In just six years’ time an estimated 150,000 homes in the UK and France could be powered by clean, renewable energy from the waters around a five-square mile island in the English Channel.
Alderney, the third largest of the Channel Islands, is working on a strategy to revitalise its economy by not only becoming self-sustainable in energy by 2020, but also an important exporter of green energy to Europe.
One of the long-term plans behind this ambition is to harness the power of Alderney’s territorial waters – and in significant progress towards this goal has been made during the past two weeks.
Alderney Renewable Energy Limited (ARE) has confirmed a joint venture with tidal technology company OpenHyrdo to develop a 300MW tidal array.
It has also been granted a licence by British energy regulator Ofgem for a power interconnector between the island, UK and France to enable the energy to be exported and traded within European markets.
These milestones have been described as ‘critical pieces in the jigsaw’ of Alderney’s aim to build a sustainable economy based on renewable energy.
It already has phase one plans underway to create a bio digester facility on the island. Now it has received a double boost towards its second and third phase plans to host one of the largest renewable energy projects in European waters and export the energy created.
The on-island anaerobic digestion unit, which if approved is likely to be built later this year as Phase one of the programme, is anticipated to create 800KW of energy by recycling farm and residential waste.
On completion of Phases two and three, there will be enough to power the 1,900 homes on the island and to save Alderney’s economy up to £200,000 a year on the current energy costs from diesel generators.
In the longer term, the tidal array, anticipated to consist of 150 turbines of 2 MW each, is expected to generate enough power for 150,000 homes.
The licensed power interconnector between UK and France will provide the route to market for the joint venture to export and trade this energy, earning significant revenues for the States of Alderney.

Irish tidal technology company OpenHydro and Alderney Renewable Energy (ARE) have signed a joint venture that will see the two companies combine to develop a 300MW tidal array in Alderney waters at a cost of €600m.

The UK Government has launched The Solar Strategy that sets out the government’s ambition to see solar energy rolled out more widely and with it the potential to support tens of thousands of jobs.

The UK Energy Minister Greg Barker outlined The Solar Strategy at SunSolar Energy in Birmingham. The Solar Strategy is focused on transforming government buildings, factories, supermarkets and car parks into solar hubs.

Barker said that there is massive potential to turn the large buildings into power stations and that people must seize the opportunity this offers to boost the UK’s economy as part of the country’s long term economic plan.

“Solar not only benefits the environment, it will see British job creation and deliver the clean and reliable energy supplies that the country needs at the lowest possible cost to consumers,” Barker said.

Barker said that government wants to move the emphasis for growth away from large solar farms and instead focus on opening up the solar market for the country’s estimated 250,000 hectares of south facing commercial rooftops.

According to Barker, solar power increasingly offers efficient and cost-effective onsite generation opportunities for both businesses and domestic consumers, and the government’s strategy makes a step towards change in its ambition for both groups as a means to generate renewable energy.

Widespread solar will ensure a better deal for hard pressed consumers and help move towards a greener, more local energy sector.

The UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change Greg Barker has worked closely with his Ministerial colleague from the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, and his team – who are leading on an element of the Strategy, implementing the Solar PV Strategy across the government estate.

The Solar Strategy follows the Solar PV Roadmap, which was published in October 2013. The Solar PV Roadmap established the principles for solar PV deployment in the UK.

Siemens is investing £160 million in two wind turbine production and installation sites in Yorkshire.

The sites comprise the previously announced Green Port Hull project construction, assembly and service facility and a new rotor blade manufacturing facility in nearby Paull, East Riding.

Siemens’ port partner, Associated British Ports, (ABP) is investing a further £150m in the Green Port Hull development.

The sites will create up to 1,000 jobs directly, with additional jobs during construction and indirectly in the supply chain.

The Green Port Hull project has been in the making for around four years and is the product of a huge team effort between many national and local political, business and community parties and many people within Siemens in the UK, Denmark and Germany, and ABP.

Siemens said the development would include the first manufacturing plant of its kind for the company’s next generation blade technology designed for Siemens SWT-6.0-154 6 megawatt (MW) wind turbine.

Michael Suess, member of the managing board of Siemens AG and CEO of the Energy Sector, said: “Our decision to construct a production facility for offshore wind turbines in England is part of our global strategy: we invest in markets with reliable conditions that can ensure that factories can work to capacity.

“The British energy policy creates a favourable framework for the expansion of offshore wind energy. In particular, it recognizes the potential of offshore wind energy within the overall portfolio of energy production”, stated.

“The offshore wind market in Great Britain has high growth rates, with an even greater potential for the future.”

Roland Aurich, chief executive of Siemens plc, added: “Being able to further increase our presence in the UK with this significant commitment is great for Siemens, for the UK economy and for future generations, who will benefit from more secure and sustainable, low carbon energy.”

Siemens and ABP will be submitting planning applications over the next few months for revisions to the existing proposed scheme at Alexandra Dock and for land in Paull for the wind turbine blade factory.

Green Port Hull is planned to be operational in early 2016. The start of production at the blade factory is scheduled to be in the middle of 2016 with full production levels reached from mid-2017.
– See more at: http://www.worksmanagement.co.uk/news/Siemens-invests-160m-in-UK-wind-manufacturing-factories/60369/149766/#sthash.R4yOIVQI.dpuf

Brookfield Renewable, one of the largest Canadian renewable-energy firms, has made a major push into Europe with the purchase of 17 Irish wind-energy projects worth an estimated €700m.

The company announced the deal as part of its acquisition of all of Bord Gáis’ energy business. A consortium that includes Brookfield Renewable, Centrica plc and iCON Infrastructure will acquire the non-wind assets of the Irish energy supplier.

Bord Gáis’ wind portfolio comprises 321MW of operating wind capacity across 17 wind projects in eight counties in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, which represents about 15pc of the installed wind capacity in Ireland, and includes some of the strongest onshore wind resources in Europe.

According to its statement on the acquisition, Brookfield Renewable sees the purchase as its first step in entering an already competitive renewable market in Europe and, from an Irish perspective, see huge untapped potential for Ireland, with future growth expected to come from an additional 125MW of wind energy across projects already in construction, as well as an approximate 300MW wind-development pipeline.

Speaking about the workers on Bord Gáis’ renewable energy sites, president and CEO of Brookfield Renewable, Richard Legault, put any fears of job security to rest as the company intends to keep the workforce already in place. “This is truly a milestone investment for Brookfield Renewable.

“The Bord Gáis portfolio represents an ideal entry point into the European market, bringing with it high quality renewable assets and an experienced team of approximately 70 professionals with operating, development, technical, commercial, and finance expertise. Moreover, this first acquisition outside the Americas provides us with a strong foundation to build a scalable renewable-energy business in Europe.”

The company already owns and runs a number of renewable-energy centres in both North and South America and will see, with this acquisition, its operating portfolio of 320MW to exceed 500MW by 2015.

Atkins has won an engineering contract for the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm in the UK.

The scope of the contract includes design and engineering services for the monopile foundations for the 6MW turbines as well as management assistance during fabrication and installation.

To be located 20 miles off the coast of Cromer in North Norfolk, the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm will have an installed capacity of around 400MW, which is enough energy to power up to approximately 410,000 homes and reduces emissions of carbon dioxide by up to 19 million tonnes over its 25 year lifetime.

Atkins’ Renewables managing director business David Parkin, said, “This contract win further builds on our established position as a leading engineering consultancy in the offshore wind sector. The project plays to our strengths in geotechnical and offshore structural engineering, and we look forward to working with Statoil and Statkraft to deliver the project.”

The engineering activities are already underway and include structure design, structure analysis, drawing production and geotechnical engineering.

The management assistance part of the contract includes follow up of the fabrication which will commence in 2015.

The execution of the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm project is subject to a final investment decision by its owners in the third quarter of 2014.

The UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced that four businesses will share more than £4m (€4.8m) in grants to support R&D into offshore wind power.

The grants have been awarded as part of the DECC’s innovation competition to support development of offshore wind power.

DECC minister Greg Barker said that 2-B Energy, High Voltage Partial Discharge, SgurrControl and Ocean Resource have been awarded the grants to steam-line the design and installation of offshore wind turbines, which could lead to significant reductions in the cost of offshore wind.

“The UK is already the world leader in offshore wind – with more deployed than any other country,” Barker said.

“The benefits that offshore wind can bring are clear – from enhancing our energy security, reducing our dependence on imports and helping reduce our carbon emissions.”

Barker added, “Innovation is critical to cutting the cost of this low-carbon power source, which could in turn, lead to lower bills for hardworking consumers. I wish the winners every success with their projects.”

The funding would help in gaining substantial amounts of private sector investment for each successful offshore wind technology and to enable them for commercial deployment.

Around £2.8m (€3.3m) was awarded to 2-B Energy, which is working on an innovative two blade turbine design that could reduce costs by as much as 35%. The company is planning to trial the new design onshore in the Netherlands.

Later, the technology will be tested at an offshore version site off the Scottish coast at Fife.

High Voltage Partial Discharge has been awarded £900,370 (€1m) to develop and trial a new type of monitoring technology that will provide early warning of faults in HVDC cables.

SgurrControl has been granted £667,000 (€0.8m) to assist in developing a system that decreases stress on turbine blades.

SgurrControl will lead the project in collaboration with Romax Technology Ltd and Blaaster Wind Technologies AS.

South Wales-based Ocean Resource has been given £216,442 (€257,993) for developing an offshore wind turbine that is assembled and commissioned on-shore and towed fully assembled for site installation using tugs.

Italian renewable energy companies Enel Green Power and SECI Energia will develop a new 30MW biomass power project in the town of Russi, near Ravenna in Italy.

The two companies will develop the Powercrop biomass project with an investment of €126m in an industrial area previously occupied by the Eridania sugar refinery.

The 30MW power project, which will run on locally-sourced chipped virgin wood, will require 270,000t of fuel per annum. The project is expected to have a total annual output of 222GWh, enough to meet the needs of 84,000 households.

It will provide more than 300 direct and indirect jobs, in addition to the 200 workers who will be building the facility.

The facility will also have a biogas plant with a power generation capacity of 1MW. The plant will require 18,000t of corn silage and 26,000t of pig manure per annum from local producers.

Fully developing the local agriculture and forestry supply chains, and optimising the use of clippings and agricultural residues through the construction of new plants is in line with the EU recommendation on the use of biomasses as one of the key ways of ensuring the security of supply and sustainable energy in Europe.

In March 2013, Enel Green Power and SECI Energia signed the definitive agreement to acquire 50% of Powercrop.

With this acquisition, Enel Green Power has entered into a partnership with SECI Energia to develop energy from the biomass short supply chain by building five new plants with a total installed capacity of 150MW.

The five new plants include 31MW Russi, 50MW Macchiareddu, 19MW Castiglion Fiorentino, 19MW Fermo and 30MW Avezzano.

Welcoming the opportunity to address the AD industry at the sector’s largest dedicated event, UK AD & Biogas 2014 (2-3 July), Partha Vasudev, Vice President Waste & Bioenergy, Green Investment Bank (GIB), has been confirmed a key speaker at the ADBA organised annual show. The Green Investment Bank has an important role to play in the uptake of AD in the UK. It invests in ‘UK projects which are both green and commercial’. The bank has identified waste as a priority sector for its investment, appreciating the potential for anaerobic digestion to deliver against the bank’s mandate to deliver sustainable green growth.

“Anaerobic digestion is an exciting market for the Green Investment Bank. The technology is at the core of government waste policy, and with a good pipeline of projects it can help us meet our investment goals and accelerate investment in the green economy,” said Partha.

“The strong growth in the marketplace over the last year is exciting and we look forward to working with the industry to achieve its potential.”

GIB has identified that AD capacity already ‘available to be developed’ requires investment of around £650m, and GIB support in this investment would make a significant difference to the UK’s AD infrastructure and the speed at which it develops. The bank’s investment funds have already committed a combined £10m to TEG’s Dagenham AD plant – where build was completed this week – and Earthly Energy’s Teeside AD plant, where construction began in March 2013. The potential for further investment in both the waste and farming sectors is an exciting prospect.

Charlotte Morton, Chief Executive, ADBA, said: “I am delighted that the Green Investment Bank will be presenting at the industry event of the year, UK AD & Biogas 2014. The bank has already made a hugely valuable contribution to the industry, through its early investments and its first market report, and we look forward to hearing how they have seen that market develop.

“In the future, there are huge opportunities to support the market more widely. The government’s response to the Ecosystem Markets Task Force recognised the key role that smaller AD plants can play in supporting climate-smart farming and confirmed that they ‘will work with WRAP and the Green Investment Bank to explore the financing of farm-scale AD projects at an aggregate level… both for equity investments and for debt financing.’

“Given the challenges facing smaller scale AD, GIB’s analysis of the market in general will be fascinating.”

The anaerobic digestion and biogas industry looks forward to the annual exhibition and conference, UK AD & Biogas 2014 which will be held on 2-3 July at the NEC Birmingham.