Breaking Ground: Drax power plant plans approved

In this week’s round-up of projects across the utilities sector, Drax has been given approval for its gas conversion proposal at its power plant; Thames has updated on the Tideway project and SSEN is seeking public engagement on its £40 million local energy project for Oxfordshire

Drax

The government has given the go-ahead to Drax’s plans to convert two of the coal-fired generation units at its power station in north Yorkshire to gas-fired generation.

The company has already converted four of the plant’s six coal units to use biomass.

The proposals comprise up to four new combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) (two each for Units 5 and 6), each powering a dedicated generator of up to 600MW in capacity.

Once re-powered, both units would have a gross electrical output capacity of up to 1,800 megawatts.

Drax has also proposed constructing a battery storage facility with capacity of up to 200MW.

Last year, the planning inspectorate recommended that the project was refused due to its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the government ruled that gas-fired units would emit less carbon dioxide than coal-fired and some fossil fuel generation capacity is needed to provide back-up for intermittent renewables capacity.

Thames Water

The latest video update has been released on the Thames Tideway “super sewer” scheme.

It details the work of geologists at Carnwath Road, the concrete segments used to create the tunnel rings at Kirtling Street and young engineer Gjenis at Chambers Wharf.

Foresight Group

The Foresight Group has announced the acquisition of two wind farms with an aggregate generating capacity of 37.5MW from Glennmont Partners.

The wind farms, Gruig and Todmorden have been operating since 2009 and 2014 respectively, and the deal boosts Foresight’s total wind assets under management by 11% to 372.5MW.

Gruig is a 10 turbine, 25MW, NIROC-accredited wind farm located near Ballymena in Northern Ireland and Todmorden is a 5 turbine, 12.5MW, ROC-accredited wind farm located in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.

The value of the deal was not disclosed.

OWGP

The Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) has released its first funding pot, of £400,000.

Launched in June 2019, the OWGP is part of the Offshore Wind Sector Deal between industry and Government. Funded by the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) and delivered by the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, it has a budget of £100 million over a ten-year period and will promote closer collaboration across the supply chain and facilitate shared growth opportunities between developers and the supply chain.

The funding is available to all UK companies for submissions in two specific areas: cost reduction from advanced manufacturing techniques; and developing advanced sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) and communications solutions for offshore wind.

For more information on applying, see the OWGP website .

SSEN

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has updated on its £40 million Local Energy Oxfordshire (LEO) project.

The three-year scheme will test electricity market flexibility models and markets across Oxfordshire. It will explore how the growth in local renewables, electric vehicles, battery storage, vehicle-to-grid technology and demand side response can be supported by a local, flexible and responsive electricity grid to ensure value for consumers and opportunities for communities and market providers.

SSEN has now launched a website about the project, which will include information on how customers and communities can get involved with the project and find out about stakeholder events and activities.

Project LEO is a three year project, supported by £26 million of private funding from the project partners, alongside £13.8 million of funding from the Industrial Strategy Challenge fund, which is managed by Innovate UK. It is a partnership between SSEN, Low Carbon Hub, the University of Oxford, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford City Council, Oxfordshire County Council, Piclo, Nuvve Corporation and EDF Energy.

Northern Powergrid

The company is moving to the next phase of a £3.3 million project to improve the reliability and resilience of the network serving serving Skelton, Saltburn and Marske in north Yorkshire.

This second phase of work, which starts next Monday (14 October) and runs until spring 2020, sees the company investing a further £1.6 million to improve the reliability of the electricity supply in Saltburn and Marske by replacing its existing assets with more modern equipment, including smart technology. This includes upgrading 7.1km of underground cabling, dismantling 800m of overhead power lines and replacing four time-served pole mounted substations with two more modern ground mounted substations. The company is also installing 14 remote control switches.