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Pioneering Burbo Bank Extension Offshore Windfarm Gets Switched On

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Burbo Bank Extension, a new offshore windfarm capable of meeting the electricity demand of well over 230,000 homes, has been officially opened at a ceremony in Liverpool.

The wind farm is a joint venture between DONG Energy (50%) and its partners PKA (25%) and KIRKBI A/S, parent company of the LEGO Group (25%). It is the first offshore wind farm in the world to make commercial use of the MHI Vestas V164-8.0 MW wind turbines.

Just one of these wind turbines produces more energy than the whole of Vindeby, the world’s first offshore windfarm constructed by DONG Energy 25 years ago in Denmark.

Henrik Poulsen, DONG Energy Chief Executive, said: “Burbo Bank Extension showcases the rapid innovation in the offshore wind industry. Less than ten years ago at Burbo Bank, we were the first to install Siemens 3.6MW wind turbines and in this short time, the wind turbines have more than doubled in capacity.

“Pushing innovation in this way reduces the cost of electricity from offshore wind and will help to advance the offshore wind industry across the world.

“The project has also helped to develop the UK supply chain. It is the first offshore windfarm to use UK manufactured blades and the order for transition pieces was the first for Teesside factory Offshore Structures Britain.”

Peter Damgaard Jensen, PKA CEO, said: “Since our first investment in an offshore windfarm in 2011, PKA has focused its strategy on investing in renewables and divesting from coal and oil companies. Today, PKA has invested in four offshore windfarms that provide renewable energy to around a million households. We are proud to be able to provide a good return to the pension savers and at the same time make a positive difference.”

Bali Padda, CEO of the LEGO Group, said: “We work to leave a positive impact on the planet and I am truly excited about the inauguration of the Burbo Bank Extension wind farm. This development means we have now reached the 100% renewable energy milestone three years ahead of target. Together with our partners, we intend to continue investing in renewable energy to help create a better future for the builders of tomorrow.”

Metro Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, Steve Rotheram, said: “The offshore wind industry has a huge contribution to make to the growing UK-based supply chain, and utilising our renewable energy sources is vital to ensuring the Liverpool City Region cements its position as a low carbon leader. DONG Energy’s Burbo Bank Extension places Merseyside and Halton as home to the largest turbines in the world – and we have a strong maritime history which can support this industry.”

DONG Energy is building a new multi-million pound operations facility in Merseyside that will serve both Burbo Bank Extension, and the existing wind farm in the area, Burbo Bank. Up to 75 jobs will be created during the construction of the facility, while around 45 people will be permanently employed at the site once it is operational, later this year.

DONG Energy is currently operating 17 offshore wind farms across the UK, Germany and Denmark and was recently the world’s first developer to reach the installation of 1,000 offshore wind turbines.

Photo – Dong Energy

Tech Of Tomorrow Offers More Convenient Carbon-Friendly Living

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First-of-a-kind technology with the potential to come to market quickly is being trialled across the UK to improve the lives of citizens.

From schemes that promote cleaner, greener travel to online deliveries straight to your car boot – these are some of the innovative ideas being trialled in Innovate UK’s first of a kind deployment competition.

With more than 70% of people estimated to be living in urban areas by 2040, city infrastructure and design requires a drastic change in order to support a high quality of life.

Each of the projects is designed to enable a step change in innovation that will make a real difference to the energy, transport and urban infrastructure of the future. In total, 12 projects will share £18 million to develop their ideas.

The ideas

Projects are exploring the potential to:

  • take the flexibility of click and collect even further by delivering orders straight to the consumer’s car boot. This project – by Car Tap – uses new reliable and secure keyless vehicle access technology. The trial will enable 100 customers of Farmaround to receive deliveries of organic boxes
  • address the problem of disposing used batteries – one of the areas of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund – by exploring how old Nissan electric vehicle batteries can be used to store peak electricity from UK homes. There will be a 50 unit, 12-month trial led by Powervault. Partners include Nissan, Aston University, Hyde Housing, Lyra Electronics, M&S Energy and Solarcentury
  • ease congestion and problems with parking by operating a virtual loading bay. Commercial vehicle operators will be able to pay to reserve kerb space to load or unload. Transport for London Road Network (TLRN) is running the trial in Wandsworth, focusing on high-density loading ‘hotspots’
  • convert electricity into hydrogen at a mass scale to create affordable, green energy for the transport sector. The trial by ITM Power will provide energy balancing and refuelling for a fleet of 20 fuel cell buses in Birmingham
  • encourage the adoption and use of electric vehicles by making charging even easier. ZAPINAMO is an easily deployable, rapid charging system. It is trialling 2 solutions:
    • rapid charging for up to 20 taxis at once at Heathrow Airport, making it easier to park and charge and improving air quality
    • a mobile charger to serve 4 Europcar E-Car Club electric vehicles, which comes directly to you as and when you need it

A full list of projects can be found in our list of funding competition winners 2017.

Funding from Innovate UK

The projects are part of a £19 million investment by Innovate UK that invited businesses to test and evaluate new infrastructure technologies in the real world.

This is the second phase of the competition. All of the projects completed a finance and business case in the first phase. Those selected for phase 2 will now demonstrate their innovations in a commercial environment.

Read about the background to the competition.

Learn more about our work in infrastructure systems.

Apply for an innovation funding award.

New Energy Reforms Come Into Force

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Homes across Great Britain will get extra support to make their homes cheaper and easier to keep warm thanks to new government reforms.

  • energy suppliers to focus help on vulnerable households
  • part of plan to improve energy efficiency of 1 million homes by 2020

Homes across Great Britain will get extra support to make their homes cheaper and easier to keep warm thanks to government reforms that have come into forcce on 1 April 2017.

Changes to the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) will make sure energy companies give support to people struggling to meet their heating bills, with plans to extend the scheme from April 2017 to September 2018 also confirmed.

Consumer Minister, Margot James said:

The big energy firms already have to help households save gas and electricity bills, by improving homes so they are easier and cheaper to keep warm.

We’re strengthening this obligation today and making sure they prioritise low income households as part of our plan to insulate 1 million homes by 2020.

The reforms, which were consulted on last year, will simplify the scheme, with energy companies required to provide struggling households with energy efficiency measures to make their homes warmer and bring their bills down.

As well as an increased focus on low income and vulnerable homes, eligibility will be extended to social housing tenants in Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) bands E, F and G, and local authorities will also be able to help match people with energy suppliers.

Suppliers will also be required to install a minimum 21,000 solid wall insulations per year, up from the earlier proposal of 17,000.

There will be continuing protection for the delivery of energy efficiency measures in rural areas, with a requirement that 15% of suppliers’ Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation be delivered in these areas.

ECO has proved a very effective delivery mechanism with around 2.2 million measures installed in around 1.7 million properties between 2013 and the end of January 2017.

The energy companies obligated are:

  • British Gas
  • The Co-operative
  • EDF Energy
  • EON Energy
  • First Utility
  • npower
  • OVO Energy
  • Scottish power
  • SSE
  • Utilita
  • Utility Warehouse
  • Extra Energy
  • Spark Energy
  • Flow Energy
  • Economy Energy

18th Edition Of BS 7671 – Have Your Say

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The IET is preparing to publish the Draft for Public Comment (DPC) of the 18th Edition of BS 7671. This is your chance to have your say about the development of the new edition of the Wiring Regulations.

Important dates

Please note, the below dates are expected dates only and are subject to change.

• DPC availability and commenting period: June 2017 – August 2017.
• IET and committees review DPC comments: August 2017 – November 2017.
• Changes approved; final draft produced; reviewed and proofread: November 2017 – April 2018.
• Official JPEL/64 committee sign off: 4th April 2018.
• BS 7671 new edition available for purchase: 1st July 2018.

BSI and its role in setting Standards

BS 7671 is a British Standard. It is published jointly by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the IET. BSI is the UK’s National Standards Body (NSB).

Standards are developed by committees of dedicated experts. In the case of BS 7671, there are four committees that feed into the main BSI/IET joint technical committee JPEL/64:

• JPEL/64/A – covers verification and inspection and testing (Part 6 and Appendix 6 of BS 7671) plus any work relating to Parts 1, 2 and 3 of BS 7671.
• JPEL/64/B – covers cable sizing and installation and related matters (some of Parts 4 and 5, Appendices 3 and 4 and some Part 7 items of BS 7671).
• JPEL/64/C – covers earthing installations and related matters (some of Parts 4 and 5 and some Part 7 items of BS 7671).
• JPEL/64/D – covers the remainder of Parts 4 and 5, some Part 7 items and some Appendices of BS 7671).

Together, these groups are responsible for UK input into international and European technical committees IEC/TC 64 and CENELEC/TC 64, which produce the IEC 60364 standards series and the European implementations HS 60364 series. These standards are then implemented here in the UK as BS 7671.

Updates to BS 7671

As technology develops and is used differently, BS 7671 needs to be updated to ensure good practice across the industry. Updates can be in the form of an Amendment or an Edition:

Amendment – alteration and/or addition to previously agreed technical or editorial content of an existing standard.
Edition – a new edition of an existing standard will either be published after several amendments (usually, a maximum of three) have been published or a major revision of the technical content has taken place.

The committees will discuss how sections  of BS 7671 may need to be changed to either remain aligned to the international and/or European Standards or take into account national issues Any changes proposed are debated, refined and finalised at JPEL/64.

The updated BS 7671 will then be released in the form of a Draft for Public Consultation (DPC). This is when you will have the opportunity to read the expected changes in BS 7671 and to have your say.

Comments on the standard can be submitted to the Secretariat at any time but will usually be held for consideration at the next Amendment/Edition cycle.

Comment on the DPC of BS 7671

The DPC of the draft 18th edition of BS 7671 will be published on the BSI Standards development portal: https://standardsdevelopment.bsigroup.com/.

First, register following the on-screen instructions. Once you have successfully registered, you can log in to read and comment on proposed and draft standards, including BS 7671. You can also go into your Account to update information about yourself, change your password and personalize your preferences.

When commenting on draft standards, use the ‘Comment on this section’ field to make your comments and the ‘Proposed changes’ field for any clarification and to make a suggestion for improvement.

More details available here

New UK To France Electricity Connection Gets Go-Ahead

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The foundation stone for the £490m project, capable of powering up to 2 million homes, was laid on 23rd February by UK Energy Minister Jesse Norman.

The new ElecLink electricity connection between Britain and France will provide greater access to the continental electricity market, and help to reduce consumer bills as electricity can be flexibly imported and exported to take advantage of cheaper prices.

The project will run through the Channel Tunnel between Sellindge in the UK and Les Mandarins in France. It will have the capacity to power up to 2 million homes and provide further resilience for Britain’s electricity supply.

A combination of domestic electricity generation including new nuclear power, gas and renewables, as well as increased access for importing and exporting electricity supplies from Europe, means homes and businesses will have reliable power at the lowest possible price all year round.

Thanks to the Government’s supportive regulatory framework, including allowing interconnectors to participate in the Capacity Market, and innovative solutions from the developer, this major new piece of infrastructure will be financed on a purely commercial basis, with no risk to British tax and bill payers.

UK Energy Minister Jesse Norman said:

As a government we are strongly supportive of greater electricity trading with our European partners in order to lower household bills and deliver energy security as part of our modern industrial strategy.

We’ve created the right environment for cooperative projects like ElecLink to attract investment and compete in the market without needing financial support from our tax and bill payers.

The ElecLink interconnector is one of the most advanced new interconnection projects across Europe and the first of its kind between Britain and France since 1986, when the existing IFA (Interconnexion France-Angleterre) interconnector was commissioned.

  • Provide a gigawatt (1000MW) of electricity connection between the UK and France, enough capacity to power up to 2 million homes
  • Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 6 million tonnes over the period 2020-2030, by enabling electricity demand in Britain and France to be met by the most efficient generating plants
  • Create approximately 300 new jobs during the construction phase

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Groupe Eurotunnel Jacques Gounon said:

ElecLink further underlines how important the Channel Tunnel is to Britain and France. Not only is it a vital transport link, it is set to play an instrumental part in the supply of electricity to the UK, France and continental Europe.

With the debate over the future of energy security brought into focus recently, ElecLink delivers a smart, low-cost and environmentally friendly way to secure the electricity supply. We are proud to be inaugurating ElecLink and delighted to mark the official start of this great project which will significantly benefit the economies and consumers in both France and the United Kingdom.

Jacques Gounon (Chairman & CEO Groupe Eurotunnel), Steven Moore (CEO ElecLink) and Jesse Norman (UK Energy Minister) lay the foundation stone.

Story via Gov.uk