s early taming of fire and this is down to constant research and innovation. In fact, today it’s one of the most extensively researched areas in energy and environmental studies.

With biomass accounting for 64% of total renewable energy production in the EU in 2015, the development isn’t likely to stop. Ongoing advancements in the field are helping the technology become more sustainable and efficient in reducing emissions.

Here are seven of the projects, businesses, ideas and technologies pushing biomass further into the future:

Torrefaction – supercharging biomass pellets

When it comes to making biomass as efficient as possible it’s all down to each individual pellet. Improving what’s known as the ‘calorific value’ of each pellet increases the overall amount of energy released when they are used in a power station.

One emerging process aiming to improve this is torrefaction, which involves heating biomass to between 250 and 300 degrees Celsius in a low-oxygen environment. This drives out moisture and volatiles from woody feedstocks, straw and other biomass sources before it is turned into a black ‘biocoal’ pellet which has a very high calorific value.

This year, Estonian company Baltania is constructing the first industrial-scale torrefaction plant in the country with the target output of 160,000 tonnes of biocoal pellets per year. If it’s successful, power stations worldwide may be able to get more power from each little pellet.

bio-bean – powered by caffeine

Biofuels don’t just come from forest residues. Every day more than two billion cups of coffee are consumed globally as people get themselves caffeinated for the day ahead. In London alone, this need for daily stimulation results in more than 200,000 tonnes of coffee waste produced every year. More often than not this ends up in landfills.

bio-bean aims to change this by collecting used coffee grounds from cafes, offices and factories and recycling them into biofuels and biochemicals. The company now recycles as much as 50,000 tonnes of coffee grounds annually while one of its products, B20 biodiesel, has been used to power London buses. bio-bean also produces briquettes and pellets, which, like woody biomass, can serve as an alternative to coal.

Biomass gasification – increasing the value of biomass waste

Biogas is often seen as a promising biofuel with fewer emissions than burning fossil fuels or biomass pellets. It’s an area undergoing significant research as it points to another means of creating higher-value products from biomass matter.

The Finnish town of Vaasa is home to the world’s largest gasification plant. The facility is part of a coal plant where co-firing biogas with coal has allowed it to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by as much as 230,000 tonnes per year.

As well as reducing emissions, co-firing allows the power plant to use 25% to 40% less coal and when demand is low in the autumn and spring months, the plant runs entirely on biogas. More than that, the forestry residues which are used to produce the biogas are sourced locally from within 100 km of site.

(As part of our transition away from coal, co-firing biomass with that fossil fuel took place at Drax Power Station from 2003 until full unit conversions became a reality in 2013.)

Lynemouth Power Station – powering the move away from coal

After 44-years, the coal-fired Lynemouth Power Station in Northumberland is the latest UK power producer converting to biomass-fuel. Set for completion this year, the plant will supply 390 MW of low-carbon electricity to the National Grid, enough to power 700,000 homes.

Every new power station conversion poses different challenges as well as the opportunity to develop new solutions, but none are as crucial as the conversion of the materials handling equipment from coal to biomass pellets. While coal can sit in the rain for long periods of time and still be used, biomass must be kept dry with storage conditions constantly monitored and adjusted to prevent sudden combustion.

At Lynemouth the handling of 1.4 million tonnes of biomass annually has required the construction of three, 40-metre high concrete storage silos, as well as extensive conveyor systems to unload and transport biomass around the plant. 

BioTrans – two birds with one stone

Energy and food are both undergoing serious changes to make them more sustainable. Danish startup BioTrans is tackling both challenges by using one of the food industry’s key pain points – wastage – to create energy with its biogas systems.

The company installs systems that collect leftover food from restaurants and canteens and stores it in odour-proof tanks before collecting and turning it into biogas for heating and electricity production. More than just utilising this waste stream, the by-product of the gasification process can also be sold as a fertiliser.

Drax and C-Capture – cutting emissions from the source

Carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) is one of the most important fields in the energy sector today. The technology’s ability to capture CO2 from the electricity generation process and turn it into a revenue source before it can enter the atmosphere means it’s attracting significant investment and research.

Drax is partnering with C-Capture, a company spun out of the University of Leeds’ chemistry department, to trial a new form of CCUS. The pilot scheme will launch in November and aims to capture a tonne of CO2 per day from one of Drax’s biomass units.

C-Capture’s technology could make the process of capturing and storing CO2 less costly and energy intensive. It does this using a specially developed solvent capable of isolating CO2 before being recycled through the system and capturing more.

If the pilot proves successful, the technology could be implemented at an industrial scale, seeing up to 40% of the CO2 in the flue gases from Drax’s biomass units captured and stored. If the technology tested at Drax leads to the construction of a purpose-built carbon capture unit elsewhere, scientists and engineers at C-Capture believe the CO2 captured could exceed 90%.

Back in North Yorkshire, the eventual goal is negative carbon emissions from Drax Power Station – its biomass units already deliver carbon savings of more than 80% compared to when they used coal. And if a new revenue stream can be developed from the sale of the carbon captured then the power produced from biomass at the power station could become even more cost effective.

With thanks to Biomass UK and The European Biomass Association (AEBIOM).

Collaborating for biodiversity protection and enhancement

21 March 2018

Sustainable bioenergy

Drax Biomass conducts regional risk assessments with extensive reviews of existing public and private datasets to identify high conservation value forests. This regional information is then augmented by county-level Natural Heritage data.

In 2017, Drax Biomass contracted with Nature Serve to package this regional- and county-level data into a format that would facilitate a rapid risk assessment for all in-woods fibre. This operational risk assessment procedure, combined with formal conservation commitments such as the Atchafalaya Basin Keeper agreement, reflect a comprehensive strategy to protect biodiversity.

Drax Biomass is looking forward to actively contributing to regional conservation enhancement efforts in 2018 and beyond.

A partnership formed with the American Forest Foundation (AFF) in 2017 is paving the way. The AFF is a publicly supported not-for-profit organization established to conduct charitable, educational, research and scientific programmes aimed at the responsible use and conservation of renewable resources. Our partnership with the AFF is aimed at improving habitat for at-risk southern wildlife species through active forest management. With open-canopy pine habitat identified as a conservation need, the market that Drax Biomass provides for small-diameter forest thinning material can directly benefit the regional biodiversity.

In addition to efforts around our own facilities, Drax Biomass employees have been contributing to a collaborative effort run by the Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) to provide better information on how to assess whether or not there are forests with high conservation values in a catchment, and what to do about them. SBP expects to publish the guidance from this workgroup in early 2018.

American Tree Farm

Sustainable bioenergy

The majority of forestlands in the southern US are privately owned (86%) and two-thirds of these forests are owned by families and individuals.

The American Tree Farm System (ATFS), administered by the American Forest Foundation, was established over 75 years ago to provide support and recognition to these non-corporate landowners who play a key role in forest sustainability.

Today, the 74,000 tree farmers across the US manage approximately 20.5 million acres of forestland.

The programme has evolved into an internationally recognised, third party-verified certification standard endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) standards.

The ATFS now provides a means by which family tree farmers can be recognised and rewarded in the marketplace for meeting rigorous sustainability standards analogous to large corporate owners certified to Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standard.

The Sustainable Biomass Program

Sustainable bioenergy

In 2013, Drax co-founded the SBP together with six other energy companies.

SBP builds upon existing forest certification programmes, such as the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). These evidence sustainable forest management practices but do not yet encompass regulatory requirements for reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This is a critical gap for biomass generators, who are obligated to report GHG emissions to European regulators.

There is also limited uptake of forest-level certification schemes in some key forest source areas. SBP is working to address these challenges.

SBP certification provides assurance that woody biomass is supplied from legal and sustainable sources and that all regulatory requirements for the users of biomass for energy production are met. The tool is a unique certification scheme designed for woody biomass, mostly in the form of wood pellets and wood chips, used in industrial, large-scale energy production.

SBP certification is achieved via a rigorous assessment of wood pellet and wood chip producers and biomass traders, carried out by independent, third party certification bodies and scrutinised by an independent technical committee.

How Great Britain’s breakthrough year for renewables could have powered the past

21 February 2018

Power generation

After a year of smashing renewable records, Great Britain’s electricity system is less dependent on fossil fuels than ever before. Over the course of 2017, low-carbon energy sources, including nuclear as well as renewables, accounted for half of all electricity production.

The finding comes from Electric Insights, a quarterly research paper on Britain’s power system, commissioned by Drax and written by researchers from Imperial College London. The latest report highlights how Great Britain’s electricity system is rapidly moving away from fossil fuels, with coal and gas dropping from 80% of the electricity mix in 2010 to 50% in 2017.

It’s an impressive change for eight years, but it’s even more dramatic when compared to 60 years ago.

Powering the past with renewables

In 2017 renewable output grew 27% over 2016 and produced 96 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity –  enough to power the entire country in 1958.

Back then Great Britain was dependent on one fuel: coal. It was the source of 92% of the country’s power and its high-carbon intensity meant emissions from electricity generation sat at 93 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2). Compare that to just three million tonnes of CO2 emissions from roughly the same amount of power generated in 2017, just by renewables.     

Today the electricity system is much more diverse than in 1958. In fact, with nuclear added to renewable generation, 2017’s total low-carbon capacity produced enough power to fulfil the electricity needs of 1964’s Beatlemania Britain.

But what’s enabled this growth in renewable generation? One answer, as Bob Dylan explained a year earlier, is blowin’ in the wind.

Read the full article here: Powering the past.

Stormy weather powering Great Britain

Wind power experienced a watershed year in 2017. Thanks to blusterier weather and a wave of new wind farm installations coming online, wind generation grew 45% between 2016 and 2017.

Windfarms, both onshore and offshore, produced 15% of the entire country’s electricity output in 2017, up from 10% in 2016. The 45 TWh it generated over the course of the year was almost double that of coal – and there’s potential for this to increase in 2018 as more capacity comes online.

The 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of new offshore wind turbines installed in Great Britain last year accounted for 53% of the net 3.15 GW installed across Europe. With large offshore farms at Dudgeon and Race Bank still being commissioned, the 3.2 GW of total new operating capacity registered in 2017 across offshore as well as onshore wind is on course to grow.

Co-author of the article, RenewableUK’s Head of External Affairs Luke Clark, said:

“These figures underline that renewables are central to our changing power system. Higher wind speeds and a jump in installed capacity drove a dramatic increase in the amount of clean power generated. Alongside breaking multiple records for peak output, wind energy continued to cut costs.”

As wind power is dependent on weather conditions, it is intermittent in its generation. But in 2017, more than one storm offered ideal conditions for wind turbines. During Q4 there were three named storms as well as the remnants of a hurricane all battering the British Isles, all of which helped push average wind speeds 5% higher than in 2016. While calculating wind power based on wind speed is complex, windier weather means more power – monthly average wind speed is proportional to monthly average power output from wind farms.

While the 2017 annual average wind speed of 10.1mph, was in line with the country’s long-term average, wind generation was not consistent across the year. In Q4 wind output was close to an average of 7 GW. By contrast, between May and August it was closer to 4 GW. Thankfully these calmer months saw longer hours of daylight, allowing solar power to compensate.

Read the full article here: Wind power grows 45%

Driving down carbon emissions

The knock-on effect of an increase in renewable generation is a drop in the carbon intensity of electricity production and in 2017 this reached a new low.

Across the year, carbon emissions, including those from imported sources, totalled 72 million tonnes, down 12% from 2016. This decrease is equal to 150 kg of CO2 saved per person, or taking 4.7 million cars off the roads. The least carbon intensive period of the quarter came just after midnight in the early hours of Monday 2 October, when it measured a record low of 56 grammes per kilowatt hour (g/kWh) thanks to low fossil fuel generation and high levels of renewables.

Over the whole year there were 139 hours when carbon intensity dipped below 100 g/kWh. This generally required 50% of the electricity mix to come from renewable sources and demand to be lower than 30 GW. For carbon intensity to dip under 100 g/kWh on a more permanent basis, greater renewable capacity will be required as demand rises.

Read the full article here: Carbon emissions down 12%

Interconnectors meeting future demand

Electricity demand in Great Britain has been on the decline since 2002, primarily due to more efficient buildings and appliances, and a decline in heavy manufacturing. However, this is expected to change over the coming years as more electric vehicles are introduced and the heating system is electrified to help meet 2050 carbon emissions targets.

While installing greater renewable capacity will be crucial in meeting this demand with low-carbon power, interconnectors will also play a significant role, particularly from France, which boasts a large nuclear (and low-carbon) capacity.

However, electricity sales through interconnectors are often based on day-ahead prices rather than the live market, which can lead to trades that aren’t reflective of demand on each sides of the channel.

In Q4 there were eight half-hours when demand was very high (more than 50 GW), yet power was being exported. This occurred despite day-ahead prices suggesting traders would lose money due to lower demand in France and the cost of using the interconnector. It highlights the need for improvements in inter-network trading as Great Britain increases its intermittent renewable generation and looks to a greater reliance on importing and exporting power.

Read the full article here: Moving electricity across the channel

Great Britain’s electricity system continues to break its renewable records each year and heading into 2018 this is likely to continue. Wind and solar power will continue to grow as more installations come online and a fourth coal unit at Drax will be upgraded to sustainable biomass, which could lead to another breakthrough year. Regardless, 2017 will be a tough one to beat.

Explore the data in detail by visiting ElectricInsights.co.uk

Commissioned by Drax, Electric Insights is produced independently by a team of academics from Imperial College London, led by Dr Iain Staffell and facilitated by the College’s consultancy company – Imperial Consultants.

How do you keep a 1.2 tonne steel ball in prime condition?

18 January 2018

Power generation

There are 600 giant balls at Drax Power Station. Each one weighs 1.2 tonnes – roughly the same as a saloon car – and is designed for one simple, but very specific, purpose: to pulverise.

Every day thousands of tonnes of biomass and coal are delivered to the power station to fuel its generators. But before this fuel can be combusted, it must be ground into a powder in pulverising mills so it burns quicker and more efficiently. It’s the giant balls that do the grinding.

And although these balls may be incredibly durable, the constant smashing, crushing and pulverising they go through on a daily basis can take its toll. Maintaining the 600 balls across the power station’s 60 mills is a vital part of keeping the plant running as effectively as possible.

Surviving the pulveriser

Each of the six generating units at Drax (three biomass and three coal) has up to 10 mills that feed it fuel, all of which operate at extreme conditions. Inside each one, 10 metal balls rotate 37 times a minute at roughly 3 mph, exerting 80 tonnes of pressure, crushing all fuel in its path.

Air is then blasted in at 190 degrees Celsius to dry the crushed fuel and blow it into the boiler at a rate of 40 tonnes per hour. To survive these extremities, the balls must be tough.

Drax works with a local foundry in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire to manufacture them. First, they are cast as hollow orbs of nickel steel or chrome iron and then smoothed to within one millimetre of being perfectly spherical.

After 8,000 hours of use, engineers check how rapidly they’re wearing down by measuring their thickness using ultrasound equipment and, if deemed to be too thin (which usually occurs after about 50,000 hours of use), replace them.

For this, they must first remove the top of the mill – including the grinding top ring – and then individually lift out and replace each massive ball. Those that are removed are typically shipped back to Scunthorpe to be recycled.

Transforming for a decarbonised future

When Drax Power Station was first built in the 1970s, the mills were designed to only crush coal, but since it was upgraded to run primarily on biomass, in the form of sustainable wood pellets, they have been adapted to work with the new fuel.

For the most part, this requires only minor changes – the primary difference is that coal is harder to fully pulverise. Coal typically does not get entirely ground down in the first cycle, so a classifier is needed in the mill to separate the heavier particles and recirculate them for further grinding.

The process of switching one mill from biomass to coal takes about seven days and nights. This work was carried out on Unit 4’s mills ahead of this winter, following biomass trials in the spring and summer of 2017. Now that the decision has been made to permanently upgrade that fourth power generation unit, converting one of its 10 mills from coal to biomass later in 2018 will take about twice as long.

Using the same essential equipment and process for both fuels helps to quicken the pace of decarbonisation at Drax Power Station as the UK moves to end the production of unabated coal-fired electricity by 2025. Come seven years from now, one thing will remain consistent at the huge site near Selby, North Yorkshire: the giant pulveriser mills will continue their tireless, heavy-duty work.

Fourth biomass unit conversion

17 January 2018

Investors
RNS Number : 1114C
Drax Group PLC

Drax welcomes the UK Government response to the consultation on cost control for further biomass conversions under the Renewable Obligation scheme, which will enable Drax to convert a fourth unit to biomass.

The response proposes that, rather than imposing a cap on ROC(1) support for any future biomass unit conversions, a cap would be applied at the power station level across all ROC(1) units. This would protect existing converted units and limit the amount of incremental ROCs attributable to additional unit conversions to 125,000 per annum.

The response would enable Drax to optimise its power generation from biomass across its three ROC units under the cap, whilst supporting the Government’s objective of controlling costs under the Renewable Obligation scheme.

Drax will now continue its work to deliver the low cost conversion of a fourth biomass unit, accelerating the removal of coal-fired generation from the UK electricity system, whilst supporting security of supply.

Drax plans to complete the work on this unit as part of a major planned outage in the second half of 2018, before returning to service in late 2018. The capital cost is significantly below the level of previous conversions, re-purposing the existing co-firing facility on site to deliver biomass to the unit.

The unit will likely operate with lower availability than the three existing converted units, but the intention is for it to run at periods of higher demand, which are often those of higher carbon intensity, allowing optimisation of ROC(1) generation across three ROC(1) accredited units. The CfD(2) unit remains unaffected.

Will Gardiner, Chief Executive of Drax Group, commented:

“We welcome the Government’s support for further sustainable biomass generation at Drax, which will allow us to accelerate the removal of coal from the electricity system, replacing it with flexible low carbon renewable electricity.”

“We look forward to implementing a cost-effective solution for our fourth biomass unit at Drax.”

Enquiries:

Investor Relations:

Mark Strafford

+44 (0) 1757 612 491

Media:

Ali Lewis

+44 (0) 1757 612 165

 

Website: www.drax.com

Notes

  1. Renewable Obligation Certificate
  2. Contract for Difference

END