Tag: transport

4 of the longest running electrical objects

15 June 2020

Electrification

How long do your electrical devices last? We’re not talking about battery life, but the overall lifetime of the items we use every day that are powered by electricity.

It’s accepted that today’s electrical devices have short life spans, in part a symptom of rapidly evolving technology fuelling the need for constant consumer updates and in part a result of planned obsolescence (devices being manufactured to fail within a set number of years to encourage repeat purchases). Electrical devices aren’t purchased with the belief they will last a lifetime.

But it hasn’t always been this way. Before rapid technological development and the rise of fast consumerism, devices were built to last.

Over the relatively short history of electrical appliances, there are tools and equipment that have operated for decades. Some of these remain in operation today with hardly any alterations, but for a few tweaks here and there to upgrade or preserve.

Built to last, here are a few of the longest running electrical inventions.

The Oxford Electric Bell located in the Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford.

1840 – The Oxford Electric Bell

The Oxford Electric Bell is not your typical bell – not just in how it looks, but in the fact it has been in constant operation since the mid 19th Century. It consists of two primitive batteries called ‘dry piles’ with bells fitted at each end and a metal ball that vibrates between them to very quietly, continuously ring.

Its original purpose is unidentified, but what is known is that the bell is the result of an experiment put on by the London instrument-manufacturing firm Watkins and Hill in 1840. Acquired by Robert Walker, a physics professor at the University of Oxford in the mid 1800s, it’s displayed at Oxford’s Clarendon Laboratory which explains why it’s also known as the Clarendon Pile.

The exact make-up of the dry piles is unknown, as no one wants to tamper with them to investigate their composition out for fear of ending the bell’s 179-year-long streak. As a result, confusion remains as to why The Oxford Electric Bell has remained in operation for so long.

Souter Lighthouse, Tyneside, England.

1871 – Souter Lighthouse in South Shields, UK

The lamp in the Souter lighthouse, situated between the rivers Tyne and Wear, was the most advanced of its day when it was first constructed. Designed to use an alternating electric current, it was the first purpose-built, electrically powered lighthouse in the world. Although no longer in operation today, it ran unchanged for nearly 50 years.

The light was generated using carbon arc lamps, and it originally produced a beam of red light that would come on once every five seconds.

Souter’s original lamp operated unchanged from 1871 to 1914, when it was replaced by more conventional oil lamps. It was altered again to run on mains electric power in 1952 and was finally deactivated in 1988.

1896 – The Isle of Man’s Manx Electric Railway

Tourism hit the Isle of Man in the 1880s and with it came the construction of hotels and boarding houses. Two businessmen saw this as an opportunity to purchase a large estate on the island and develop it into housing and a pleasure development. The Manx Parliament approved the sale in 1892 on one condition: that a road and a tramway be built to give people access.

Snaefell mountain railway station, Isle of Man.

It was decided that the tram would be electric, and work began in the spring of 1893, with the tram system up and running by September of that year. Although the track and its cars have been extended and updated over time, the first three cars remain the longest running electric tramcars in the world.

Photograph by Dick Jones (centennialbulb.org)

1902 – The Centennial Bulb

The unassuming Centennial Bulb has been working in the Livermore, California Fire Department for 117 years. The bulb was first installed in 1902 in the department’s hose cart house, but was later moved to Livermore’s Fire Station 6, where it has been illuminated for more than a million hours.

Throughout its life the Centennial Bulb has seen just two interruptions: for a week in 1937 when the Firehouse was refurbished, and in May 2013 when it was off for nine and a half hours due to a failed power supply. Made by the Shelby Electric Company, the hand-blown bulb previously shone at 60 watts but has since been dimmed to 4 watts.

While this means it isn’t able to actually illuminate much, it is a reminder that despite the disposable nature of many modern electrical devices, it’s possible to build electrical items that last.

5 exciting energy innovations that you should know about in 2020

5 June 2020

Power generation

As we head into the 2020s, it’s an exciting time for energy. A deeper level of climate consciousness has led to crucial changes in populations’ attitudes and thinking around how we power our lives – adapting to a new set of energy standards has become essential.

It’s also driving innovation in energy technology, leading to the rise of a number of emerging technologies designed to support the global energy transition in new ways. From domestic solar and wind generation, to leaps forward in recycling and aeroplane fuel, here are five new energy ideas in the 2020s pipeline.

Miniature turbines for your garden

Think of a wind farm and you might think of giant structures located in remote, windswept areas, but that’s quickly changing.

IceWind is developing residential wind turbines that use the same generator-principal as large-scale wind farms, just on a much smaller scale. A set of three outer and three inner vertical blades rotate when the wind passes through them, providing spinning mechanical energy that passes through the generator and is converted to electricity.

Constructed from durable stainless steel, carbon fibre and aluminium, the CW1000 model can handle wind speeds of up to 134 miles per hour. To ensure they’re fit for domestic use, the units are adapted to have a maximum height of just over 3 metres and make less than 40 decibels of noise – roughly equivalent to quiet conversation.

The Icelandic company says it aims to decentralise and democratise energy generation by making wind power accessible to people anywhere in the world.

Expanding solar to cover more surfaces

As solar technology becomes more widespread and easier to implement, more communities are turning to a prosumer approach and generating their own power.

Roof panels to date have been the most common way to domestically capture and convert rays, but Solecco is taking it a step further, offering solar roof tiles. These work in the same way as roof panels, using photovoltaic cells made of silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. But by covering more surface area, entire roofs can be used to generate solar energy, rather than single panels.

Environmental Street Furniture takes it a step further by bringing small scale solar generation into many aspects of the urban environment such as smart benches, rubbish bins, and solar lighting in green spaces. This opens up opportunities for powering cities, including incorporating charging stations and network connectivity, which in turn enables social power sharing.

Re-purposing plastic 

Global recycling rates currently sit at approximately 18%, indicating there are still further steps to take in ensuring single-use products are eliminated.

Plastic is a major target in the war on disposal, and for good reason. By 2015, the world had produced over seven billion tonnes of plastic. Greenology is tackling this by harnessing a process called pyrolysis to turn plastic into power. By heating waste at a very high temperature without oxygen, the plastic is breaks down without combusting.

This process produces bio-oils, which can be used to create biofuels. The benefits of this innovative approach to waste are twofold: not only can plastic be repurposed, which minimises the lasting impact single-use plastic has on the planet, but the creation of biofuel offers a power source for everything from transport to generating electricity.

Storing heat for the home

Decarbonising heating is one of the global challenges yet to have a clear answer. Pumped Heat Ltd (PHL) is developing a potential solution with its heat battery technology. The company has found a solution that enables its devices to charge up and store electricity during ‘off-peak’ hours (when electricity is at its cheapest) and then use this energy to generate heating and hot water for homes as it is required. As the grid continues to decarbonise, and as renewable power becomes cheaper and more accessible, the electricity used to charge these units will approach zero carbon content.

The heat battery technology utilises vacuum insulation, losing 10 times less heat than a conventional night storage heater. In contrast, air sourced heat pumps (a more commonly used type of heat pump), operate in real time when a home needs heating. They take water at its delivery temperature (which can be very cold, during the winter months) and heat it using electricity available at that time. Pumped Heat’s storage system instead ensures there is always heat available, maintaining a consistent temperature for hot water or central heating, rather than just when there is an excess of electricity.

The company claims the benefit of using a heat battery system is that it is cheaper than an oil or LPG boiler, in a world where renewable electricity production, both domestic and on a national level, is only set to increase.

Waste-powered planes

As some of the most fossil fuel-reliant industries in the world, travel and transport are actively seeking alternative and more sustainable ways to keep them powered in long run.

Velocys aims to do this using waste. The company is developing sustainable fuels for aviation and heavy goods transport, using the Fischer-Tropsch method of gasifying waste. This involves turning waste materials – such as domestic refuse and woody waste – into clean jet fuel using a catalytic chemical reaction, where synthesis gases (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) are converted into liquid hydrocarbons that can then be used for fuel.

Not only does this make use of waste products that could have ended up in landfill, but it produces much cleaner fuels, that emit less particle matter and harmful pollutants into the atmosphere.

As we enter a new decade of invention, the world is focusing on more sustainable alternatives to power our lives, and these innovative solutions to current environmental issues will continue to inspire creativity.

What is net zero?

21 January 2020

Carbon capture
Skyscraper vertical forest in Milan

For age-old rivals Glasgow and Edinburgh, the race to the top has taken a sharp turn downwards. Instead, they’re in a race to the bottom to earn the title of the first ‘net zero’ carbon city in the UK.

While they might be battling to be the first in the UK to reach net zero, they are far from the only cities with net zero in their sights. In the wake of the growing climate emergency, cities, companies and countries around the world have all announced their own ambitions for hitting ‘net zero’.

It has become a global focus based on necessity – for the world to hit the Paris Agreement targets and limit global temperature rise to under two degrees Celsius, it’s predicted the world must become net zero by 2070.

Yet despite its ubiquity, net zero is a term that’s not always fully understood. So, what does net zero actually mean?

Glasgow, Scotland. Host of COP26.

What does net zero mean?

‘Going net zero’ most often refers specifically to reaching net zero carbon emissions. But this doesn’t just mean cutting all emissions down to zero.

Instead, net zero describes a state where the greenhouse gas (GHG) emitted [*] and removed by a company, geographic area or facility is in balance.

In practice, this means that as well as making efforts to reduce its emissions, an entity must capture, absorb or offset an equal amount of carbon from the atmosphere to the amount it releases. The result is that the carbon it emits is the same as the amount it removes, so it does not increase carbon levels in the atmosphere. Its carbon contributions are effectively zero – or more specifically, net zero.

The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment likens the net zero target to running a bath – an ideal level of water can be achieved by either turning down the taps (the mechanism adding emissions) or draining some of the water from the bathtub (the thing removing of emissions from the atmosphere). If these two things are equally matched, the water level in the bath doesn’t change.

To reach net zero and drive a sustained effort to combat climate change, a similar overall balance between emissions produced and emissions removed from the atmosphere must be achieved.

But while the analogy of a bath might make it sound simple, actually reaching net zero at the scale necessary will take significant work across industries, countries and governments.

How to achieve net zero

The UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recommends that to reach net zero all industries must be widely decarbonised, heavy good vehicles must switch to low-carbon fuel sources, and a fifth of agricultural land must change to alternative uses that bolster emission reductions, such as biomass production.

However, given the nature of many of these industries (and others considered ‘hard-to-treat’, such as aviation and manufacturing), completely eliminating emissions is often difficult or even impossible. Instead, residual emissions must be counterbalanced by natural or engineered solutions.

Natural solutions can include afforestation (planting new forests) and reforestation (replanting trees in areas that were previous forestland), which use trees’ natural ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere to offset emissions.

On the other hand, engineering solutions such as carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) can capture and permanently store carbon from industry before it’s released into the atmosphere. It is estimated this technology can capture in excess of 90% of the carbon released by fossil fuels during power generation or industrial processes such as cement production.

Negative emissions essential to achieving net zero

Click to view/download graphic. Source: Zero Carbon Humber.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) could actually take this a step further and lead to a net removal of carbon emissions from the atmosphere, often referred to as negative emissions. BECCS combines the use of biomass as a fuel source with CCUS. When that biomass comes from trees grown in responsibly managed working forests that absorb carbon, it becomes a low carbon fuel. When this process is combined with CCUS and the carbon emissions are captured at point of the biomass’ use, the overall process removes more carbon than is released, creating ‘negative emissions’.

According to the Global CCS Institute, BECCS is quickly emerging as the best solution to decarbonise emission-heavy industries. A joint report by The Royal Academy of Engineering and Royal Society estimates that BECCS could help the UK to capture 50 million tonnes of carbon per year by 2050 – eliminating almost half of the emissions projected to remain in the economy.

The UK’s move to net zero

In June 2019, the UK became the first major global economy to pass a law to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. It is one of a small group of countries, including France and Sweden, that have enacted this ambition into law, forcing the government to take action towards meeting net zero.

Electrical radiator

Although this is an ambitious target, the UK is making steady progress towards it. In 2018 the UK’s emissions were 44% below 1990 levels, while some of the most intensive industries are fast decarbonising – June 2019 saw the carbon content of electricity hit an all-time low, falling below 100 g/kWh for the first time. This is especially important as the shift to net zero will create a much greater demand for electricity as fossil fuel use in transport and home heating must be switched with power from the grid.

Hitting net zero will take more than just this consistent reduction in emissions, however. An increase in capture and removal technologies will also be required. On the whole, the CCC predict an estimated 75 to 175 million tonnes of carbon and equivalent emissions will need to be removed by CCUS solutions annually in 2050 to fully meet the UK’s net zero target.

This will need substantial financial backing. The CCC forecasts that, at present, a net zero target can be reached at an annual resource cost of up to 1-2% of GDP between now and 2050. However, there is still much debate about the role the global carbon markets need to play to facilitate a more cost-effective and efficient way for countries to work together through market mechanisms.

Industries across the UK are starting to take affirmative action to work towards the net zero target. In the energy sector, projects such as Drax Power Station’s carbon capture pilots are turning BECCS increasingly into a reality ready to be deployed at scale.

Along with these individual projects, reaching net zero also requires greater cooperation across the industrial sectors. The Zero Carbon Humber partnership between energy companies, industrial emitters and local organisations, for example, aims to deliver the UK’s first zero carbon industrial cluster in the Humber region by the mid-2020s.

Nonetheless, efforts from all sectors must be made to ensure that the UK stays on course to meet all its immediate and long-term emissions targets. And regardless of whether or not Edinburgh or Glasgow realise their net zero goals first, the competition demonstrates how important the idea of net zero has become and society’s drive for real change across the UK.

Drax has announced an ambition to become carbon negative by 2030 – removing more carbon from the atmosphere than produced in our operations, creating a negative carbon footprint. Track our progress at Towards Carbon Negative.

[*] In this article we’ve simplified our explanation of net zero. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most abundant greenhouse gas (GHG). It is also a long-lived GHG that creates warming that persists in the long term. Although the land and ocean absorb it, a significant proportion stays in the atmosphere for centuries or even millennia causing climate change. It is, therefore, the most important GHG to abate. Other long-lived GHGs include include nitrous oxide (N2O, lifetime of circa 120 years) and some F-Gasses (e.g. SF6 with a lifetime of circa 3,200 years). GHGs are often aggregated as carbon dioxide equivalent (abbreviated as CO2e or CO2eq) and it is this that net zero targets measure. In this article, ‘carbon’ is used for simplicity and as a proxy for ‘carbon dioxide’, ‘CO2‘, ‘GHGs’ or ‘CO2e’.

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.

From coal to pumped hydro storage in 83 mountainous miles

7 October 2019

Power generation
Moving of transformers from Longanett to Cruachan

Nestled in in the Western Highlands in Scotland, Cruachan Power Station is surrounded by a breathtaking landscape of plunging mountainsides and curving lochs, between which weave narrow roads.

It makes for scenic driving. What might be trickier, however, is transporting 230 tonnes of electrical equipment up and down said mountains, navigating narrow bends.

But that’s exactly what a team from Drax was tasked with when it came to moving two 115 tonne transformers, the equipment used to boost electricity’s voltage. They were in storage 83 miles away at Longannet, currently being demolished, near Fife.

“You’re moving a piece of equipment that is designed to stay in one place. It’s not designed to go on the roads,” explains Jamie Beardsall, an Electrical Engineer from the EC&I Engineering team who worked on the project. “You’re very aware of your environment and the risks. Everything is checked and doubled checked.”

Transformers being driven to Drax’s Cruachan pumped storage hydro power station

The complicated task required colleagues from both Cruachan and Drax power stations to collaborate from the very beginning. Gary Brown, Mark Rowbottom and Jamie from the EC&I Engineering team based in Yorkshire teamed up with Gordon Pirie and Roddy Davies from Scotland who met frequently and planned the project alongside specialist transport contractor, ALE, which advised on heavy lifting and movement.

Planning and execution of the works also required constant liaison and coordination with the police and highway authorities in both Scotland and England. But more than that, the transformers’ one-by-one journey from the demolition site of what was once Europe’s biggest coal-fired power station, to a hydro-powered energy storage site on the other side of Scotland, represents the continual shift of Great Britain’s electricity away from fossil fuels.

Stepping up voltage

Transformers are an essential part of the electricity system. By increasing or decreasing the voltage of an electrical current they can enable it to traverse the national grid or make electricity safe to enter our homes.

“When we generate electricity, it is at a lower voltage than we need to send it out to the national grid,” says Beardsall. “We use transformers to increase the voltage so it can go out to the national grid and be transmitted over long distances more efficiently. We then reduce the voltage again so it can be brought safely into our homes.”

While all transformers apply the same principles for stepping voltage up and down, the two transformers that were transported through the Highlands to Cruachan were designed specifically for the pumped storage hydro power station, but stored at Longannet where there was more space. At the time, both stations where owned by Scottish Power. Cruachan was purchased by Drax on the last day of 2018.

Engineers at Cruachan Power Station in front of one of the original transformers

When transported, each transformer weighs 115 tonnes and is almost four metres high. Transporting them isn’t as simple as loading them into the back of a van.

“You can’t transport them in a fully built state, they would be too heavy and wouldn’t go under bridges,” says Beardsall. “We had to strip them back to the core and now we’re working to reassemble them on site.”

Cutting down to the core

Each transformer consists of two main components; a core made of iron, and two windings made of copper. The transformer itself has no moving parts. When a voltage is applied to one of the transformer windings (the primary winding), a magnetic field is created in the iron core. This field then induces a voltage into the other winding (the secondary winding). Depending on the number of coils on each set of windings, the output voltage will increase or decrease. More coils on the secondary winding steps the voltage up, fewer coils on the secondary steps the voltage down.

This entire apparatus is submerged in an oil to provide insulation and keep the transformer cool, meaning the first step was to drain 50,000 litres of oil from each transformer. This was then sent to a refinery to be processed, cleaned and stored until the transformers are reassembled at Cruachan.

Oil removed, the Drax engineers oversaw and managed the dismantling of the transformers at Longannet. Once the transformers were stripped down to a state suitable for movement, they were loaded up one-by-one for transportation.

Meanwhile, at Cruachan, engineers worked on construction of a purpose built bunded area for storage of the transformers. The transformers were destined to be stored on land outside the main admin buildings, adjacent to Loch Awe.

Loch Awe at Cruachan Power Station

The Loch itself is a beautiful place with abundant animal and birdlife – and a fish farm is located almost directly opposite the power station. In the event of a transformer leaking, the natural environment must be protected. An oil-tight storage area was therefore built, to ensure that no oil would end up in the Loch.

The road to Cruachan

Rather than heaving each of the transformers onto a trailer, each one was raised using hydraulic jacking equipment. A trailer was then driven underneath, and the transformer lowered onto it.

“The trailer is specifically designed to take the transformers and fit certain dimensions,” explains Beardsall. “It has 96 wheels over 12 sets of axles, each of which can be turned individually to assist in navigating around tight spots.”

The trailers are towed by large tractor units, each weighing over 40 tonnes. These provided the motive power to move the transformers. Each was moved in two stages over the space of two weeks. The first transformer over the course of a weekend, the second in the middle of the night some 10 days later.

“When we could go was governed by the police and highways agencies as they need to close the roads,” says Beardsall. “We set off from Longannet at 7pm on the Friday evening and moved them 60 miles along the route to a layby where we stored them. That leg took approximately five hours. Then the second leg was the last 25 miles to Cruachan, carried out on the Sunday morning of the same weekend.”

Navigating the Highlands with 115 tonnes of hugely valuable equipment is where the real challenge came in. Hills, dips and tight turns made for slow progress.

Generator transformer at Cruachan Power Station

The original generator transformer at Cruachan Power Station

“The average speed was about 10mph, but we’re going through the Highlands so it was quite a bit slower than that in some places. We occasionally hit 20+ mph at points, but that was definitely for the minority of the time!” says Beardsall. “Some of the roads were so narrow it was difficult to get two cars past each other. The contractors also had to put metal plating over bridges because they weren’t strong enough to take the load.”

Having safely arrived at Cruachan, the transformers are being stored at surface level until they are needed, at which time they will be taken down the half-a-mile-long tunnel into the energy storage station.

“Typically a transformer has a design life of 25 years, although they can last longer” explains Beardsall. “There are four units at Cruachan and the transformers for two of these units have already been replaced, so these transformers would be used to replace the existing transformer for the two remaining units should it ever be needed. The existing transformer having been in operation since 1965.”

Moving heavy objects is part and parcel of running Drax’s multiple power stations around the country. However, navigating the Highlands, the very terrain which makes Cruachan possible, added a unique challenge for Drax’s engineers.

Visit Cruachan Power Station – The Hollow Mountain

Read the press release

How electric planes could help clean up the skies

7 August 2019

Electrification
Turbine blades of turbo jet engine for passenger plane, aircraft concept, aviation and aerospace industry

You probably haven’t heard the phrase “flygskam” before. But you might have felt it. The recently coined Swedish term refers to the a shame or embarrassment caused by flying and its effect of the environment.

It’s not an uncommon feeling either, with 23% of people in the country now claiming to have abstained from air travel in the past year to lessen their climate impact. From electric cars to cleaner shipping, transport is undergoing dramatic change. However, aviation is proving more difficult to decarbonise than most forms of transportation.

As airports, cargo and the number of passengers flying every day continues to expand, the need to decarbonise air travel is more pressing than ever if aviation is to avoid becoming a barrier to climate action.

For other transport sectors facing a similar dilemma, electrification has proved a key route forward. Could the electrification of aeroplanes be next?

The problem with planes

Aeroplanes still rely on fossil fuels to provide the huge amount of power needed for take-off. Globally flights produced 859 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in 2017. The aviation industry as a whole accounts for 2% of all emissions derived from human activity and 12% of all transport emissions. Despite growing awareness of the contribution CO2 emissions make to causing the climate change emergency, estimates show global air traffic could quadruple by 2050.

Electrification of air travel presents the potential to drastically cut plane emissions, while also offering other benefits. Electric planes could be 50% quieter, with reduced aircraft noise pollution potentially enabling airports to operate around the clock and closer to cities.

Electric planes could also be as much as 10% cheaper for airlines to operate, by eliminating the massive expense of jet fuel, and fewer moving parts making electric motors easier to maintain compared to traditional jets. These cost savings for airlines could be passed on to passengers and businesses needing to move goods in the form of cheaper flights.

But while the benefits are obvious, the pressing question is, how feasible is it?

The race to electric planes

Start ups are now racing to develop electric planes that will reduce emissions – such Ampaire and Wright Electric. The latter has even partnered with EasyJet to develop electric planes for short-haul routes of around 335-mile distances, which make up a fifth of the budget carrier’s routes.

EasyJet going electric? (Source: easyjet.com)

EasyJet has highlighted London to Amsterdam as a key route they hope Wright Electric’s planes will operate, with potential for other zero-emission flights between London and Belfast, Dublin, Paris and Brussels. The partners aim to have an electric passenger jets on the tarmac by 2027.

Ahead on the runway, however, is Israeli firm Eviation, which recently debuted a prototype for the world’s first commercial all-electric passenger aircraft. Named ‘Alice’ the craft is expected to carry nine passengers for 650 miles and could be up and running as early as 2022.

The challenge these companies face, however, is developing the batteries needed to power electric motors capable of delivering the propulsion needed for a plane full of passengers and luggage to take off. Currently, batteries don’t have anywhere near the energy density of traditional kerosene jet fuel – 60% less.

Alice’s battery is colossal, weighing 3.8 metric tons and accounting for 60% of the plane’s overall weight. By contrast, traditional planes allocate around 30% of total weight to fuel. As conventional jets burn fuel, they get lighter, whereas electric planes would have to carry the same battery weight for the full duration of a flight.

Closer to home, on Scotland’s Orkney Islands, electric planes could be perfectly suited to replace expensive jet fuel on the region’s super-short island hopping service. There’s little need for range-anxiety, with the longest flight, from Kirkwall to North Ronaldsay, lasting just 20 minutes and the shortest taking less than two minutes, between the tiny islands of Papa Westray and neighbouring Westray.

Orkney is already known for its renewable credentials, exporting more wind-generated power to the grid than it is able to consume. The local council plans to investigate retrofitting its eight-seater aircraft, which carried more than 21,000 passengers last year, with electric motors as early as 2022.

Taking electric long haul

The planes currently under development by Ampaire, Wright Electric and Eviation are small aircraft, only capable of short distance flights. This is a long way behind the lengths capable of traditional fossil fuel-powered jets built by airline industry stalwarts, Airbus and Boeing, which are making their own move into electrification.

Ampaire: electric but only for short distances (Source: Ampaire.com)

Even with drastic developments in battery technology, however, Airbus estimates its long-haul A320 airliner, which seats between 100 and 240 passengers, would only be able to fly for a fifth of its range as an electric plane and only manage to carry half its regular cargo load. Elsewhere, French jet engine-maker Safran predicts that full-size, battery-powered commercial aircraft won’t become a reality until 2050 at the earliest.

However, if going fully electric may not yet be possible for large, long-haul planes, hybrid aircraft, which use both conventional and electric power, offer a potential middle ground.

A team comprising Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Siemens are working on a project set to launch in 2021 called E-Fan X, which would combine an electric motor with a BAE 146 aircraft’s jet engine.

Airbus say they may have to reduce their cargo to go electric (Source: www.airbus.com)

Hybrid models aim to use electric engines as the power source for the energy-intensive take-off and landing processes, saving jet fuel and reducing noise around airports. Then, while the plane is in the air, it would switch to conventional kerosene engines, which are most efficient when the plane reaches cruising altitude. Airbus aims to introduce a hybrid version of their best-selling single-aisle A320 passenger jet by 2035.

While start ups and established jet makers jostle to get electric and hybrid planes off the ground, there are other ideas around reducing aviation emissions.

Technology of the future for decarbonising planes

The University of Illinois is working with NASA to develop hydrogen fuel cells capable of powering all-electric air travel. Hydrogen fuel cells work by combining hydrogen and oxygen to cause a chemical reaction that generates an electric current. While the ingredients are very light, the problem is they are bulky to store, and on planes making effective use of space is key.

Researchers are combatting this by experimenting with cryogenically freezing the gases into liquids which makes them more space-efficient to store, but makes refuelling trickier as airports would need the infrastructure to work with the freezing liquids.

There have also been experiments into solar-powered planes. In 2016, a team of Swiss adventurers succeeded in flying around the world in an aircraft that uses solar panels on its wings to power its propellers. With a wingspan wider than a Boeing 747, but weighing just a fraction of a traditional jet, the Solar Impulse 2 is capable of staying airborne for as long as six days, though only able to carry a lone pilot.

While the feat is impressive the Solar Impulse team says the aim was to showcase the advancement of solar technology, rather than develop solar planes for mainstream usage.

Elsewhere, MIT engineers have been working on the first ever plane with no moving parts in its propulsion system. Instead, the model uses ionic wind – a silent but hugely powerful flow of ions produced aboard the plane. Ionic wind is created when a current is passed between a thick and thin electrode. With enough voltage applied, the air between the electrodes produces thrust capable of propelling a small aircraft steadily during flight. MIT hope that ionic wind systems could be paired with conventional jets to make hybrid planes for a range of uses.

A general blueprint for an MIT plane propelled by ionic wind (Source: MIT Electric Aircraft Initiative, news.mit.edu)

Like any emerging technology, it will take time to develop these alternative power sources to reach the point where they can safely and securely serve the global aviation industry.

However, it’s clear that the transition away from fossil fuels is underway.

Flying as we know it has been slow to adapt, but with a growing awareness and levels of “flygskam” among consumers, there is greater pressure on the industry to decarbonise and lay out positive solutions to cleaner air travel.

What is LNG and how is it cutting global shipping emissions?

5 July 2019

Sustainable business
Oil tanker, Gas tanker operation at oil and gas terminal.

Shipping is widely considered the most efficient form of cargo transport. As a result, it’s the transportation of choice for around 90% of world trade. But even as the most efficient, it still accounts for roughly 3% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

This may not sound like much, but it amounts to 1 billion tonnes of CO2 and other greenhouse gases per year – more than the UK’s total emissions output. In fact, if shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest producer of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. And unless there are drastic changes, emissions related to shipping could increase from between 50% and 250% by 2050.

As well as emitting GHGs that directly contribute towards the climate emergency, big ships powered by fossil fuels such as bunker fuel (also known as heavy fuel oil) release other emissions. These include two that can have indirect impacts – sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Both impact air quality and can have human health and environmental impacts.

As a result, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is introducing measures that will actively look to force shipping companies to reduce their emissions. In January 2020 it will bring in new rules that dictate all vessels will need to use fuels with a sulphur content of below 0.5%.

One approach ship owners are taking to meet these targets is to fit ‘scrubbers’– devices which wash exhausts with seawater, turning the sulphur oxides emitted from burning fossil fuel oils into harmless calcium sulphate. But these will only tackle the sulphur problem, and still mean that ships emit CO2.

Another approach is switching to cleaner energy alternatives such as biofuels, batteries or even sails, but the most promising of these based on existing technology is liquefied natural gas, or LNG.

What is LNG?

In its liquid form, natural gas can be used as a fuel to power ships, replacing heavy fuel oil, which is more typically used, emissions-heavy and cheaper. But first it needs to be turned into a liquid.

To do this, raw natural gas is purified to separate out all impurities and liquids. This leaves a mixture of mostly methane and some ethane, which is passed through giant refrigerators that cool it to -162oC, in turn shrinking its volume by 600 times.

The end product is a colourless, transparent, non-toxic liquid that’s much easier to store and transport, and can be used to power specially constructed LNG-ready ships, or by ships retrofitted to run on LNG. As well as being versatile, it has the potential to reduce sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides by 90 to 95%, while emitting 10 to 20% less CO2 than heavier fuel alternatives.

The cost of operating a vessel on LNG is around half that of ultra-low sulphur marine diesel (an alternative fuel option for ships aiming to lower their sulphur output), and it’s also future-proofed in a way that other low-sulphur options are not. As emissions standards become stricter in the coming years, vessels using natural gas would still fall below any threshold.

The industry is starting to take notice. Last year 78 vessels were fitted to run on LNG, the highest annual number to date.

One company that has already embraced the switch to LNG is Estonia’s Graanul Invest. Europe’s largest wood pellet producer and a supplier to Drax Power Station, Graanul is preparing to introduce custom-built vessels that run on LNG by 2020.

The new ships will have the capacity to transport around 9,000 tonnes of compressed wood pellets and Graanul estimates that switching to LNG has the potential to lower its CO2 emissions by 25%, to cut NOx emissions by 85%, and to almost completely eliminate SO2 and particulate matter pollution.  

Is LNG shipping’s only viable option?

LNG might be leading the charge towards cleaner shipping, but it’s not the only solution on the table. Another potential is using advanced sail technology to harness wind, which helps power large cargo ships. More than just an innovative way to upscale a centuries-old method of navigating the seas, it is one that could potentially be retrofitted to cargo ships and significantly reduce emissions.

Drax is currently taking part in a study with the Smart Green Shipping Alliance, Danish dry bulk cargo transporter Ultrabulk and Humphreys Yacht Design, to assess the possibility of retrofitting innovative sail technology onto one of its ships for importing biomass.

Manufacturers are also looking at battery power as a route to lowering emissions. Last year, boats using battery-fitted technology similar to that used by plug-in cars were developed for use in Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, while Dutch company Port-Liner are currently building two giant all-electric barges – dubbed ‘Tesla ships’ – that will be powered by battery packs and can carry up to 280 containers.

Then there are projects exploring the use of ammonia (which can be produced from air and water using renewable electricity), and hydrogen fuel cell technology. In short, there are many options on the table, but few that can be implemented quickly, and at scale – two things which are needed by the industry. Judged by these criteria, LNG remains the frontrunner.

There are currently just 125 ships worldwide using LNG, but these numbers are expected to increase by between 400 and 600 by 2020. Given that the world fleet boasts more than 60,000 commercial ships, this remains a drop in the ocean, but with the right support it could be the start of a large scale move towards cleaner waterways.

What is a fuel cell and how will they help power the future?

27 June 2019

Carbon capture

How do you get a drink in space? That was one of the challenges for NASA in the 1960s and 70s when its Gemini and Apollo programmes were first preparing to take humans into space.

The answer, it turned out, surprisingly lay in the electricity source of the capsules’ control modules. Primitive by today’s standard, these panels were powered by what are known as fuel cells, which combined hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity. The by-product of this reaction is heat but also water – pure enough for astronauts to drink.

Fuel cells offered NASA a much better option than the clunky batteries and inefficient solar arrays of the 1960s, and today they still remain on the forefront of energy technology, presenting the opportunity to clean up roads, power buildings and even help to reduce and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power stations.

Power through reaction

At its most basic, a fuel cell is a device that uses a fuel source to generate electricity through a series of chemical reactions.

All fuel cells consist of three segments, two catalytic electrodes – a negatively charged anode on one side and a positively charged cathode on the other, and an electrolyte separating them. In a simple fuel cell, hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is pumped to one electrode and oxygen to the other. Two different reactions then occur at the interfaces between the segments which generates electricity and water.

What allows this reaction to generate electricity is the electrolyte, which selectively transports charged particles from one electrode to the other. These charged molecules link the two reactions at the cathode and anode together and allow the overall reaction to occur. When the chemicals fed into the cell react at the electrodes, it creates an electrical current that can be harnessed as a power source.

Many different kinds of chemicals can be used in a fuel cell, such as natural gas or propane instead of hydrogen. A fuel cell is usually named based on the electrolyte used. Different electrolytes selectively transport different molecules across. The catalysts at either side are specialised to ensure that the correct reactions can occur at a fast enough rate.

For the Apollo missions, for example, NASA used alkaline fuel cells with potassium hydroxide electrolytes, but other types such as phosphoric acids, molten carbonates, or even solid ceramic electrolytes also exist.

The by-products to come out of a fuel cell all depend on what goes into it, however, their ability to generate electricity while creating few emissions, means they could have a key role to play in decarbonisation.

Fuel cells as a battery alternative

Fuel cells, like batteries, can store potential energy (in the form of chemicals), and then quickly produce an electrical current when needed. Their key difference, however, is that while batteries will eventually run out of power and need to be recharged, fuel cells will continue to function and produce electricity so long as there is fuel being fed in.

One of the most promising uses for fuel cells as an alternative to batteries is in electric vehicles.

Rachel Grima, a Research and Innovation Engineer at Drax, explains:

“Because it’s so light, hydrogen has a lot of potential when it comes to larger vehicles, like trucks and boats. Whereas battery-powered trucks are more difficult to design because they’re so heavy.”

These vehicles can pull in oxygen from the surrounding air to react with the stored hydrogen, producing only heat and water vapour as waste products. Which – coupled with an expanding network of hydrogen fuelling stations around the UK, Europe and US – makes them a transport fuel with a potentially big future.

 

Fuel cells, in conjunction with electrolysers, can also operate as large-scale storage option. Electrolysers operate in reverse to fuel cells, using excess electricity from the grid to produce hydrogen from water and storing it until it’s needed. When there is demand for electricity, the hydrogen is released and electricity generation begins in the fuel cell.

A project on the islands of Orkney is using the excess electricity generated by local, community-owned wind turbines to power a electrolyser and store hydrogen, that can be transported to fuel cells around the archipelago.

Fuel cells’ ability to take chemicals and generate electricity is also leading to experiments at Drax for one of the most important areas in energy today: carbon capture.

Turning CO2 to power

Drax is already piloting bioenergy carbon capture and storage technologies, but fuel cells offer the unique ability to capture and use carbon while also adding another form of electricity generation to Drax Power Station.

“We’re looking at using a molten carbonate fuel cell that operates on natural gas, oxygen and CO2,” says Grima. “It’s basic chemistry that we can exploit to do carbon capture.”

The molten carbonate, a 600 degrees Celsius liquid made up of either lithium potassium or lithiumsodium carbonate sits in a ceramic matrix and functions as the electrolyte in the fuel cell. Natural gas and steam enter on one side and pass through a reformer that converts them into hydrogen and CO2.

On the other side, flue gas – the emissions (including biogenic CO2) which normally enter the atmosphere from Drax’s biomass units – is captured and fed into the cell alongside air from the atmosphere. The CO2and oxygen (O2) pass over the electrode where they form carbonate (CO32-) which is transported across the electrolyte to then react with the hydrogen (H2), creating an electrical charge.

“It’s like combining an open cycle gas turbine (OCGT) with carbon capture,” says Grima. “It has the electrical efficiency of an OCGT. But the difference is it captures CO2 from our biomass units as well as its own CO2.”

Along with capturing and using CO2, the fuel cell also reduces nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions from the flue gas, some of which are destroyed when the O2and CO2 react at the electrode.

From the side of the cell where flue gas enters a CO2-depleted gas is released. On the other side of the cell the by-products are water and CO2.

During a government-supported front end engineering and design (FEED) study starting this spring, this CO2 will also be captured, then fed through a pipeline running from Drax Power Station into the greenhouse of a nearby salad grower. Here it will act to accelerate the growth of tomatoes.

The partnership between Drax, FuelCell Energy, P3P Partners and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy could provide an additional opportunity for the UK’s biggest renewable power generator to deploy bioenergy carbon capture usage and storage (BECCUS) at scale in the mid 2020s.

From powering space ships in the 70s to offering greenhouse-gas free transport, fuel cells continue to advance. As low-carbon electricity sources become more important they’re set to play a bigger role yet.

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

Electricity and magnetism: the relationship that makes the modern world work

30 January 2019

Power generation

Locked in a Parisian vault and stored in a double set of bell jars is a small cylinder of metal. Made of platinum-iridium, the carefully guarded lump weighs exactly one kilogram. But more than just weighing one kilogram, it is the kilogram from which all other official kilograms are weighed.

International prototype kilogram with protective double glass bell

Known as the International Prototype Kilogram, or colloquially as Le Grand K, the weight was created in 1889 and has been carefully replicated to offer nations around the world a standardised kilogram. But over time Le Grand K and its clones have slightly deteriorated through wear and tear, despite extremely careful use. In an age of micro and nanotechnology, bits of metal aren’t quite accurate enough to dictate global weighs and so as of May this year it will no longer be the global measurement for a kilogram. An electromagnet is part of its replacement.

An electromagnet is effectively a magnet that is ‘turned on’ by running an electric current through it. Cutting the current turns it off, while increasing or decreasing the strength of the current increases and decreases the power of the magnet.

It can be used to measure a kilogram very precisely thanks to something called a Kibble Balance, which is essentially a set of scales. However, instead of using weights it uses an electromagnet to pull down one side. Because the electric current flowing through the electromagnet can be increased, decreased and measured very, very accurately, it means scientists can define any weight – in this case a kilogram – by the amount of electrical current needed to balance the scale.

This radical overhaul of how weights are defined means scientists won’t have to fly off to Paris every time they need precise kilograms. Beyond just replacing worn-out weights, however, it highlights the versatility and potential of electromagnets, from their use in electricity generation to creating hard drives and powering speakers.

The simple way to make a magnet

Magnets and electricity might at first not seem closely connected. One powers your fridge, the other attaches holiday souvenirs to it. The former certainly feels more useful. However, the relationship between magnetic and electric fields is as close as two sides of the same coin. They are both aspects of the same force: electromagnetism.

Electromagnetism is very complicated and there’re still aspects of it that are unknown today. It was thinking about electromagnetism that led Einstein to come up with his theory of special relativity. However, actually creating an electromagnet is relatively straightforward.

All matter is made up of atoms. Every neutral atom’s core is made up of static neutrons and protons, with electrons spinning around them. These electrons have a charge and a mass, giving the electrons a tiny magnetic field. In most matter all atoms are aligned in random ways and effectively all cancel each other out to render the matter non-magnetic. But if the atoms and their electrons can all be aligned in the same direction then the object becomes magnetic.

A magnet can stick to an object like a paperclip because its permanent magnetic field realigns the atoms in the paperclip to make it temporarily magnetic too – allowing the magnetic forces to line up and the materials to attract. However, once the paper clip is taken away from the magnet its atoms fall out of sync and point in random directions, cancelling out each other’s magnetic fields once again.

Whether a material can become magnetic or not relies on a similar principal as to whether it can conduct electricity. Materials like wood and glass are poor conductors because their atoms have a strong hold over their electrons. By contrast, materials like metals have a loose hold on their electrons and so are good conductors and easily magnetised. Nickle, cobalt and iron are described as ferromagnetic, because their atoms can stay in sync making them a permanent magnet. But when magnets really become useful is when electricity gets involved.

Putting magnets to work

Running an electric current through a material with a weak hold on its electrons causes them to align, creating an electromagnetic field. Because of the relationships between electric and magnetic fields, the strength of the electromagnet can also be altered by increasing or decreasing the current, while switching the flow of the current will flip its north and south poles.

Having this much control over a magnetic field makes it very useful in everyday life, including how we generate electricity.

Find out how we rewind a generator core in a clean room at the heart of Drax Power Station

Inside each of the six generator cores at Drax Power Station, is a 120-tonne rotor. When a voltage is applied, this piece of equipment becomes a massive electromagnet. When steam powers the turbines to rotate it at 3,000 rpm the rotor’s very powerful magnetic field knocks electrons in the copper bars of the surrounding stator out of place, sending them zooming through the metal, in turn generating an electrical current that is sent out to the grid. The 660 megawatts (MW) of active power Drax’s Unit 1 can export into the national transmission system is enough to power 1.3 million homes for an hour.

Beyond just producing electricity, however, electromagnets are also used to make it useful to everyday life.  Almost anything electric that depends on moving parts, from pumping loud speakers to circuit breakers to the motors of electric cars, depend on electromagnets. As more decarbonisation efforts lead to greater electrification of areas like transport, electromagnets will remain vital to daily life into the future.