Results: Searching for 'Wind Energy'

• Offshore Wind
  • Is a proven technology that is being deployed commercially with a credible path to becoming competitive with the lowest cost low carbon technologies
  • The focus for technology development is now on – improving yields, reducing capital & operational costs and achieving wider deployment
  • A stable policy and funding environment into the medium term would accelerate the achievement of energy cost competitiveness
• Tidal Stream Energy
  • Is at a much earlier stage in the innovation chain
  • Its innovation needs are known and the challenge is one of how to put the component parts together in deployable systems rather than having to reinvent the technology
  • MeyGen’s Inner Sound project, the world’s first tidal stream array is pivotal to advancing the technology and developing supply chain capability

UKERC have submitted a reponse to the BEIS call for evidence on the future for small-scale low-carbon generation. This consultation sought to identify the role that small-scale low-carbon generation can play in the UK shift to clean growth by further understanding: 

• The challenges and opportunities from small-scale low-carbon generation in contributing to government’s objectives for clean, secure, affordable and flexible power; and
• The role for government and the private sector in overcoming these challenges and realising these opportunities.

In our submission we responded to the individual points raised in the call, drawing on two streams of work undertaken as part of the UKERC research programme. The first stream concerns community energy, drawing primarily on data from the UKERC Financing Community Energy project. This project has collected and analysed data from a number of sources:

• Quantitative data gathered as part of a UK-wide survey of community energy finance and business models. This dataset covers 145 community energy projects run by 48 different community energy organisations.
• Qualitative data on community energy organisations’ suggestions for changes in public policy and industry practice, and their plans for the future, gathered as part of the same UK-wide survey.
• Further qualitative data on community energy organisations’ views on pathways to future decentralised energy business models, gathered at workshops held as part of the Manchester Mayor’s Green Summit process, and the Community Energy England annual conference 2018.
• A wide range of other data and literature, including access to the dataset collected for Community Energy England’s 2017 State of the Sector Survey, covering 220 community energy organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The second stream draws on a number of recent UKERC publications on electricity systems and networks :

• Developing low carbon networks for a low-carbon future
• Security of electricity supply in a low-carbon Britain
• The Costs and Impacts of Intermittency
• Delivering a highly distributed electricity system: Technical, regulatory and policy challenges. 

This briefing paper examines how renewables in Scotland are shaped by decisions taken by the Scottish Government, the UK Government and the EU. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders, it explores the potential impact of Brexit on Scottish renewables.

Brexit has the potential to disrupt this relatively supportive policy environment in three ways in regulatory and policy frameworks governing renewable energy; access to EU funding streams; and trade in energy and related goods and services.

Our briefing identifies varying levels of concern among key stakeholders in Scotland. Many expect policy continuity, irrespective of the future UK-EU relationship. There is more concern about access to research and project funding, and future research and development collaboration, especially for more innovative renewable technologies. The UK will become a third country forthe purposes of EU funding streams, able to participate, but not lead on renewables projects, and there is scepticism about whether lost EU funding streams will be replaced at domestic levels.

While there is no real risk of being unable to access European markets even in a No-Deal Brexit scenario, trade in both energy and related products and services could become more difficult and more expensive affecting both the import of specialist labour and kit from the EU and the export of knowledge-based services. Scotlands attractiveness for inward investment may also be affected.

• The application of holistic relational models has been applied for the first time in wind turbines across a wide dataset.This capability shows promise to codify expert knowledge but would require further development and validation.
• The use of prognostic damage models provides additional information to support inspection and maintenance optimisation. However, there is a need to build more experience with these models.
• The introduction of SCADA fault algorithms into the system reflects current thinking in wind turbine fleets, and the models produced represent advanced examples of what can be achieved. These real time algorithms can be implemented in the control system or a data historian.

1. Electricity costs need to be competitive with current (2010) onshore wind costs by 2020 and with conventional generation by 2050. This is illustrated in the Offshore Wind roadmap in Appendix D,
2. Increased yields: annual offshore farm availability to be increased to 97%-98% or better (currently 80% to 90%),
3. Reduce technical uncertainties to allow farms to be financed in a manner, and at costs, equivalent to onshore wind today.

1. This project has provided the ETI with valuable data on TLP floating foundation design and cost to inform the ETI Offshore Wind programme’s future work (2010 to 2015):
2. The Turbine and TLP are not afully integrated system. In the next phase (if taken forward), further work would need to be done on modelling the interactions between waves, TLP, the tower and the nacelle. Existing commercial software will need to be enhanced to meet this need.Currentcommercial software models support structures fixed to the seabed / ground.

1. Electricity costs need to be competitive with current (2010) onshore wind costs by 2020 and with conventional generation by 2050,
2. Increased yields: annual offshore farm availability to be increased to 97%-98% or better,
3. Reduce technical uncertainties to allow farms to be financed in a manner, and at costs, equivalent to onshore wind today.

• This project has provided the ETI with valuable data on TLP floating foundation design and cost. This information has helped shape the next stage of the ETI Offshore Wind programme.
li>Our analysis has concluded that the cost of energy from the deep water high wind sites is competitive with that of the typical Round 3 sites.
• Further optimisation of the TLP floating foundation design could further improve energy costs.

• Design, manufacture and test blades that are the optimum size for the next generation of large offshore wind turbines (>8MW and ideally 10MW);
• Verify the blade performance predicted by the models developed at the design stage;
• Be in a position to supply realistic numbers of blades into First-of-A-Kind small arrays of the target turbines by end 2014 and demonstrate a plan thereafter to scale up the business operation to serve the market.

• With technology and supply chain development there is a clear and credible trajectory to delivering commercial offshore wind farms
• Floating Wind hasthe potential to be a cost-effective, secure and safe low-carbon energy source which could deliver a levelised cost of energy of less than £85/MWh from the mid-2020s
• To deliver improved costs, offshore wind needs access to good quality wind resource close enough to shore and the onshore grid system so that transmission costs are minimised and operations/maintenance costs reduced
• Floating technology can provide access to high quality wind resources relatively close to the UK shoreline and in the proximity of population centres
• In water depths less than 30m fixed foundations will be the prime solution, in water depths over 50m floating foundations provide the lowest cost solution – a mix of these technologies is likely to offer the lowest cost pathway to deliver large scale deployment in the UK
• UK wind resources are abundant and exploitable – and already supplied 9.4% of the UK’s electricity needs in 2014
• The UK has the world’s highest offshore wind capacity with over 4GW installed, from over 1100 turbines, average power rating 3.4MW. A further 1.4GW is in construction, 4.8GW has planning permission and the world’s largest in-service offshore wind farm is in the outer Thames Estuary

• Offshore Wind has a significant role to play in the UK 2050 energy mix
  • Provides proven capability if other technology deployment is constrained
• Potential to deliver costs competitive with lowest cost form of low carbon generation
• Deployment of 8 to 16 GW of floating wind (if 2050 total is 40GW) could make economic sense for the UK
• The larger the UK deployment of offshore wind, the more important floating wind will become

This report was produced by the UK Energy Research Centre’s (UKERC) Technology and Policy Assessment (TPA) function.

The primary objective of the TPA, reflected in this report, is to provide a thorough review of the current state of knowledge. New research, such as modelling or primary data gathering may be carried out when essential. It also aims to explain its findings in a way that is accessible to non-technical readers and is useful to policymakers.

1. Electricity costs need to be competitive with current (2010) onshore wind costs by 2020 and with conventional generation by 2050,
2. Increased yields: annual offshore farm availability to be increased to 97%-98% or better,
3. Reduce technical uncertainties to allow farms to be financed in a manner, and at costs, equivalent to onshore wind today.

• The consortium indentified that sufficient improvements could be made through technology innovation to deliver energy costs that are comparable with current (2010) onshore wind costs: one of ETI’s objectives for this programme.
• This involves innovation in rotor aerodynamics, rotor diameter, drive train technologies and electrical systems.
• The consortium also indentified that theoptimum turbine size for offshore is significantly larger than the current ‘state of the art’.

There is increasing concern that future supply of some lesser known critical metals will not be sufficient to meet rising demand in the low-carbon technology sector. A rising global population, significant economic growth in the developing world, and increasing technological sophistication have all contributed to a surge in demand for a broad range of metal resources. In the future, this trend is expected to continue as the growth in low-carbon technologies compounds these other drivers of demand. This report examines the issues surrounding future supply and demand for critical metals - including Cobalt, Gallium, Germanium, Indium, Lithium, Platinum, Selenium, Silver, Tellurium, and Rare earth Metals.

• Introduction to ETI and ESME, ETI’s modelling tool integrating power, heat, transport and infrastructure providing national / regional system designs
• Energy System Scenarios
• Offshore Wind
• Water Depth
• Wind Resource and Water Depth Compared
• Offshore Wind Turbines
• What do we use for Offshore Wind today?
• Foundation Types
• Floating Wind
  • Tension Leg Platform
  • Engineering Design
  • Cost Study - CAPEX
  • LCoE Forecast
• Conclusions
  • Offshore Wind has a significant role to play in the UK 2050 energy mix
  • With a range of Fixed and Floating foundations, UK can optimise the offshorefleet LCoE
  • Floating Wind has potential to deliver costs at less than £85/MWh from mid-2020s, and further significant cost reduction afterwards
  • Further Work
    • Demonstration at full-scale
    • Geographical distribution and cost optimisation
    • Establish cost of energy potential for other floating technologies

• Design, construct and install a floating system demonstrator by late 2015 / early 2016 (using an existing installation vessel at a near shore and high wind (up to around 10 m/s) site with water depth between 60-100m and a tidal range and wave profile typical of the UK West coast;
• Operate the system for a period of at least two years (to the end of 2017) to:
  • Demonstrate that the system can operate with high yield and be maintained without the need for ETI to support the construction of a new installation vessel;
  • Verify the system technical and economic performance predicted by the system models developed at the design stage;
• Pull forward commercialisation of the enabling technologies to deploy the abundant near shore, 60-100m water depth, and high wind speed resources in the UK by at least 3 years;
• Operate the system for up to a further 8 years, to provide a platform for further developments and revenue from electricity generation

• A LCOE in 2020 in the range of £100/MWhto £110/MWh can be achieved across most of site conditions encountered in commercially exploitable UK waters.
• Cost-effective access to high-wind-speed sites is enabled, thereby driving down the levelised cost of energy below £100/MWh at these sites.
• High-wind-speed sites yield the lowest LCOE, even after the increased capital expenditure (CAPEX) associated with accessing such sites is considered.
• The LCOE shows little variation across the range of conditions encountered in commercially exploitable UK waters.
• This LCOE is forecast to drop by over half by 2050 in today’s currency, due to expected learning curves and economies of scale achieved in the PelaStar system when paired with larger (10 MW) wind turbines.

The following submission is preceded by a tabled summary of the current state of energy research and development and deployment in the UK, technology by technology. This is used as the basis for commentary on the technology potential of:

• Wind
• Photovoltaics
• Hydrogen and fuel cells
• Marine renewables
• Bioenergy
• Groundsource heat pumps
• Microgeneration
• Intelligent grid management
• Energy storage Finally,

UKERC offers its views on the research funding landscape. Recommendations are highlighted in bold.

Energy System Demonstrators are physical demonstrations testing new technologies for low-carbon energy infrastructure.

A review of energy systems demonstrator projects in the UK was undertaken for UKERC by the Energy Systems Research Unit (ESRU) at the University of Strathclyde. The review encompassed 119 demonstrators and consisted of two phases: 1) the identification of demonstrator projects and 2) an analysis of projects and their outcomes.

Energy demonstrators

The review defined an energy system demonstrator as “the deployment and testing of more than one technology type that could underpin the operation of a low-carbon energy infrastructure in the future”. Only demonstrators that post-date the 2008 Climate Change Act were included and that included a physical demonstration at one or more UK sites. 119 projects were identified that met the search criteria.

There were two phases of review activity. Phase 1 involved identification and documentation of demonstration projects, involving a systematic search to identify and record the details of projects. Phase 2 was a review of project outcomes and outputs, particularly end-of-project evaluations, covering technical, economic and social outcomes where available.

The review outputs (available here) are a final report summarising the findings, 119 demonstrator project summaries (the Phase 1 reports), 119 demonstrator output analyses (the Phase 2 reports) and a GIS (Geographic Information System) map and database showing the locations and project details of the demonstrators.

The final report, attendant project summaries and GIS data are intended to provide policy makers and funding bodies with an overview of the existing demonstrator “landscape”, enabling decisions on future demonstrator calls and the focus of those calls to be made with a clearer knowledge of what has already been done.

Project files

• Access the demonstrators GIS map here.
• Access the Phase 1 summaries here.
• Access the Phase 2 summaries here. 

This report aims to understand and quantify these impacts, and therefore addresses the question ‘What is the evidence on the impacts and costs of intermittent generation on the British electricity network, and how are these costs assigned?’ It is based on a review of over 200 international studies.

It argues that, since its emergence in the UK in the late 1990s, community energy has grown through finding opportunities for smaller scale, decentralised energy activities in the UKs highly centralised energy system. The combination of development of renewable energy technologies, and the launch of the governments Feed-In Tariff Scheme (FITS) in 2010, produced a boom in the sector, especially around solar electricity generation.

Recent cuts to FITS rates and other policy changes place community energy at a crossroads. Some renewables activity will continue, but groups are exploring a wide range of activities, partnerships, and business models. We are engaging with the sector around outputs from our research, which include a survey and case studies, to co-develop recommendations and pathways for the future.

When the UKERC TPA team completed its first assessment of the evidence on the costs and impacts of intermittent generation on the British electricity system, the conclusion was that the additional costs would be relatively low, adding around 5-8 per MWh to the cost of the renewable electricity generated. This was based on a review of the available evidence, most of which did not envisage more than 20% of electricity to be sourced from intermittent renewables.

Since then, the UKs targets for renewable generation have been set considerably higher than this, and a number of significant new studies have been carried out into the likely effects of a much higher proportion of renewable electricity in the UK mix.

This project provides an update to the original 2006 UKERC report, reviewing the new evidence for the impacts associated with higher shares ofrenewable generation and

This working paper is an update to our November 2021 briefing paper: Risk and investment in zero-carbon electricity markets.

This UKERC Research Landscape provides an overview of the competencies and publicly funded activities in wind energy research, development and demonstration (RD&D) in the UK. It covers the main funding streams, research providers, infrastructure, networks and UK participation in international activities.

UKERC ENERGY RESEARCH LANDSCAPE: WIND ENERGY

• Section 1: An overview which includes a broad characterisation of research activity in the sector and the key research challenges
• Section 2: An assessment of UK capabilities in relation to wider international activities, in the context of market potential
• Section 3: Major funding streams and providers of basic research along with a brief commentary
• Section 4: Major funding streams and providers of applied research along with a brief commentary
• Section 5: Major fundingstreams for demonstration activity along with major projects and a brief commentary
• Section 6: Research infrastructure and other major research assets (e.g. databases, models)
• Section 7: Research networks, mainly in the UK, but also European networks not covered by the EU Framework Research and Technology Development (RTD) Programmes
• Section 8: UK participation in energy-related EU Framework Research and Technology Development (RTD) Programmes
• Section 9: UK participation in wider international initiatives, including those supported by the International Energy Agency

Offshore wind is widely expected to play a major role in UK compliance with the EU Renewables Directive. Projections from a range of analysts suggest the UK may need at least 15 to 20 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2020 (HoL, 2008) . Though the government has not set a specific target, the central range in its Renewable Energy Roadmap is that up to 18 GW could be installed by 2020 (DECC, 2011) with aspirations to go well beyond that in the decades that follow.

Development rights in the UK have been awarded by the Crown Estate (the owner of the seabed) in 4 rounds to date. Rounds 1 and 2, which commenced in 2001 and 2003 respectively, granted rights for a total of circa 8 GW of development. Round 2.5 gave Round 2 developers the rights to an additional 1.5 GW, whilst Round 3 rights, awarded in 2010, were for over 30 GW of potential development (The Crown Estate, 2010a, The Crown Estate, 2010b, Douglas-Westwood, 2010).

Given the substantial ambitions for UK offshore wind deployment the issue of cost and cost reduction has therefore been the subject of considerable interest. Drawing heavily on the data and analyses of UKERC TPA’s 2010 report (Greenacre et al., 2010), this paper examines cost trends in offshore wind energy, comparing past forecasts with outcomes to date, and analysing the main reasons for the disparity between them. The rationale for the study is to support and inform Chapter 5 of the UKERC TPA report ‘Presenting the Future: An assessment of future cost estimation methodologies in the electricity generation sector’. The case study has three specific aims:

• Examine the key trends in contemporary costs and future cost projections (Section 2);
• Understand the drivers underlying these key trends and the reasons for differences between anticipated cost levels and actual out-turns (Section 3);
• Identify implications for cost estimation methodologies (Section 4).

By 2020, it is projected that there will be 170GW of onshore wind capacity in the European Union, and 120GW in China (IEA, 2011), whilst America is expected to deliver 12GW of wind per year on average within this decade (Emerging Energy Research, 2009). Meanwhile within the UK, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) envisages a total of 13GW of onshore wind capacity over the same timeframe (DECC, 2011) However, although not as expensive as its offshore counterpart, the cost-effectiveness of onshore wind has been challenged within the UK. In February 2012 over one hundred MPs wrote to the Prime Minister expressing their concern about the subsidies required to support the technology (Middleton, 2012).

This case study contributes to a UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC, 2011) project on electricity generation cost estimation methodologies by:

• Examining forecasts for onshore wind costs made in the past;
• Comparing these forecasts with how costs actually evolved;
• Understanding the key historical drivers of onshore wind costs; and
• Identifying implications for onshore wind cost estimation methodologies.

The analysis focuses on the capex costs and levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of onshore wind. The cost data was collected from over 40 sources from a range of countries, with full details found in the Appendix.

The UK Energy Research Centre welcomes this opportunity to provide input to the BERR Consultation on the UK Renewable Energy Strategy. We have addressed a number of the questions posed in the consultation document calling on all UKERC members for input.

To meet the EU 15% renewable energy target will be a significant challenge for the UK. It is important to understand that reductions in the UKs total energy demand will produce proportional reductions in the renewable contribution required. Although self-evident, this simple fact is often overlooked. Indeed the UK has to date failed to achieve any reductions in energy use, in fact the reverse is true: energy consumption in the key sectors of electricity and energy for transport continues to rise steadily.

In addition to reducing the demand for energy, there will need to be a massive increase in the contribution of renewables to transport fuel (predominately biofuels), heat and electricity. This submission concentrates on renewable electricity because UKERC has core competency this area. In Table 1, below, UKERC presents an illustrative scenario for the contribution of renew

• Without the adoption of a more holistic approach that addresses BETTA structural reform and network regulation, it is difficult to see how a satisfactory resolution of the transmission access issue can be achieved.
• It is proposed that more strategic and unified development of the onshore and offshore network together with the provision of interconnection would be encouraged through common or at least zonal ownership of offshore transmission assets, while cost-effectiveness and the efficient delivery of assets could be achieved through tendering and outsourcing construction.
• Modern distribution networks are not typically designed to accommodate generation; a number of technical and operational challenges will need to be addressed in order for the connection of significant amounts of distributed generation on these networks.
• The consequences of intermittency or variability of input will need to be managed by a combination of retaining conventional plant and developing demand response. Additionally, interconnection with adjacent transmission systems and improved forecasting of wind resource and maintaining geographic diversity of wind generation could also reduce the impacts of intermittency.
• The role of smart grids will be to enhance the capacity and utilisation of the electricity grid (both transmission and distribution) by means other than investing in traditional transmission assets and, via the deployment of smart metering, massively increase the contribution of the demand side to system security and the decarbonisation of the heat and transport sectors.
• UKERC is concerned that a major opportunity will be missed unless there is a timely change to a regulatory regime that encourages objective and costefficient choices between investment and smart grid solutions.

We welcome the Welsh Government’s interest in locally owned renewable energy. Our response draws on a range of research undertaken by the Heat and the City research group at the University of Edinburgh, including a UK-wide study of local authorities and energy; and on the Financing Community Energy research project being led by Tyndall Manchester. 

In our response we made the following general comments, before responding to individual points raised in the call:

• We suggest that greater attention should be paid to city/town/settlement scale infrastructure for a low carbon energy system, including area based upgrading of the built environment and low carbon heating infrastructure. Heat and energy efficiency for a low energy building stock are crucial to meeting Welsh and UK Government legally binding targets for carbon abatement.
•  At national scale, Wales has opportunities for sharing risk, costs and benefits of energy developments – i.e. the direct benefit to the citizens of Wales through public ownership and the aggregate costs across society of decarbonisation.
• Local Authority planning and ownership could be considered further as key components to securing greater local control and accountability, and achieving Welsh Government objectives. Our research indicates that further developing specific roles, powers, resources and responsibilities of local institutional actors in energy planning and ownership, especially Local Authorities would also add value to Welsh society and economy.