Latest news with #Dinorwig
The Guardian
24-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Mountain marvel: how one of biggest batteries in Europe uses thousands of gallons of water to stop blackouts
Seconds after a catastrophic series of power outages struck across the UK in the summer of 2019, a phone rang in the control room of the Dinorwig hydropower plant in north Wales. It was Britain's energy system operator requesting an immediate deluge of electricity to help prevent a wide-scale blackout crippling Britain's power grids. The response was swift, and in the end just under million people were left without power for less than 45 minutes. While trains were stuck on lines for hours and hospitals had to revert to backup generators, that phone call prevented Britain's worst blackout in a decade from being far more severe. Almost six years later, the owners of Dinorwig, and its sister plant at Ffestiniog on the boundary of Eryri national park, formerly Snowdonia, are preparing to pump up to £1bn into a 10-year refurbishment of the hydropower plants that have quietly helped to keep the lights on for decades. Ffestiniog was one of the first pumped hydroelectric systems in the UK when it opened in 1963, while nearby Dinorwig – the largest and fastest-acting pumped storage station in Europe – followed in 1984. The refurbishment could mean the plants continue to provide reliable clean energy on demand for decades to come – and serve as giant grid batteries to store Britain's renewable electricity for when it is needed most. Miya Paolucci, the UK boss of the French energy company Engie, one of Dinorwig's owners, said refurbishing the plant will cost a third of the investment needed to build a new hydropower plant on a similar scale, making the overhaul an 'intuitive' decision to secure another 25 years of life from the 'much-loved' power station. Britain has used gravity and the flow of water to generate electricity since 1878, when a hydroelectric generator first powered an arc lamp at the Cragside manor house in Northumberland. The project involved dropping water 100 metres vertically to turn a Siemens generator that would go on to power a series of newly invented incandescent lightbulbs in the country house. Dinorwig and Ffestiniog use the same principles as the Cragside manor house to generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of almost 2 million UK households in a matter of seconds. When power is plentiful, the plants use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir up to an elevated dam. Later, when power supplies are tight, the water is released to drive the turbines, generating power. Dinorwig or Mynydd Gwefru, as it is known locally, can be called upon to generate electricity within 75 seconds by releasing 86,000 gallons of water a second down a cavernous 500-metre vertical tunnel. The water crashes into six turbines, each weighing about 500 tonnes, which generate high-volume blasts of renewable power on demand. Overall, hydropower makes up only 2% of the UK's total electricity – but often at times when its electrons are at their most vital to keeping the lights on. It provides many of the key benefits of large fossil fuel power plants – but without the carbon emissions. Unlike wind and solar farms, hydropower projects can be called upon by the system operator at specific times when the grid needs more generation to meet demand. The spinning mass of its generators can also help to stabilise the frequency of the power grid at about 50Hz, the level required to avoid power outages. In the event of a blackout, hydropower can even help to restart the power system. But after 140 years generating electricity it is hydropower's potential as an energy storage technology that is key to its future. Pumped hydropower can effectively work as a long-duration battery by using renewable electricity when it is abundant to pump water up into a reservoir and release the water to generate electricity when renewable energy wanes. Unlike grid batteries, which are often designed to charge during the day and discharge electricity at night, long-duration energy storage systems can store energy for hours, days or even weeks so it can be used when needed. The government hopes to bring forward investment in 18GW of storage by 2035, of which 10GW should be long-duration storage such as hydropower. But pumped hydropower projects are struggling to find a place in Britain's energy landscape There are geographic hurdles: there are only so many vast mountains and brimming reservoirs, and the projects can also provoke concerns within the local community. But in locations where they are viable developers have been left to wait for government officials to confirm the details of its financial support framework. One of the UK's biggest renewable energy developers, SSE, hopes that its Coire Glas project in the Scottish Highlands could be the first major pumped storage hydro scheme built in the UK in more than 40 years. The project could power 3 million homes for up to 24 hours, and would nearly double Great Britain's total current electricity storage capacity, but it needs the final details of a government support scheme before SSE can fully commit to the project. A House of Lords report published late last year warned that a large-scale rollout of long-duration energy storage technologies was 'not being treated with sufficient urgency'. The report found that a wide-scale rollout would allow more renewable power to be available, potentially lowering the overall cost of electricity for consumers. Better energy storage could, the committee said, make the grid more flexible and avoid paying to switch off wind and solar farms when there is more clean power being generated than consumers can use. Paolucci said: 'Flexible storage is essential for net zero carbon operation of Britain's electricity system. It helps balance the system by ensuring there's always a large volume of 'back-up' power on standby, that can be delivered in very fast timescales if required. We're very proud to contribute to the electricity security of supply and green energy ambition of the UK with these extraordinary assets.'
Japan Times
20-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
The U.K.'s clean power future relies on a 100-year-old technology
Hidden amongst the picturesque lakes and mountains of North Wales lies Europe's largest battery. For years, water has rushed through Dinorwig's subterranean tunnels to drive vast power turbines, but the channels currently lie empty — for the first time in four decades. They've been drained for a £1 billion ($1.3 billion) refurbishment to extend the life of the plant along with a Welsh sister project in Ffestiniog, both vital to the U.K. grid. Their pumped-hydro technology is more than a century old, but at the moment is virtually the only way of storing electricity for longer than a few hours. It also provides crucial kinetic energy to the network, keeping the frequency stable. Hydro storage is a key partner to renewables generation in Britain's Clean Power 2030 plan, and the country needs more of it. "The site is really crucial to the U.K.'s renewable rollout,'' said Miya Paolucci, U.K. chief executive at Engie, the utility that owns the site. "Refurbishing our existing plant should be a no-brainer.'' The turbine hall at Europe's largest and fastest-acting pumped storage station, which opened in 1984. | bloomberg The technology — largely based on gravity — is fairly simple: Water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher basin when energy is cheap and plentiful; then when power is lacking, it's released back down and turns a turbine. That flexibility allows the operator to fill gaps in supply when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. At Dinorwig, there is a 500-meter drop through the rock where the water comes smashing down to generate power. Some parts of the tunnels are big enough to fit a house inside. The U.K. has about 3 gigawatts of long-duration energy storage and almost all of that is pumped hydro, according to data from the national system operator. To achieve a clean grid by the end of the decade, it says as much as 8 gigawatts will be needed. Dinorwig alone can generate 1.7 gigawatts. Although the technology isn't hugely complicated, no new projects have been built for decades due to the high upfront cost and the lack of financial incentives provided by the government, which instead has channeled support toward solar and wind. Pumped-hydro plants also only make sense in specific geographies — often mountainous areas where water can be pumped between high and low reservoirs. A worker during the refurbishment. The site is currently drained down – a rare occurrence that happens every 40 years. | bloomberg Industry regulator Ofgem hopes to spur new projects by opening a so-called cap-and-floor funding program, which guarantees minimum revenues for developers and is due to kick in next year. "The starting pistol has been fired,' Kate Gilmartin, CEO of the British Hydropower Association, said in an interview. While the cap-and-floor details are yet to be determined, pumped hydro in Britain is "absolutely crucial, we need to have it online.' The economics don't work for everyone. Drax Group put a pumped-hydro expansion plan on ice earlier this year, citing rising costs and uncertainty over the returns. Scotland's SSE is pursuing a 1.3-gigawatt project, but it's yet to begin construction or secure all the necessary investment. The outline of the cap-and-floor mechanism right now doesn't make Coire Glas investible yet, an SSE spokesperson said by email. Ofgem's funding will extend to other storage technologies such as flow batteries, which stash energy in liquid electrolytes, and liquid air systems, which liquefy and store air in insulated tanks. All these could help move the U.K. toward net zero goals. But pumped hydro, while expensive compared with solar and wind, is still among the lowest-cost of all long-duration storage, data shows. The extensive refurbishment of the Dinorwig plant, by majority-owned by French utility Engie, will take as long as 10 years to complete and will mean the plant can run for an extra 25 years. The plant has proved its worth in emergency situations. Inside the control room with its mix of analogue and digital screens is a green phone which comes with only one instruction: when it rings, you answer. This is the grid operator asking for a power boost as was needed in 2019 when more than a million customers in London lost supply. "The advantage of pumped hydro is its durability,' the BHA's Gilmartin said. "It is proven, it's reliable, it's been there for 120 years. So that kind of permanence gives us future resilience.'
