Icelandic plan to export clean electricity could spark European super grid

Iceland has a huge geothermal energy resource, due to its volcanic origins. Plans to transmit this energy through an underwater cable over 745 miles (1198km) long to Europe are currently being considered. The high-voltage, electrical cable would be the longest in the world by far and is one of many international interconnectors that are proposed or in construction, adding to the 15 or so which already exist in Europe. It is part of an ambitious plan to have a highly networked European electricity super grid.

The potential implications of a pan-European super grid are huge. Energy trading would become truly Europe-wide, with large-scale electricity movement possible and prices varying on international levels of supply and demand. There is a long-running debate in Brussels about how exactly to build the EU energy market. The EU believes that ownership unbundling- preventing a firm from having both power generation and transmission assets-  is necessary, but some member states, led by France and Germany, are unconvinced this is the best option [1].

A large-scale international grid in Europe could help solve the problem of unpredictable supply from renewable sources and lack of electricity storage, as the market balances supply by trading surplus renewable-generated electricity with other countries. By having a larger market to sell to, problems like oversupply leading to working wind farms being temporarily turned off could be a thing of the past [2]: this energy could simply be sold to another country instead. This reduces the need for baseload generation such as coal or nuclear plants, which generate at a constant rate.

The plan estimates that Iceland could export 5bn kWh of energy each year, with a predicted return of $350-448 million [3]. The official costs have not been released, but a 1980s study predicts it to be profitable, even in the worst-case scenario of 1500km. A feasibility study has been carried out for the Iceland cable, and failed to find any insurmountable technical difficulties with the idea, although there are clearly engineering challenges associated with laying an underwater cable that far. The race is now on between North Sea countries to convince Iceland to route the cable to their shores. The UK energy minister, Charles Hendry, is heading to Iceland in May to discuss having the UK at the other end of the cable [4].

[1] http://www.euractiv.com/energy/eu-electricity-market-liberalisation/article-169597

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenpolitics/8978458/10m-cost-of-turning-off-wind-farms.html

[3] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/04/plans-afoot-to-tap-icelands-geothermal-energy-with-745-mile-cable.ars

[4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/11/iceland-volcano-green-power

TEDx Warwick

Last month, I went to TEDx Warwick, a day of talks about ideas. This event is based on the format by TED, where speakers give a presentation in less than 18 minutes.

The videos are now online, so I would like to share what I thought about them, with the ability for people to watch and make up their own minds! The youtube playlist is here.

They are all worth a watch, but the ones I particularly enjoyed were by David Mackay, Andy Stanford-Clark and Kerry Kirwan.


David Mackay: How the Laws of Physics Constrain Our Sustainable Energy options (link)

David Mackay is something of an idol to me- he wrote the fantastic book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air", and is a physicist as well! His talk focusses on explaining our energy demand and how to supply it in a sustainable way, with the physical limitations of each sustainable option (our renewables, other people's renewables, nuclear). I really enjoyed this talk, and I think anyone reading this blog would too. He really explains the situation in a simple way, using the numbers involved to give weight to his analysis- a great talk.


Andy Stanford-Clark: Innovation begins at Home (link)

Andy Stanford-Clark is the "Master Inventor" at IBM UK (a very grand title!) and his talk was about the "internet of things"- the idea that many of the objects we use (fridges, alarm systems, mousetraps, heating systems) might one day be connected to the internet, to give some degree of control remotely, over the internet. As Master Inventor, he has taken this to heart and to his home- installing a mousetrap which lets him know over the internet when it has been triggered, or an outdoor light which can be turned on remotely. He extends this thought process to a vision of the world where everything is connected- an interesting idea, and one that certainly has the potential to become reality. For example, it is already possible to use an app to remotely control what to record on Sky+, and it is only a small step to turn on the heating while on your way home or have your fridge let you know that you are out of milk when you walk past a Tesco!


Kerry Kirwan: Lean, Mean and Green (link)
Kerry Kirwan is an Associate Professor of Engineering here at Warwick. His talk concerned the idea of "greening" motorsport. This is not a new idea- cars and races do exist for electric and biofuelled vehicles, but they wanted to go further, and look at the materials the car is made from. They succeeded in making a series of breakthrough materials from sustainable sources (e.g. carrot steering wheel!), in the hope that some of their techniques can be incorporated into current racing or road cars with virtually no change in performance, but a huge reduction in the associated energy cost of manufacture. Great to see someone thinking so practically on how to improve the sustainability of motorsport and potentially normal road cars too.


The other talks were interesting as well, they are all on the youtube playlist- let me know what you think of them!

EWB Tour: Wind farms and the Eden Project!

A few weeks ago, I went away to Cornwall for the weekend with Engineers without Borders (EWB). We went to a wind farm (Delabole), the wind turbine at the farm we stayed at and the Eden Project.
Firstly, Delabole wind farm. This was my first time at a proper onshore wind farm and I was impressed by the scale of the turbines, which are each around 40m high. I was also listening carefully to try and hear the blades: after watching Windfarm Wars, it was clear that the main issues that some in the community had with the proposed wind farm was the added noise, as well as the visual impact. I could only barely hear the turbines spinning, which surprised me as some in the BBC programme were saying that the noise had stopped them sleeping and ruined their lives. Obviously, I only saw the turbines on one particular day in particular wind conditions, but I was still expecting to be able to hear the blades turning as we drove up to the farm! A few of the pictures are below.

A few turbines

View of a turbine from the base

Info board

After that, we went to go and see the turbine belonging to the farmer we were staying with. This fairly small (50kW rated, I think) turbine generates electricity for him while taking up a small ground footprint- it was simply in a field with cows, who didn't seem too bothered! This is evidently a good use of the space available to the farmer- he can generate money and energy at the same time and in the same place as growing cattle.

Finally, we went to the Eden Project. This remarkable place, set in an disused quarry, contains two "biomes", Rainforest and Mediterranean, both with a huge range of plants and trees, as well as a large outdoor garden and The Core, a building devoted to teaching about sustainable living. It's an incredible place, and I'd recommend anyone to go there- I'm not a plant lover, but I still enjoyed the beauty and peacefullness of the place. The Core was an interesting educational space, but was really aimed at instilling the ideas of sustainability in the next generation, so was at a lower level than I'm used to; good to see these kinds of facilities available though. The restaurant was also amazing- great local food and surprisingly cheap! Eden Project pictures below.

The Core

Biomes

Overall, it was a great weekend away. I came away with a bit more perspective about renewables in the UK, and the feeling that, for all the talk about targets and emissions, there are forward-thinking people actually putting those ideas into action.