Wiring Matters Issue 66 – July 2017

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Read the July 2017 edition of “Wiring Matters” online, take a look at the various topics covered in this months edition below.

Wiring Matters is published every month by the IET.

Electrical Apprentice Of The Year – George Maynard

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George Maynard from Leicester has been crowned winner of the 2017 NICEIC and ELECSA Apprentice of the Year competition, sponsored by Scolmore Group.

The 25 year old was one of eight competitors to reach the Grand Final, which Scolmore was very proud to host at its headquarters on Tuesday 6th June.

George comments: “I was shocked when they called my name out. I thought all the lads in the final produced some great work and they were all top guys. I think getting to the final was a great achievement to be honest. It’s a lovely way to round off all the hard work I have put in over the last three years.”

The finalists were put through a gruelling day of challenges comprising nine separate tasks designed to assess their abilities across a range of disciplines including testing, fault finding, conduit bending, tray manufacturing and safe isolation. This year’s final challenge also included a virtual reality test followed by an interview with Certsure’s technical standards director, Alan Wells.

As well as hosting the grand finale of the competition at the company’s head office premises, Scolmore also organised the barbecue and awards ceremony at the nearby Belfry Hotel and provided a range of prizes for those apprentices who made it through to the final.

The winner, George, was presented with a holiday voucher worth £2,000, runner-up Michael Costello, 25 ,from Edinburgh received a holiday voucher worth £750, while third placed Billy Stapleton, 20, from Essex received a £250 holiday voucher. All eight finalists were given an engraved glass trophy, an iPad and a kit bag containing an array of Scolmore’s electrical accessories. Every college that entered 20 students or more for the competition received a Scolmore College Pack containing a variety of Scolmore products, while the college of the overall winner, Leicester College, will receive £1,000 worth of Scolmore products.

Story Via ECN

International Women In Engineering Day Conference

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In October 2016, the IET launched its social media campaign #9PercentIsNotEnough to highlight the fact that currently only 9% of the UK’s engineering and technology workforce are female.

In June 2017 the #9PercentIsNotEnough Conference will provide a platform for sharing best practice on how to inspire, attract, recruit and retain women into the engineering and technology sectors.

Timed to coincide with the International Women In Engineering Day, this one-day business conference will showcase real, practical solutions to the challenges we all know about – plus networking during the day and in the evening drinks reception.

This conference is aimed at anyone within an organisation, who is responsible for the recruitment, retention and development of women in STEM.

Featured Speakers – International Women In Engineering Day

  • Mark Elborne, President & CEO, GE UK & Ireland
  • Jeremy Watson, President, The IET
  • Nadia Savage, Director, Laing O’Rourke
  • Amanda Murphy, Senior Future Talent Acquisition Consultant, Jaguar Land Rover
  • Julie Holyland, Learning and Talent Development Lead, Siemens
  • Clare Wildfire, Chair, Advance Network and Global Practice Lead for Cities, Mott MacDonald
  • Eva Fryc, Employer Support Manager – Midlands, EngineeringUK
  • Rebecca Hourston, Managing Director and Head of Coaching Programme, Talking Talent
  • Dawn Elson, Group Engineering Director, Merlin Entertainments
  • Marguerite Ulrich, Chief HR Officer, Veolia UK and Ireland
  • Nike Folayan, Chairperson, Association For Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers
  • Dawn Bonfield, Director, Towards Vision
  • Peter Flint, Chief Executive, Building + Places EMIA, AECOM

Click here for more information.

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.