Health and safety in the offshore renewable-energy industry will be under the spotlight when international experts attend a conference in Aberdeen this week.
Maritime, shipping and legal experts will discuss how offshore renewable safety can be improved and accident levels reduced.
Bruce Craig, partner and leading offshore health and safety expert at law firm Pinsent Masons, will address delegates on how to ensure crew safety during offshore windfarm operations and focus on risk management to avoid potentially dangerous situations.
Power prices in the UK may fall below zero during some hours before the end of the decade as intermittent renewable energy output is poised to soar, according to National Grid Plc.
Negative power prices, already prevalent in markets from Germany to the Nordic region, occur when supply exceeds demand. Having to curb cheap supply from green power is a waste, Duncan Burt, the company’s head of commercial operations, said last week in an interview. To reduce bills and help balance the system, the UK’s biggest users should reduce consumption at times of peak demand and take advantage of periods with plenty of green power, he said.
The UK government plans to boost the share of energy demand met by renewables to 15 percent in 2020 from 5.3 percent in 2013, potentially boosting price swings. That may give users from factories to supermarkets a greater incentive to adjust consumption more actively, according to Burt.
The Scottish energy minister has called on the UK Government not to “slash” support for onshore wind energy and undermine efforts against climate change.
Fergus Ewing’s appeal comes as UN climate negotiations get underway in Bonn this week, in advance of talks to be held in Paris later this year.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) is expected to announce measures to deliver on the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to “end any new public subsidy” for onshore windfarms.
This week Mr Ewing will make the case to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd on the need to continue support for the onshore wind sector as a way of driving down emissions, creating jobs and “keeping the lights on”.
Full power output has been achieved at the Westermost Rough offshore windfarm, a major renewable energy project located off the UK's east coast.
Westermost Rough is capable of generating up to 210 megawatts (MW) of electricity – enough to meet the annual electricity demands of well over 150,000 UK homes.
It is the first offshore windfarm to make commercial use of the Siemens 6MW wind turbine, with each of the 35 turbines in use taller than the Humber suspension bridge, the towers of which are 156m in height.
Green-energy technology development body Wave Energy Scotland (WES) has struck a deal allowing it to tap into expertise at Aquamarine Power, the firm behind the Oyster wave-power machine.
The three-month tie-up is known as Project Know-How and allows WES, which was established as part of Highlands and Islands Enterprise late last year at the request of the Scottish Government, to benefit from knowledge gained through the development of Oyster technology.
A new international research programme is being launched to make renewables cheaper than coal within 10 years.
The scheme’s backers, who include leading figures from business, government and academia, warn that cheap clean energy is crucial to keeping global temperatures from rising by more than 2C - seen as the threshold for dangerous climate change.
Like the US programme in the 1960s to put a man on the moon, the Global Apollo Programme has a clear goal, in this case to make electricity from solar and wind cheaper than power from coal in every country and to do so within a decade.
Atlantic Offshore Rescue is to unveil the third vessel of its modernisation programme.
The standby vessel operator will showcase the Ocean Falcon, which totals £300million, at a ceremony in Aberdeen today.
Ocean Falcon is a new H820 design from Havyard Ship Design. It was built and developed in Passai, Spain by Zamakona shipbuilders, in close collaboration with Atlantic Offshore Rescue over an 18 month period.
Local communities will have the final say in bids to build large scale onshore wind farms under plans set out in the Queen’s Speech.
The Government is introducing an Energy Bill which will change the law to remove the need for the Energy Secretary to approve large wind farms of more than 50 megawatts (MW), schemes which would typically involve dozens of wind turbines.
The development of new hydro-electric power schemes will no longer be economically viable if the UK Government continues to cut subsidies, a London-based investment fund has warned.
Hydro schemes have been an attractive proposition for cautious investors as they use established technology, have a predictable output and are designed to last 50 years with little maintenance, said David Freeder, an investment manager at Downing.
The government sweetened the deal further in 2010, when it introduced the feed-in tariff (FiT) system, which dishes out fixed-rate payments for electricity generated by small-scale schemes, including solar, wind and hydro.
A conservation group has urged politicians to act to protect the country’s scenic Highlands from further wind-farm developments.
The Friends of the Great Glen group says the Great Glen and Loch Ness area is under threat from a “multitude” of planning applications which could see the creation of hundreds of turbines and industrial infrastructure.
The group, which has submitted a petition on the issue to the Scottish Parliament, argues that current planning processes do not afford the tourist destination with enough protection.
Seals are taking advantage of offshore windfarms to forage for food, satellite tracking has shown.
Data from tagging harbour and grey seals on the British and Dutch coasts of the North Sea revealed that 11 harbour seals visited two active windfarms off the German and UK coasts.
At both sites, the GPS tracking showed several worked their way through the area in a grid-like pattern, travelling in straight lines between individual turbines where they appeared to focus their hunt for prey.
Seals also tracked the path of subsea pipelines, with two seals in the Netherlands encountering a section of pipeline and following it on multiple trips for days at a time, the research published in the journal Current Biology showed.
The UK Green Investment Bank has confirmed the acquisition of a £236m stake in the 400MW Rampion Offshore Wind Farm.
The project has been developed by E.ON, which will continue to own the remaining shares in the joint venture.
Ethiopia plans to begin exporting renewable energy to a broader range of neighbouring nations by 2018 as part of a cross-border effort to maintain regional energy demand.
The move will also limit increases in climate-changing emissions.
The Eastern African Power Pool (EAPP) initiative aims to create or expand clean energy transmission lines among about a dozen countries in the region.
Learning solutions provider Atlas Knowledge has signed a deal with the Ministry of Oil and Baghdad Oil Training Institute (BOTI) in Iraq.
The contract will enable the firm to deliver safety and technical training to the country’s oil and gas workforce as part of a project sanctioned by the Ministry of Oil’s Department of Training and E-learning.
A former energy minister has accused the governments of Scotland and the UK of overseeing a “dismal failure of energy policy” related to the Western Isles.
Brian Wilson said the Western Isles have the highest electricity tariffs in the UK and that 70% of households in the area suffer from fuel poverty, which is worse than anywhere else in Western Europe.
That record is particularly galling given that the Western Isles are often said to have the greatest potential for the generation of renewable energy in Europe, according to Mr Wilson, energy minister from 2001-03.
Plexus Holdings has secured a new £1 million contract with Premier Oil Norge AS.
The contract will enable the Aberdeen-based firm to supply its wellhead technology for an exploration well in Norwegian Central North Sea in August.
Energy services firm Proserv has completed the first phase of one of its biggest contracts.
The Aberdeen-quartered company has delivered three of nine control systems that will support drill pipe riser (DPR) intervention services at depths of 2,500 metres.
Campaigners are calling for more homes and businesses to make use of solar power after figures showed there was enough sunshine last month to power electricity supplies.
Around 35,000 homes and 600 business premises in Scotland currently have solar panels.
Data from WeatherEnergy showed that sunshine in Edinburgh in April generated more electricity than is used in an average home - 113% - while in Aberdeen the figure was 111%, 106% in Glasgow and 104% in Inverness.
For homes fitted with solar hot water panels, there was enough sunshine in the cities to cover average usage.
The launch of a new battery for homes that can store solar power for use in the evenings is “another nail in the coffin of conventional utilities”, it has been claimed.
Tesla announced it was launching the wall-mounted lithium ion rechargeable storage units, based on the batteries used in the company’s electric vehicles, at an event in California.
Chief executive Elon Musk said: “Our goal here is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy”, as he launched the new “powerwall” batteries, which are little bigger than a conventional boiler.
The technology will cost between 3,000 and 3,500 US dollars (£2,000 - £2,300) and will start shipping in the US in the summer.
A new map shows the full extent of the “industrialisation” of the north-east by the windfarm industry.
Produced for the John Muir Trust, it displays “zones of theoretical visual impact” of existing windfarms if there were no trees or buildings in the way.
Huge swathes of Aberdeenshire and Moray – and practically all of Banff and Buchan – are affected.
Campaigners said the map highlights there is practically no escaping the intrusion of windfarms and single turbines on the landscape.
Ireland’s top energy company, ESB, has struck a deal with a developer to bring another nine onshore windfarms to the UK.
The nine projects being developed by Dublin’s ESB and Berkshire-based Coriolis Energy will have a capacity of 400megawatts, enough to power 225,000 homes.
The renewables industry has hit back at Tory and Ukip pledges to stop new onshore wind farms with a report showing the sector added more than £900 million to the economy last year.
According to the study, the onshore wind industry generated £906 million in gross value added revenue to the UK economy in 2014, with £7 in every £10 invested staying in the UK.
More than a quarter (27%) of the economic benefits of onshore wind went to the area around the wind farm and almost half (48%) stayed in the UK region where the project was located, the report said.
The report by BiGGAR Economics for industry body RenewableUK showed that the revenue onshore wind adds to the economy has risen by £358 million since the beginning of 2012, a 65% increase.
Plans have been tabled for a £2billion power link between Aberdeenshire and Scandinavia which could create 200 jobs.
The NorthConnect scheme would carry electricity generated in Scotland and Norway to both nations to meet demand.
The consortium involved wants to build an onshore converter station in the village of Boddam, south of Peterhead.
A breakthrough has been made in the development of clean hydrogen power, scientists believe.
Researchers at the University of Bath and Yale University in the US have produced a new material for generating hydrogen from water - meaning it is less reliant on fossil fuels.
The invention uses a newly designed molecular catalyst to split water in an electrolyser and create clean and storable hydrogen fuel.
The research team are now in discussions with a number of energy companies about utilising this technology on a large scale and hope the breakthrough marks the start of contributing to providing the world with more sustainable fuels.
