Time is running out for UK flagship wind project London Array

Gregory Barker, the Shadow minister for climate change writing in the Sunday Times, 1st Feb, “Brown has a Power Failure” points out that unless a decision is made soon to go ahead with the London Array in the Thames Estuary, then National Grid will miss the slot allocated to upgrade the Grid in time. Apparently […]

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Myth of technical un-feasibility of complex multi-terminal HVDC and ideological barriers to inter-country power exchanges – Czisch

From Dr Gregor Czisch.

There are two subjects in Nigel Wakefield’s email I would like to address:

First Subject- Technical feasibility of complex multi-terminal HVDC systems:

Nigel Wakefield wrote

> One of the problems that needs addressing with HVDC is, I believe
> the problem of multi-nodal links. … However I understand that
> technology linking individual point supply into an HVDC link is
> not available yet.

Can anyone elucidate on this?

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Falling Hydro, Rising Renewables wind from 4.3% to 32.7% net in renewables, excl. hydro in 10 years.

Wind generation is rapidly gaining a larger share of total renewable generation. In 2007, wind accounted for 32.7 percent of total net generation from non-hydroelectric renewable sources, as compared to 4.3 percent in 1997. The annual growth in solar thermal and photovoltaic generation has been sufficient for this renewable source to account, on average, for 0.5 percent of all non-hydroelectric renewable energy.

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Two environmental assessments show ‘huge scope for development’

The two announcements are the study on locations for future offshore energy developments, which identified scope for between 5,000 and 7,000 more offshore wind turbines, and the study on the Severn Barrage, which shortlisted 5 projects with the potential to supply up to 5% of UK’s electricity consumption.   The conclusion of the UK Offshore […]

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European Super Grid – "Wrong to suggest this would make Europe more vulnerable than importing Russian Gas and Middle East fossil fuels" – ?

The above slide from Czisch (“An affordable renewable power system for Europe”) shows that Europe is unlikely to be vulnerable to sudden disconnection / sabotage of say a single or several, North African regions since there is considerable redundancy in connection and diversity of supply areas, and European grids of necessity already have existing sophisticated […]

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"Real energy security" – Prof. David Elliott, Open University

(Originally Letter to Guardian Newspaper)     With the battles continuing over the EU’s access to Russia’s gas supplies via transit arrangement across the Ukraine, it may be worth looking to the future, when a different set of energy options may change the geopolitical realities.  Currently we are fighting over the dwindling and increasingly expensive oil and […]

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