Power

Are industry skills challenges insurmountable?

Features, Heat, People Skills, Power /

If there’s one topic that can unite a room full of engineers in the UK, across the energy sector and beyond, it’s skills pipelines and future talent. But despite this animation industry skills obstacles seem immovable. Figures about skills gaps, job vacancies and potential economic value – to be lost or gained – are endlessly trotted out to perpetuate a sense of urgency about the challenges industry faces.

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An alternative route to Black Start

Features, Gas, Power, Technology Operations /

In the unlikely event of a total or partial shutdown of the electricity transmission networks, system operators use Black Start services to re-energise the grid and restore power to consumers as quickly as possible. “Black Start” has traditionally relied on the use of designated power stations with self-starting capability to re-energise sections of the network, then incrementally connect loads and additional generators to create “power islands”. These “islands” are connected together to restore supply to consumers.

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An alternative source of power

Features, Heat, Power, Technology Operations /

When most are asked to think about geothermal power, their minds will most likely turn to Iceland and with good reason. The country sits across one of the earth’s great tectonic plate boundaries and, as such, 25 per cent of its electricity demand is supplied by this near limitless geothermal resource. But geothermal power production is not limited to Iceland. Pioneering deep geothermal projects in France, Germany and across Europe have demonstrated its potential as a viable renewable energy source comparable to wind, solar and tidal power. Better yet, it can be extracted regardless of the weather, the power as it were, turned off and on to meet demand, like a tap. On 6 November, drilling work began at the United Downs Industrial Estate in St Day in Cornwall, on the UK’s first ever deep geothermal power plant. We anticipate it is only the first step towards making geothermal a viable alternative power source in the UK and of a nascent British industry.

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An effective way to reduce cable failures

Features, Power, Strategy Management /

Faults on underground power cables are almost always disruptive and costly to fix. So there’s a very big incentive to minimise the risk of such faults occurring. One of the most effective ways of doing this is to use partial discharge (PD) testing and mapping, partial discharge activity is an indication of incipient insulation faults and is widely regarded as one of the best ‘early warning’ indicators of deterioration in medium and high voltage insulation.

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