Renewable Energy Development

The first geothermal power plant in the UK is being planned for development in Cornwall using hot rocks. The Cornwall Geothermal Project will be constructed by EGS Energy, a renewable power company focused on engineered geothermal power and will use granite outcrops near the earth’s surface for the heat to generate electricity.

This geothermal power plant would be used to generate power for the Eden Project in Cornwall but will eventually feed power into the National Grid.

The process of generating electricity from the heat of the hot rocks found under the earth in Cornwall is undertaken by first drilling bore holes down 3 – 4km to the granite. Water is then pumped down into injection holes and sent through the hot rocks which heats it to around 150 degrees Celsius by the time it is returned to the surface. The hot water is then converted to electricity via a heat exchanger.

If the project gains planning permission the aim is to have the power plant ready to begin producing electricity by 2012.

Estimations done by EGS Energy have indicated that the resource of the Cornwall area has the potential for supplying 10% of the UK’s electricity for 200 years.

There is already a geothermal project in Southampton that supplies heated water to a number of customers but this will be the first project that converts that heated water into electricity.

Roy Baria, technical director of EGS Energy and formerly deputy project director at the Rosemanowes “Hot Rocks” project in Cornwall said “With the geology in the vicinity of the Eden Project being ideal for creating our power plant and its reservoir, we would not only expect to be able to supply virtually all of the Eden Project’s power and heat requirements but generate surplus power that could be fed into the grid to help meet the government’s CO2 reduction and renewable generation targets.”

Plans have been submitted by Origin Energy for a new wind farm, to be called Stockyard Hill Wind Farm, to the west of Ballarat. The wind farm proposal is for a 242-turbine wind farm to be constructed on land encompassing the area about 5km south of Beaufort, south to 4km north of Skipton, centred around Stockyard Hill. The wind farm, if it goes ahead will be capable of a maximum capacity of 484 MW of electricity.

Based on studies conducted by Garrad Hassan, Stockyard Hill Wind Farm is estimated to have a capacity factor of 44.6%. Using this figure it is anticipated that 1.89 TWh (terawatt hours, or 1,890,000 MWh) of electricity could be produced every year, based on a long term average forecast.

Over the long term, this amount of electricity generation is the equivalent to providing for over 270,000 dwellings, or approximately 21% of Melbourne homes or more than 8 times the homes in Ballarat, per year.

The opportunity for Origin to go forward with this project came about when the company purchased Wind Power, Pty Ltd which came with a high quality portfolio of wind projects.

The project is expected to have a capital cost of $1.4 billion and landowners will be paid a total of $70 million over the life of a 25-year agreement. Also, the Pyrenees Shire will receive $475,000 per annum.

The actual final decision on the size and the layout of the wind farm will be dependent on the review findings.

The early indications are that this wind farm will not be a popular addition to the local landscape by residents who are already fuming over the lack of disclosure of details about the project. Currently, the application is being reviewed by the Department of Planning, Community and Development and it is said to be publicly available in the coming months.

A new wind farm is to be built by NextEra Energy Resources near Lake Ashtabula in North Dakota. It is expected that the facility will have a maximum power capacity of 169.5 MW of electricity.

NextEra Energy Resources will serve as construction manager and initial operator of the wind farm.

As part of the overall facility a smaller 49.5 MW wind farm has been proposed by Otter Tail Power Company, a division of Otter Tail Corporation, with plans to begin construction in late May and an operational date slated to be towards the end of 2009. The 49.5 MW project has been dubbed the North Farm and it will comprise 33 wind turbines. The other half of the wind farm will be a 72 turbine farm known as the South Farm located in southwestern Steele County, stretching a short distance into Griggs County. Each windmill will be powered by General Electric 1.5-kilowatt turbines.

Otter Tail Power Company will also construct a 13-mile 230-kilovolt generation outlet needed to transmit the electricity to the Pillsbury Substation.

The expected total outlay for the project by Otter Tail Power Company is going to $110 million and that will include the cost of the turbines, equipment, the site, and required transmission facilities. The company will apply for a 30 percent treasury grant available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The local residents concerned about the proposed Milltown biomass power plant may have more cause for trepidation after an air-quality permit application was released indicating what the expected emissions from the plant would be. Estimates put the level of nitrogen oxide at 245 tons per year, carbon dioxide at 226 tons per year and just over 11 tons of other chemicals classified as hazardous air pollutants.

Some might be cynical enough to note that these figures all narrowly scrape under the key threshold levels that would classify them as “major sources” of pollution. In the case of nitrogen oxide the threshold is 250 tons. Had the level have been estimated at higher than this point a more involved review process would automatically have been applied to the review process.

Tim Malony, senior policy director with the nonprofit advocacy group Hoosier Environmental Council visited Milltown about a month ago to learn more about the area and the project and found that the plant’s location, less than a mile from the Blue River and amid terrain with underlying caves and streams, raises serious questions.

“That’s really the key environmental issue to us,” Maloney said. “The Blue River has some of the best water quality and biological diversity of any stream in the state of Indiana. That kind of setting and natural diversity is very unusual”

The state has 120 days from the submission to issue a permit. In the next two to three months, the agency’s permitting division will write a permit setting out the details of the project, including emissions limits. Once that is published, citizens and officials can request a public hearing.

There is still a water quality application to be submitted to the state.

The planned start date for the biomass power plant is some time in 2011.

More information about the Milltown Biomass Power Plant can be found in an earlier post at Renewable Energy Development.

A recent announcement by the Philippines government has opened the way for the country’s renewable energy capacity to double over the next 10 years. The critical factor is that the government approved rules covering the implementation of the Renewable Energy Act.

It is intended that 9,000 MW of power will be produced in the Philippines which is twice the current levels.

The country is estimated to produce some 4,531 mWs from geothermal energy; 13,097 MW from hydropower, 5.1 kilowatt hours per square meter a day from solar, 76,600 MW from wind, and 170,000 MW from oceanic waves.

It is estimated that the cost of a renewable energy project will run to about $1 to $2 million per megawatt.

There have been letters of interest lodged from 15 local and foreign-linked companies to develop projects, most of them involving wind, hydro and biomass.

Electricity generated from renewable sources such as hydro and geothermal power comprise 33 percent of the Philippines’ current power mix, and the government has said it hopes to increase that to 40 percent in a decade.

Companies such as First Gen Corp, Aboitiz Power Corp, Energy Development Corp, Oriental Energy, Green Power Philippines and Deep Ocean Philippines, said Marasigan, adding that state-run PNOC-Renewables Corp would take the lead in tapping renewable energy sources.

The UW-Madison Charter Street Heating Plant is currently a coal fired power plant but it is about to undergo a $251 million overhaul with the elimination of the coal use at the facility and replacing it with biomass and natural gas boilers. The facility currently burns 108,000 tons of coal each year providing steam and heating for the campus buildings of UW-Madison.

The new biomass boiler will be online in the heating plant before the end of 2013 and will be able to burn biomass fuel up to 250,000 tons a year. The fuel that will be used to fire the biomass boiler range from wood chips to switchgrass pellets. The current capacity of the plant is just under 10MW and it is to be assumed that the upgrade to biomass fuel will maintain this plant capacity.

In unveiling the proposed upgrade of the power plant, Governor Jim Doyle said, “This plan provides the roadmap for how we will change the way energy is produced and provided on Madison’s isthmus. The projects will create jobs, at first in the construction sector, and then long-term, as we create markets for alternative energy sources in Wisconsin, with the added bonus of significantly lowering greenhouse gas emissions from two state heating plants.”

The facility has 4 boilers at the moment, one of these will be installed to burn the biomass fuel while three of the coal-fired units will be updated to burn natural gas and another will be refitted to become a co-fired natural gas, biomass fueled boiler.

The upgrades will significantly reduce emissions at the facility after the improvements have been completed. Plant efficiency is expected to be improved by 5 to 10 per cent and a campus-wide control room will be installed at the plant.

Back in February, 2009 when the biomass upgrade was originally suggested, Doyle had this to say, “This new project will help build the biomass market in Wisconsin, keeping the money we spend on energy in the local economy and create green jobs in the area.”