Tag: decarbonisation

How Scotland’s sewage becomes renewable energy

17 December 2019

Sustainable bioenergy
Stevie Gilluley Senior Operator at Daldowie fuel plant

From traffic pollution to household recycling and access to green spaces, cities and governments around the world are facing increasing pressure to find solutions to a growing number of urban problems.  

One of these which doesn’t come up often is sewage. But every day, 11 billion litres of wastewater from drains, homes, businesses and farms is collected across the UK and treated to be made safe to re-enter the water system.   

Although for the most part sewage treatment occurs beyond the view of the general population, it is something that needs constant work. If not dealt with properly, it can have a significant effect on the surrounding environment.  

Of the many ways that sewage is dealt with, perhaps one of the most innovative is to use it for energy. Daldowie fuel plant, near Glasgow is one such place which processes sewage sludge taken from the surrounding area into a renewable, low carbon form of biomass fuel.  

The solution in the sludge   

In operation since 2002, Daldowie was acquired by Drax at the end of 2018 and today processes 35% of all of Scotland’s wastewater sludge, into dry, low-odour fuel pellets.   

“We receive as much as 2.5 million tonnes of sludge from Scottish Water a year,” says Plant Manager Dylan Hughes who leads a team of 71 employees, “And produce up to 50,000 tonnes of pellets, making it one of the largest plants of this kind in the world.”  

“We have to provide a 24/7, 365-day service that is built into the infrastructure of Glasgow,” he explains.   

This sludge processed at Daldowie is not raw wastewater, which is treated in Scottish Water’s sewage facilities. Instead, the sludge is a semi-solid by-product of the treatment process, made of the organic material and bacteria that ends up in wastewater from homes and industry, from drains, sinks and, yes, toilets.   

Until the late 1990s, one of Great Britain’s main methods of disposing of sludge was by dumping it in the ocean. After this practice was banned, cities where left to figure out ways of dealing with the sludge.   

Using sludge as a form of fertiliser or burying it in landfills was an already established practice. However, ScottishPower, instead decided to investigate the potential of turning sludge into a dry fuel pellet, that could offer a renewable, low carbon substitute to coal at its power plants. 

Cement manufacturing fuel kilns

Daldowie was originally designed to supply fuel to Methil Power Station near Fife, which ran on coal slurry. However, it was decommissioned in 2000, before Daldowie could begin delivering fuel to it. This led the plant to instead provide fuel to Longannet Power Station where it was used to reduce its dependency on coal, before it too was decommissioned in 2016. 

Today Daldowie’s pellets are used in England and Scotland to fuel kilns in cement manufacturing – an industry attempting to navigate the same decarbonisation challenges as power generation which Daldowie was established to tackle.  

Though the end use of the fuel has changed, the process through which the facility transforms the waste remains the same.  

The process of turning waste to energy  

The process starts after wastewater from Glasgow and the surrounding area is treated by Scottish Water. Daldowie receives 90% of the sludge it processes directly via a pressurised sludge pipeline, the rest is delivered via sealed tanker lorries.   

When it arrives at Daldowie, the sludge is 98% water and 2% solid organic waste. It is first screened for debris before entering the plant’s 12 centrifuges, which act as massive spinning driers. These separate water from what is known as ‘sludge cake’, the semi-solid part of the sludge feedstock. This separated water is then cleaned so it can either be used elsewhere in the process or released into the nearby River Clyde. 

Membrane Tank at Daldowie fuel plant

The remaining sludge cake is dried using air heated to 450 degrees Celsius using natural gas (this also reduces germs through pasteurisation), while the rotating drums give the fuel granules their pellet shape. Once dried the pellets are cooled and inspected for quality. Any material not up to necessary standards is fed back into the system for reprocessing. Fuel that does meet the right standards is cooled further and then stored in silos.   

Where possible throughout the process, hot air and water are reused, helping keep costs down and ensuring the process is efficient.  

Nearly two decades into its life, very little has had to change in the way the plant operates thanks to these efficiencies. But while the process of turning the waste sludge into energy remains largely unchanged, there is, as always, room for new innovation.  

 Improving for the future of the site 

Daldowie is contracted to recycle wastewater for Scottish Water until 2026. To ensure the plant is still as efficient and effective as possible, the Daldowie team is undertaking a technical investigation of what, if anything, would be needed to extend the life of the plant for at least an additional five years. 

“The plant operates under the highest environmental and health and safety standards but further improvements are being planned in 2020.” Hughes explains, “We are upgrading the odour control equipment to ensure we have a best in class level of performance.  

The control room and plant operators at Daldowie

“Drax’s Scotland office, in Glasgow, is working with other industrial facilities in the area, as well as the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), to work with the local community. We are putting in place a series of engagement events, including plant tours from early 2020, offering local residents an opportunity to meet the local team and discuss the planned improvements.”    

There are also other potential uses for the fuel, including use at Drax Power Station. As the pellets are categorised as waste and biomass, it would require a new license for the power station.  

However, at a time when there is a greater need to reduce the impact of human waste and diversify the country’s energy, it would add another source of renewable fuel to Great Britain’s electricity mix that could help to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future.  

Will Gardiner’s Drax carbon negative ambition remarks at COP25

Will Gardiner, Chief Executive Officer, Drax Group

10 December 2019

Opinion
Will Gardiner at Powering Past Coal Alliance event in the UK Pavilion at COP25 in Madrid

Thank you very much Nick, it’s a pleasure to be here in Madrid. My name is Will Gardiner and I am the CEO of the Drax Group. We have been proud members of the Powering Past Coal Alliance for a year now, but our journey beyond coal began more than a decade ago, when we realised that we had a responsibility to our communities, our shareholders and our colleagues to be part of the solution to the escalating climate crisis.

And so at Drax we did something that many believed wasn’t possible and began to replace coal generation with sustainable, renewable biomass.

With the right support and commitment from successive UK ministers, and through the ingenuity of our people, within a decade we transformed into Europe’s largest decarbonisation project and its biggest source of renewable power – generating 12% of the UK’s renewable electricity last year while reducing our carbon emissions by more than 80% since 2012.

We have reduced our emissions, we believe, more than any other energy company in the world and we have enabled a just transition for thousands of UK workers who began their career in coal but will end it by producing renewable, flexible and low carbon power for 13 million British homes.

But as the climate crisis intensifies and the clock counts down, we can’t stand still. So today I am pleased to share our new ambition: to move beyond carbon neutrality, to achieve something that nobody has before, and become the world’s first carbon negative company by 2030.

By applying carbon capture and storage technology to our bioenergy generation we can become the first company in the world to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we produce, while continuing to produce about 5% of the UK’s overall electricity needs.

As the IPCC and UK government’s Committee on Climate Change make clear – negative emissions are vital if we are to limit the earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

At Drax we can be the first company to produce negative emissions at scale, helping to arrest climate change and redefining what is possible in the transition beyond coal.

If we are to defeat the climate crisis we must do it in a way that unlocks jobs and economic growth, unleashes entrepreneurial spirit and leaves nobody behind. The UK is unrivalled in decarbonising in this way. We are second to none in deploying renewables like offshore wind and bioenergy, which have transformed lives and our post-industrial communities.

We need to apply a similar framework to Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage as made offshore wind so successful. Fundamentally, an effective strategic partnership of government and the private sector was critical. The government provided support and an effective carbon tax regime. With confidence in that regulatory framework, many businesses provided investment and innovation. As a result, offshore wind has grown from less than 600 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity in 2008 to more than 8,000 MW in 2018 — an increase of more than 13 times in 10 years to produce 7.5% of the UK’s electricity.

At the same time, the cost of that electricity has declined from £114/MWh in 2015 to £39/MWh in 2019, the latter being a cost that will make offshore wind viable without subsidy. With government support and an effective regulatory regime to give the private sector the confidence to invest and innovate, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage will trace that same path. At the same time, investing in this technology will both save lots of existing jobs and create many next generation green technology jobs.

That is why we have founded, along with Equinor and National Grid, Zero Carbon Humber, to work with the government to bring carbon capture and storage infrastructure to the northeast of the UK. We can save 55,000 existing heavy industry jobs, while capturing as much as 30 million tons of CO2 per year. At the same time we will create a new industry and also the infrastructure for a new hydrogen economy to take our decarbonisation further.

By creating the right conditions for bioenergy with carbon capture and storage to flourish, Britain can continue to benefit – socially, economically and environmentally from being at the vanguard of the fight against climate change.

And at the same time, it is our ambition at Drax to play a major role in that fight by becoming the first carbon negative company.

Thank you

Read the press release: Drax sets world-first ambition to become carbon negative by 2030

Photo caption: Will Gardiner at Powering Past Coal Alliance event in the UK Pavilion at COP25 in Madrid. Click to view/download.

Learn more about carbon capture, usage and storage in our series:

The policy needed to save the future

6 December 2019

Carbon capture
Abstract picture of a modern building closeup

Over the past decade the United Kingdom has decarbonised significantly as coal power has been replaced by sources like biomass, wind and solar. Every year power generation emits fewer and fewer tonnes of carbon thanks to renewables and with the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars coming in no later than 2040, roads and urban areas are about to get cleaner too.

However, there are still tough challenges ahead if the UK is to meet its target of carbon neutrality by 2050. Aviation, heavy industry, agriculture, shipping, power generation – some of the key activities of daily economic life – all remain reliant on fuels that emit carbon.

This is where Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) technologies have a big role to play. These can capture carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, and either store them or use them, helping the drive towards carbon neutrality.

While the idea of being able to capture carbon has been around for some time, the technology is fast catching up with the ambition. There now exist a number of credible solutions that allow for capturing emissions. The challenge, however, is putting in place the framework and policies needed to enable technologies to be implemented at scale.

Time is short. A recent report by Vivid Economics for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) emphasised the need for government action now if we are to achieve the volume of carbon removal needed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

The tech to take emissions out of the atmosphere

The planet naturally absorbs CO2, forests absorb it as they grow, mangroves trap it in flooded soils, and oceans absorb it from the air. So, harnessing this power through planting, growing and actively managing forests is one natural method of GGR that can be easily implemented by policy.

Aerial view of mangrove forest and river on the Siargao island. Philippines.

The idea of using technology to capture CO2 and prevent its release into the atmosphere has been around since the 1970s. It was first deployed successfully in enhanced oil recovery, when captured emissions are injected into underground oil reserves to help remove the oil from the ground.

Over time it’s been developed and is now in place in a number of fossil fuel power stations around the world, allowing them to cut emissions. However, by combining the same technology with renewable fuels like compressed biomass wood pellets, we can generate electricity that is carbon negative.

Each of these solutions operate in different ways, but all are important. Vivid Economics’ report emphasises that a range of different solutions will be required to reach a point where 130 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2) are being removed from the atmosphere in the UK annually by 2050.

However, investment and clear government planning and guidance will be crucial in enabling the growth of GRR. The report estimates large-scale GGR could cost around £13 billion per year by 2050 in the UK alone, a figure similar in size to current government support for renewables.

“If you went back 20-odd years, people were sceptical of the role of wind, solar and biomass and whether the technologies would ever get to a cost point where they could be viably deployed at scale,” explains Drax Policy Analyst Richard Gow.

“In the last few years we’ve seen enormous cost reductions in renewables and people are far more confident in investing in them – that has been driven by very good government policy.”

GGR needs the same clear long-term strategy to enable companies to make secure investments and innovate. But what shape should those policies take for them to be effective?

Options for policies                    

Perhaps the most straightforward route to enabling GGR is to build on existing policies. For example, there are existing tree planting schemes such as the Woodland Carbon Fund, Woodland Carbon Code and the Country Stewardship Scheme, all of which could receive greater regulatory support, or additional rules obliging emitters to invest in actively managed forests.

More technically complex solutions, like bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS), could be incentivised by alternative mechanisms in order to provide clarity on, and to stabilise, revenue streams. These are already used to support companies building low-carbon power generation such as through the Contracts for Difference scheme and have been effective in encouraging investment in projects with high upfront costs and long-payback periods.

Alternative options to support the roll-out of negative emissions technologies should also be considered. For example, the government could make it obligatory for companies that contribute to emissions, to pay for GGR to avoid increased burden on electricity consumers.

In such a scenario, fossil fuel suppliers would be required to offset the emissions of their products by buying negative emissions certificates from GGR providers. As a result, the price of fossil fuels for users would likely rise to cover this expense and the costs would then be shared across the supply chain rather than just a single party.

Another approach that passes the costs of GGR deployment on to emitters is using emissions taxes to fund tax credits for GGR providers.

Making these tax credits tradable would also mean any large tax-paying company, such as a supermarket or bank, could buy tax credits from GGR providers. This approach would come at no cost to government as sales of the tax credits would be funded by an emissions tax and would offer revenue to GGR providers.

The challenge with tax credits, however, is they are vulnerable to changes in government. An alternative is to offer direct grants and long-term contracts with GGR providers which would ensure funding for projects that transcends changes in Parliament. They could, however, prove costly for government.

Whatever policy pathway the government may choose to follow, there are underlying foundations needed to support effective GGR deployment.

Making policies work

 There are still many unknown factors in GGR deployment, such as the precise volume that will be needed to counter hard-to-abate emissions. This means all policy must be flexible to allow for future changes, and the individual requirements of different regions (forest-based solutions might suit some regions, DACCS might be better in others).

Underlying the strength of any of these policies, is the need for accurate carbon accounting. Understanding how much emissions are removed from the atmosphere by each technology will be key to reaching a true net zero status and giving credibility to certificates and tax credits.

Pearl River Nursery, Mississippi

Proper accounting of different technologies’ impact will also be crucial in delivering innovation grants. These can come through the UK’s existing innovation structure and will be fundamental to jumpstarting the pilot programmes needed to test the viability of GGR approaches before commercialisation.

Different approaches to GGR have different levels of effectiveness as well as different costs. BECCS, for example, serves two purposes in both generating low-carbon power and capturing emissions – resulting in overall negative emissions across the supply chain. 

“It’s important to account for the full value chain of BECCS,” explains Gow. “Therefore, it should be rewarded through two mechanisms: a CfD for the clean electricity produced and an incentive for the negative emissions. A double policy here is important because you are providing two products which benefit different sectors of the economy, one benefits power consumers and the other provides a service to society and the environment as a whole, and cost should be apportioned as such.

BECCS and DACCS also have to consider wider supply chains, such as carbon transport and storage infrastructure. Although this requires a high initial investment, by connecting to industrial emitters, it can enable providers to recover the costs through charges to multiple network users.

Ultimately, the key to making any GGR policies work effectively and efficiently is speed. In order to put in place accounting principles, test different methods, and begin courting investors, government needs to act now.

The Vivid Economics report “is further confirmation of the vital role that BECCS will play in reaching a net zero-carbon economy and the need to deploy the UK’s first commercial project in the 2020s,” Drax Group CEO Will Gardiner says.

“Our successful BECCS pilot is already capturing a tonne of carbon a day. With the right policies in place, Drax could become the world’s first negative emissions power station and the anchor for a zero carbon economy in the Humber region.”

It will be significantly more cost efficient to begin deploying GGR in the next decade and slowly increase it up to the level of 130 MtCO2 per year, than attempting to rapidly build infrastructure in the 2040s in a last-ditch effort to meet carbon neutrality by 2050.

Read the Vivid Economics report for BEIS, Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR) policy options – Final Report. Our response is here. Read an overview of negative emissions techniques and technologies. Find out more about Zero Carbon Humber, the Drax, Equinor and National Grid Ventures partnership to build the world’s first zero carbon industrial cluster and decarbonise the North of England.

Learn more about carbon capture, usage and storage in our series:

Need for carbon pricing clarity at the first ‘Net Zero Budget’

30 October 2019

Power generation
Fishing village of Staithes near Scarborough on the north Yorkshire coast

Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP

Chancellor of the Exchequer
HM Treasury
1 Horse Guards Road London SW1A 2HQ

29 October 2019

Dear Chancellor,

Need for carbon pricing clarity at the first ‘Net Zero Budget’

We are writing to you to urge you to maintain the UK’s robust approach on carbon pricing. The prolonged uncertainty regarding the UK’s carbon pricing future as it exits the EU reiterates the need for the upcoming Budget – at whatever final date is chosen – to provide some much-needed certainty in a potentially turbulent period for businesses across the UK.

With its approach to carbon pricing, the Powering Past Coal Alliance and its Net Zero commitment, the UK has been a leader in global efforts to meet the ambition of the Paris Agreement by phasing out coal, as well as incentivising low carbon energy development and helping drive cost reductions. This leadership should continue at the first ‘Net Zero Budget’.

As outlined by the Committee on Climate Change in its recent advice to the UK Government on its carbon pricing future1, reaching net zero “will require a strong and rising carbon price, in order to induce changes to both short-term behaviour and longer-term investment decisions”. Importantly, in the run up to COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020, it is important that the UK continues its global leadership and is not perceived to waver on its commitment to tackling climate change.

Given the uncertainty over the UK’s exit from the EU there is little clarity on what the carbon pricing mechanism will be in the near term and this is already impacting on the forward pricing of carbon in electricity markets. Therefore, providing certainty and stability is crucial when the Government sets the Carbon Price Support (CPS) rate for April 2021 and beyond. Any reduction in CPS rates made in isolation of wider clarity on the UK’s carbon pricing arrangements post EU exit risks sending a negative signal to low carbon investors and undermining the continuing need for a strong and rising carbon price.

In addition to the considerations on the CPS, the Carbon Emissions Tax (CET) – that will replace the EU ETS in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal – will need to be set out for 2020 as soon as possible. To minimise the potential divergence between the CET and the EU ETS over 2020 it is vital that the CET is set a level for 2020 that is comparable with recent EU ETS pricing.

We look forward to measures to help the UK meet its leading ambitions at the first ‘Net Zero Budget’, including certainty and stability on the CPS. Further clarity on the UK’s carbon pricing future following a successful linking agreement between a UK ETS and the EU ETS to be in place for 2021 should be provided as soon as is practicable.

Signed,

Drax   |   Ørsted   |   SSE   |   Sandbag

 

CC

Simon Clarke MP, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury

Rt Hon Andrea Leadsom MP, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, Minister of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Lord Ian Duncan, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Rt Hon Claire Perry O’Neill MP, UNFCCC COP26 President

View the letter in PDF format

Smart ways to charge EVs

15 October 2019

Electrification
Electric car

The future of electric cars and electric vans holds great potential – not just for the transport industry’s overall carbon footprint, but for the populations of heavily congested, polluted cities and even individual drivers looking for more efficient fuel costs.

That future is approaching fast. By 2040 or even as soon as 2035 no new cars or vans sold in the UK can be solely powered by diesel or petrol. While this is a positive step, it brings with it a shift in the way drivers will need to manage the way they plan journeys and, more importantly, refuel.

Dark Blue Electric Sports Car Driving

For years drivers have relied on a quick and plentiful supply of fuel at petrol stations. But an EV doesn’t charge as quickly as a conventional car, nor are fast charging points widespread – at least not right now.

The change will be considerable, but it won’t necessarily take shape in a single form. Here we look at four things that will become increasingly influential in how drivers recharge their EVs over the coming years.

  1. Smart charging and time-of-use tariffs

Electricity costs more to produce and supply at certain times of the day. This wholesale price depends on the demand for power, weather conditions and the costs of different generation technologies and fuels.

For example, electricity is often more expensive in the evenings when people are coming home from work and turning on lights, TVs, ovens and plugging in devices. Just a few hours later it rapidly drops in price as homes and offices turn off lights and appliances. But the power system is changing.

The price of electricity is increasingly driven by less predictable factors such as the weather. On windy and sunny days, wind and solar generation can drive down the cost of producing power. On calm and cloudy days, the costs of electricity can increase.

While this, in theory, makes it sensible to wait for a cheap period of time to plug in and charge an electric vehicle (EV), in practice people are unlikely to spend the time sit refreshing websites which display the price of electricity in real time to get the best value. Instead, the use of ‘smart charging technology’ can play a big role to capitalise on fluctuations in prices. Electric charge in a village house. Outside the city the countryside.

Smart charging technology will be able to monitor things like electricity prices and even electricity usage across an entire site (for example across a business where many devices are using electricity) and automate the charging process to make use of the best prices and limit overall electricity use.

Rather than needing someone to recharge EVs at one o’clock in the morning, this means people or businesses can plug in at times convenient to them and set their vehicles to charge at the cheapest times and have an appropriate amount of charge to carry out tasks when they need to.

“By shifting power usage into cheaper periods you’re saving money and you can be more sympathetic to supply and demand limits on a company,” explains Adam Hall, who leads Drax’s EV proposition. “If I know my battery will be fully charged by nine in the morning, do I care if it charges immediately or delays it and saves me a few pounds?” For business fleet owners who manage large numbers of electric vehicles the difference this can make is even larger, he adds.

  1. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology

Each EV has a battery in it that powers the vehicle’s motor. But what if the electricity stored in that battery could also be harnessed to deliver electricity back to grid? And what if that concept could be used to collect a small portion of power from every idle EV in the country and use it to plug gaps in the electricity system?

“There are over 30 million cars on UK roads. National Grid predicts by 2050, 99% of those vehicles will be powered by electricity,” explains Hall. “The majority of cars remain idle for 95% of any day. That’s a huge amount of storage potential that could be used to balance the grid at key times. It’s a battery network that assets around the country will be able to use.”

This concept is what’s called vehicle to grid technology  (V2G), and while it holds great potential, it’s still some way from becoming a mainstream source of reserve power. Right now the technology is costly and limited – only ‘CHAdeMO’ charging systems, as found on Japanese models, actually support bi-directional charging. Nevertheless, Hall remains optimistic of its future role in the energy system, particularly as this technology will be hugely important in managing future grid constraints

“The cost of bi-directional hardware is coming down all the time,” he says. “At the moment there aren’t enough vehicles, we don’t have the scale to do it, but I fully believe it will change quite dramatically.”

For domestic users the benefit will be less immediate than it will be for entire countries. For business fleet managers, allowing the grid to take some power from their idle vehicles could lead to financial compensation or other advantages for offering grid support.

  1. The out of sight, out of mind approach: third party management schemes

More suited for businesses managing whole fleets of vehicles, employing a third party to manage the charging of vehicles allows for the delegation of a potentially costly and time-consuming task.

Adam Hall, Drax EV proposition lead, with Drax’s electric vehicle fleet service.

“Effectively the customer knows they’ll get the vehicles with the amount of charge they want when they need it,” says Hall. “That might be for the cheapest price or as fast as possible. It means the customer doesn’t have to think, they just get their charged vehicle in the optimum way for their needs.”

Third party providers could also open up new charging businesses models, such as flat monthly rates for unlimited vehicle charging or all-renewable services. By taking the technical aspects of running a fleet out of businesses hands, third parties could even serve to lower the barrier to EV adoption.

  1. Mandatory managed charging

It’s difficult to accurately know how much demand electric vehicles will place on the electricity system– some estimates see demand growing in Great Britain as much as 22% by 2050 as a result of EVs.

While the constant development of battery and charging technology will likely mean this prediction will come down, there are some theories as to how the country will need to deal with this rapid growth. One of these is to actually turn down the electricity surging through charging points at certain points to prevent widespread blackouts.

“The idea is there to protect the grid,” explains Hall. “When local distribution networks have a lot of demand they may need to turn charge points down.” He adds there will likely be exemptions for emergency services, however.

Hall is sceptical mandatory managed charging would ever really come into play, for the damage it would do to consumer attitudes to EVs. The idea also taps into wider scaremongering around EVs and quite how much they will push up electricity demand.

Instead what will really need to shift for a future of efficiently charged vehicles is a mindset shift. “There’s a psychological element to it,” he suggests. “Everyone goes through some range anxiety at first but soon realises the technology is sound.”

As battery technology continues to improve, vehicles evolve to go further on a single charge, and networks of super-fast charge points expand, transitioning to electric vehicles will become easier and more economical for businesses than continuing to depend on fossil fuel.

“I personally believe once electric vehicles are doing 300 miles on a single charge, the requirement for on-route charging will be pretty low,” says Hall. “Not many people drive 300 miles, need to recharge at a service station and then drive anther 300 in one fell swoop. It’s much more important to have good charging installations at work and at home.”

There are many ways in which EVs will change the way the world drives, from how we charge them to how and where we travel. We can be certain this will mean a shift in mindsets and our approach to transport. What remains uncertain is just how quickly and widespread that shift will be.

How will 5G revolutionise the world of energy and communications?

30 August 2019

Electrification
Smart cellular network antenna base station on the telecommunication mast on the roof of a building.

What should be made of the 5G gap? It’s the difference between what some commentators are expecting to happen thanks to this new technology and what others perhaps more realistically believe is possible in the near future.

What we call 5G is the fifth generation of mobile communications, (following 4G, 3G, etc.). It promises vastly increased data download and upload speeds, much improved coverage, along with better connectivity. This will bring with it lower latency – potentially as low as one millisecond, a 90 per cent reduction on the equivalent time for 4G – and great news for traders and gamers, along with lower unit costs.

Trading desk at Haven Power, Ipswich

The latest estimates predict that 5G will have an economic impact of $12 trillion by 2035 as mobile technology changes away from connecting people to other people and information, and towards connecting us to everything.

Some experts believe the effects of 5G will be enormous and almost instantaneous, transforming the way we live. It will have a huge effect on the internet of things, for instance, making it possible for us to live in a more instant, much more connected world with more interactions with ‘smart objects’ every day. Driverless cars that ‘talk’ to the road and virtual and augmented reality to help us as we go could become part of our everyday lives.

Others see 5G as a revolution that will begin almost immediately, but which could take many years to materialise. The principal reason for this is the sheer level of investment required.

The frequencies being used to carry the signal from the proposed 5G devices can provide an enormous amount of bandwidth, and carry unimaginable amounts of data at incredible speeds. But they cannot carry it very far. And the volume of devices connected to this network will be enormous. The BBC estimates that between 50 and 100 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020 – more than 12 for every single person on Earth.

So in order to support the huge increase in connectivity that is anticipated a reality, there will be a need for a comparably large increase in the number of base stations – with as many as 500,000 more estimated to be needed in the UK alone. That’s around three times as many base stations as required for 4G.

To carry the amount of data anticipated without catastrophic losses in signal quality will require the stations to be no more than 500m apart. While that may be technically possible in cities, it will only happen as a result of huge amounts of investment. And what will happen in the countryside, with its lower population density? It seems doubtful in the extreme that any corporation will regard it as a potentially profitable business decision to build a network of base stations half a kilometre apart in areas where few of their customers live. And that’s without taking into account the town and country planning system or the views of residents, who may not welcome new base stations near their homes.

Until this year, the only two workable examples of functional 5G networks are one built by Samsung in Seoul, South Korea, and another by Huawei in Moscow in advance of the 2020 Football World Cup. Although the first UK mobile networks have now begun to offer the new communications standard, 5G is still clearly a long way from being able to deliver on its potential.

What will 5G mean for the world of energy?

A report from Accenture contains a number of predictions about how 5G may change the energy world by helping to increase energy efficiency overall and accelerating the development of the Smart Grid.

  1. 5G uses less power than previous generations of wireless technology

This means that less energy will be used for each individual connection, which will take less time to complete than with 4G devices, thereby saving energy and ultimately money too. It is important to remember that even though such savings will be significant, they will need to be offset against the huge global increase in communications through 5G-connected devices.

  1. Accelerating the Smart Grid to improve forecasting

5G has the potential to help us manage energy generation and transmission more efficiently, and therefore more cost-effectively.

The report’s authors anticipate that “By allowing many unconnected energy-consuming devices to be integrated into the grid through low-cost 5G connections, 5G enables these devices to be more accurately monitored to support better forecasting of energy needs.

  1. Improve demand side management and reduce costs

 “By connecting these energy-consuming devices using a smart grid, demand-side management will be further enhanced to support load balancing, helping reduce electricity peaks and ultimately energy costs.”

  1. Manage energy infrastructure more efficiently and reduce downtime

By sharing data about energy use through 5G connections, the new technology can help ensure that spending on energy infrastructure is managed more efficiently, based on data, in order to reduce the amount of downtime.

And in the event of any failure, smart grid technology connected by 5G will be able to provide an instant diagnosis – right to the level of which pylon or transmitter is the cause of an outage – making it easier to remedy the situation and get the grid up and running again.

5G could even help turn street lighting off at times when there are no pedestrians or vehicles in the area, again reducing energy use, carbon emissions, and costs. Accenture estimate that in the US alone, this technology has the potential to save as much as $1 billion every year.

More data, more power

Although 5G devices themselves may demand less power than the telecoms technology it they will eventually replace, that doesn’t tell the whole story.

More connected devices with more data flowing between them relies on more data centres. This has led some data centres to sign Power Purchase Agreements to both reduce the cost of their insatiable desire for electricity and also ensure its provenance.

Data centre

As well as data centres, the more numerous base stations needed for 5G will consume a lot of power. One global mobile network provider says just to operate its existing base stations leads to a £650m electricity bill annually, accounting for 65% of its overall power consumption.

Base station tower

Contrary to the findings of the Accenture report, a recent estimate has put the power requirement of an individual 5G base station at three times that of a 4G. Keeping in mind that three of these are needed for every existing base station, the analysis by Zhengmao Li of China Mobile, suggests a nine-fold increase in electricity consumption just for that key part of a 5G network.

With the Great Britain power system decarbonising at a rapid pace, the additional power required to electrify the economy with new technologies shouldn’t have a negative environmental impact – at least when it comes to energy generation.

However, as we use ever-more powerful and numerous devices, we need to ensure our power system has the flexibility to deliver electricity whatever the weather conditions. This means a smarter grid with more backup power in the form of spinning turbines and storage.

How clean is my electric car?

Iain Staffell, Imperial College London

29 August 2019

Opinion
Birmingham UK Spaghetti Junction aerial with city centre background

Electric vehicles are fast becoming mainstream. There are now well over 200,000 on Britain’s roads, and this number is growing by 30% per year. 1 in 40 cars sold in Britain is now electric, around one third of which are pure battery models, and two thirds are plug-in hybrid.[1]

This radical shift is just beginning though. Britain’s electric vehicle fleet is expected to expand ten-fold over the next five to ten years. In more optimistic scenarios, half of all vehicles on the road could be electric just fifteen years from now.[2]

While many see EVs as the cleanest way to drive, they are still the subject of much speculation. Recent criticisms range from a UK government report saying they won’t end air pollution[3] to a string of studies (often debunked) claiming they emit more CO2 than diesel equivalents.[4]

The arguments are simple: how can it be cleaner to swap a petrol car for electric if it is recharged using electricity from dirty coal or gas? Secondly, how can electric vehicles ‘repay’ the energy needed for mining lithium and to assemble the huge batteries that power them?

We review academic studies of battery manufacture and use data from Electric Insights to answer these questions.  On average Britain’s EVs emit just one quarter the CO2 of conventional petrol and diesel vehicles. If the carbon emitted in making their battery is included, this rises to only half the CO2 of a conventional vehicle. Electric vehicles bought today could be emitting just a tenth that of a petrol car in five years’ time, as the electricity system is widely expected to continue moving towards low-carbon sources.

Manufacturing each kWh of battery emits a similar amount of carbon as burning through one full tank of petrol.[5] Electric vehicles typically have a battery capacity ranging from 30 kWh for small city hatchbacks up to 100 kWh for top-end models – manufacturing the latter emits as much carbon as three round-the-world flights. More CO2 is emitted in building the battery for premium EV model than from the recharging it over a 15-year lifetime.[6]

However, the most efficient EV models could need just two to three years of driving to save the amount of carbon emitted in producing their batteries. Smaller EVs with modest battery sizes are better for the environment; whereas the largest luxury EV models could need three times longer to pay back their carbon cost.

Hatchbacks

Small hatchbacks are the best-selling type of electric vehicles, led by the Nissan Leaf. They are also the cleanest to drive as they are small and light. Electric models currently emit around 33 grams of CO2 per km driven, which is one quarter that of the most popular conventional vehicle, a 2019 Ford Fiesta.

Volkwagen e-up! electric car showcased at the Frankfurt IAA Motor Show 2017.

These electric models typically come with a 30-45 kWh battery, which pushes their lifetime emissions up around 60 g/km. This is still less than half the emissions of a petrol or diesel car. With the projected changes to the grid mix, this will fall to less than one third of a standard car in just five years’ time.

EV models: Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe, Volkswagen e-Golf and e-Up, Hyundai Kona and BMW i3

Battery size: 39 kWh on average (31–46 kWh central range)

Lifetime carbon content of the battery: 26 g/km driven on average (18–34 g/km central range)

Emissions with 2018/19 grid mix: 28–38 g/km from recharging, 45–72 g/km including battery

Emissions with 2025 grid mix: 12–20 g/km from recharging, 28–52 g/km including battery

Luxury

Luxury saloons and SUV models include the iconic Tesla Models S and X, and the new Jaguar i-Pace. These are much larger and need more energy to move, meaning they have higher emissions than hatchbacks, at 44-54 g/km. This is still just a quarter of the emissions from a comparable conventional car (a top of the range Mercedes S-Class).

Jaguar I Pace EV

The lifetime emissions of these luxury EVs are notably higher though, pushed up by the enormous 90-100 kWh batteries they use to provide a driving range of over 250 miles. These batteries are responsible for more CO2 emissions than driving the car over its entire lifetime.

Models considered: Jaguar i-Pace, Tesla Model S and Model X

Battery size: 97 kWh on average (90–100 kWh central range)

Lifetime carbon content of the battery: 63 g/km driven on average (47–80 g/km central range)

Emissions with 2018/19 grid mix: 44–54 g/km from recharging, 92–133 g/km including battery

Emissions with 2025 grid mix: 19–29 g/km from recharging, 63–103 g/km including battery

Vans

Electric vans are quickly taking off, with over 8,000 sold in Britain to date. Their performance is comparable to small hatchbacks, and they also currently emit around a quarter of the CO2 of the most popular conventional van, with around 40 g/km.

A white Nissan e-NV200 electric van makes deliveries in London.

With their 30–40 kWh battery pack included, this rises to just below half the CO2 of a small Ford Transit.

Models considered: Nissan e-NV200 and Renault Kangoo

Battery size: 37 kWh on average (33–40 kWh central range)

Lifetime carbon content of the battery: 24 g/km driven on average (18–31 g/km central range)

Emissions with 2018/19 grid mix: 37–43 g/km from recharging, 54–74 g/km including battery

Emissions with 2025 grid mix: 15–23 g/km from recharging, 32–52 g/km including battery

Payback time

A typical driver filling their car up once a month and driving around 7,500 miles per year will produce one and a half tonnes of CO2 per year in a modern petrol or diesel hatchback. An electric vehicle doing the same mileage would take 4 years to produce this amount.

With a conventional vehicle, there is no scope for reducing emissions over its lifetime, as petrol and diesel fuels cannot become carbon-free.  On the contrary, National Grid expect the carbon content of Britain’s electricity to continue falling, so that an electric vehicle bought now will be emitting half as much CO2 in 2025 as it does today.

It is inconceivable that an electric vehicle in the UK could be more polluting than its conventional equivalent.  This would require electricity to have a carbon intensity of around 850–950 g/kWh, values not seen since the 1960s.[7]

Electric vehicles can be thought of as having an upfront ‘carbon cost’ for manufacturing the battery, which can then be ‘repaid’ through lower emissions as they are driven.  With Britain’s current grid electricity (producing 205 g/kWh), smaller electric cars and vans will take between 2 and 4 years to have saved the amount of CO2 than was emitted in making their batteries.  For the larger luxury models, it will take more like 5–6 years of driving to pay back that carbon.

With each passing year as the electricity mix gets cleaner, this payback time will continue to fall, and the environmental credentials of electric vehicles will keep growing stronger.

About this study

The fuel economy and climate impact of vehicles are measured by the government through the amount of CO2 they release for every kilometre driven. The UK’s most popular car, the Ford Fiesta, emits around 120 g/km in its cleanest models and 160 g/km in the sportier versions.[9]  Electric vehicles don’t emit any CO2 while driving, but the power system does when producing the electricity needed to recharge them.

Britain’s power system has changed dramatically over the last five years, with carbon emissions halving and the share of coal generation falling from 36% to just 3%. One kWh of electricity in Britain is now contains 204 grams[10] of CO2, less than the carbon released from burning one kWh of petrol. An electric vehicle can drive up to four times further on 1 kWh than a petrol or diesel car could, because electric motors are so much more efficient.

The charts above look at three categories of vehicle – small hatchbacks, luxury saloons and SUVs, and small commercial vans. Each chart shows how the carbon emissions from an electric vehicle have fallen over the past decade, and how they are expected to continue falling in the years to come. The charts consider changes to the electricity generation mix used for recharging,[11] and a gradual reduction in emissions from battery manufacture as the electricity mix changes in other countries.[12]

The range in direct emissions from recharging (the dark blue bands) covers the main EV models currently on sale in each segment, and variants on each model available.  The top of each band (highest emissions) shows the least efficient EV model, the bottom of each band (lowest emissions) shows the most efficient. In the forecast, these bands also include the range of emissions factors for electricity production coming from National Grid’s scenarios.

There is a larger range in the estimated whole-lifecycle emissions (the lighter blue bands) due to the additional uncertainty in the emissions caused by manufacturing 1 kWh of battery capacity, and the range of battery sizes seen across EV models.

Studies have estimated a wide range of emissions, depending on the type of battery type, its design, where it is manufactured and how old the study is.  Current estimates range from 40 up to 200 kg of CO2 emitted per kWh of battery capacity.[13] We take the average across eight studies and assume 75–125 kgCO2 per kWh. The true value may be less than this, as end-of-life batteries could be recycled,[14] or could be repurposed as a second-life home or grid storage batteries. It will also reduce in future as the electricity used to make batteries is decarbonised, or as more factories switch to 100% renewable energy (as has the US Tesla Gigafactory).

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