STIG (Solar Trading Interest Group)

Davis Langdon’s interest group on Concentrated Solar Power and

the HVDC Supergrid
David Weight initiated and has arranged a series of monthly meetings at Davis
Langdon’s Head office in London.

David was already a member of Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation

- UK (TREC-UK) and set up the group as an alliance of leading members of TREC,
and engineers and consultants from various companies involved with energy
generation.

This group started up with two objectives in mind:

1. To promote a very important technology in the strategy to combat global
warming and replace fossil fuels as their supply goes into decline.
2. To further the knowledge of consultants and help their chances of winning
work in an expanding and ethical area of work.

The meetings have been typically on a monthly basis, taking a two-hour at lunchtime,
usually with a guest speaker, and are summarised below:

1. 16th December 08. General get together and knowledge exchange.

2. 20th January 09. General discussion, particularly discussing the initiative
lead by President Sarcozy for a Mediterranean Solar Plan. This would
include an HVDC ring main around the Mediterranean, linking and
distributing various energy types, but especially PV and CSP.
3. 26th February 09. This meeting commenced with a presentation by Leon di
Marco, following his recent attendance at a conference in Brussels on the
planned Mediterranean supergrid. The gap between the European
(particularly German and French) planned approach to trading energy via the
grid, and the British intransigence and reliance on private sector funding and
resulting piece meal links, was very apparent. The main item for this
meeting was a presentation by Peter Jones, Head of Technology at ABB Ltd.
ABB and Siemens are the only companies worldwide with the patents and
ability to build HVDC lines and associated transformer stations. The talk
was fascinating, though much of it was challenging to those of us who don’t
have degree in physics! Peter advised that the development of the grid
should be managed and should not be left to the private sector to evolve in a
piecemeal fashion.
4. 26th March 2009. The main speaker was Graham Ford, MD of Helio-
Dynamics of Cambridge. Most of Graham’s presentation was about his
company’s very refined technology for concentrated solar PV. The
sophistication of the optics and tracking systems was impressive, but real
data on costs and performance in the field is still awaited. We wish them
well.
5. 23rd April 2009. Leon diMarco gave a short presentation on various PV
technologies, noting performance, costs and trends. The main speaker was
Carlos Márquez, Research Manager of “CSP Today”. “CSP Today” are
based in London, run a web-site, newsletters and organise international
 conferences. The presentation was a very good overview of the various CSP
technologies, and status of development world-wide, and politics, especially
the strong influence of feed-in tariffs or other such financial incentives
which are still needed. Cost guidance was given as e3,000 to e6,000kWe
peak power, with 7 hour storage adding about another 50%. However, they
acknowledged that (as DL have found), developers are very guarded about
giving guidance on costs.
6. 25th June 2009. The main speaker was Jeff Hardy of the UK Energy
Research Centre. This is run from the University College of London and is
funded by the Energy Research Council. Jeff outlined how research is
encouraged, funded and managed. Jeff illustrated the results of a very
sophisticated computer model. This model may be calibrated according to
data on supply capability/ constraints, costs, population growth, average
personal consumption, efficiency savings etc, etc, computes the lowest cost
means of achieving a desired performance, which was specified as 80%
CO2e savings by 2050. The results were interesting and the modelling was
clearly impressive. However, a number of us were concerned and expressed
doubts about a number of underlying assumptions, especially the availability
of oil for decades into the future. Recent reports about oil decline and
dissent with in the IEA have increased these doubts. See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-
agency and http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/12/oil-shortage-uppsala-
aleklett. The modelling showed a tension between economic optimisation,
which could be summarised as “as little as possible as late as possible”, and
environmental need, which is the reverse. Jeff acknowledged that solar
energy from abroad was not factored in at all, and that the research so far,
was weak on the prospect of international renewable energy trading!
7. 24th September 09. Leon diMarco gave an update on relevant political
developments and knowledge gained from recent meetings such as the
conference in July at the Italian embassy. This was followed by a
presentation by Charlie Paton of Seawater Greenhouses. This is a very far-
sighted idea to grow food using solar powered greenhouses and minimum
water consumption. So far, schemes have been fairly small demonstrators,
but at scale, the effect of such houses on surrounding air could be linked to
reforestation and improve the climate of the area. Our third speaker was
Ralf Wiesen of Estela. ESTELA is a European Industry Association created
to support the emerging European solar thermal electricity industry for the
generation of green power in Europe and abroad, mainly in the
Mediterranean region. Estela are based in Brussels although Ralf is based in
Madrid. Ralf said that 40 CSP plants are under construction around the
world, mostly in Spain. Ralf made a strong case for regarding CSP as
proven and low risk, so meriting financing over 40 years, rather than 20 or
25 years. Ralf stressed that good widespread grid connections were
imperative.
8. 19th November 09. Again, Leon diMarco gave an update on relevant
political developments. Our main speaker was Dr Till Stenzel of Nur
Energie. They already have small CSP plants under development in Crete
and Rhodes, Greece, both using the tower system, but the focus was on a
very exciting plan for a 2,000MW scheme to import energy from a CSP
plant in Tunisia into Italy. This would be the first scheme exporting
 renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Till emphasised the
problem of water consumption for cooling of turbines in chosing a site and
selection of technology. Water consumption can be a very constraining
issue and we expect to see more development of dry-cooling or hybrid
systems to reduce water needs. Till explained that whilst CSP can lend itself
to sea water desalination, coastal areas of deserts usually have onshore
winds during the day, which makes the air more hazy, and so reducing the
received energy and efficiency of the plant.
9. 15th December 2009. The meeting started with feedback by Gus Schellekins
of PWC, recently back from COP15, of the political situation and the
evolution of policy which is needed to implement the development of an
HVDC grid and the renewable technologies which will link to this and trade
through it. This meeting was set up to understand the wind energy
generation sector better and to see where there are synergies where various
renewable energy technologies should work together. The second speaker
was Frank Beibor of Metoc. Metoc are Marine consultants and project
managers working on various marine renewable energy schemes, mainly
around the UK, but also further afield, such as the Eastern seaboard of the
U.S. Frank introduced the next two speakers, being Peter Madigan,
Offshore Wind Development Manager of the British Wind Energy
Association, and Chris Veal, Managing Director of Transmission Capital
Ltd. They are aiming to increase the peak energy supply from 4GW, or just
3% of the electrical load, up to 34GW, or 29% of the electrical load, with the
bulk coming from offshore wind. Grid links are evolving and will including
an energy hub sited in Dogger Bank in the North Sea. Encouragingly, such
a node could enable linking to other energy sources such as solar in the
future. However, a number of us felt disappointed that grid development is
currently seen as following rather than leading plant development, despite
the relatively low cost of grids versus plants. There does not even seem to
be a long enough view, even with the UK, to include the future, potentially
massive tidal and waves resources off the Scottish and Irish coasts.
(Development in these industries is constrained by lack of grid connectivity,
although not just that). The group felt that there is a need to get decision
makers to support a more holistic vision of renewable energy development
and not rely upon piecemeal proposals from the private sector.
10. In early February, a small meeting was arranged at short notice, to receive a
presentation from Prof Derek Abbot, of the University of Adelaide followed
by discussion. Derek’s was a very God’s eye view of how the planet might
power itself. An extremely interesting and concerning aspect of his research
was the problems of pollution, and shortages of rare earths and metals for
catalysts, permanent magnets, batteries and the like that are needed for
alternative renewable technologies. Also, a very critical analysis of various
nuclear technologies. Derek’s work was very strong on the potential
synergy with hydrogen-based technologies and use for transport. His paper,
“Keeping the Energy Debate Clean: How Do We Supply the World’s
Energy Needs?” is well worth reading.
11. On 26th March, we received a presentation from Gus Shellekins on their
recommended Policy Roadmap to 2050 – “Linking Renewables with a
Supersmart Grid”. PWC have collaborated with the Potsdam Institute and
the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis to produce a very
 pragmatic study showing how a vision on similar lines to Desertec may be
achieved through a series of steps. It deals with a number of hurdles,
including:
• government policy and regulatory issues,
• infrastructure and associated technical protocols to achieve integration
and trading opportunities, and
• financial hurdles and incentives.
There was some debate about whether technical standards will be set by the
EEC at some point, or whether, (like Betamax versus VHS or IBM versus
Windows) private operators will fight it out to see who emerges as setting
the standard. While there were minor reservations about some numbers like
estimates of future demand, the initiative as a whole was strongly supported
by the group.
Leon diMarco gave an update on the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP). 65
large projects are in the pipeline, of which 13 are CSP. They have the
support of the World Bank and the European Investment Bank. It is looking
as if the Southern (mainly solar) grid, will one day link with the Northern
(North-Sea based and mainly wind) grid to enable trading to the advantage
of all linked countries.
12. 2nd July 2010. This was a fairly informal meeting , starting with a talk by
Graham Watson MEP. Graham led the liberal group and supergrid initiative
in the EEC, and you can read the excellent report from the group Graham led
, 'Making the Green Energy Switch at a Time of Crisis' " at
http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org/resources/sites/82.165.40.25-
4176318e5862b2.86801678/Graham's%20Publications/Making+the+Green+
Energy+Switch+at+a+Time+of+Crisis.pdf

Graham said that the EU had lost it’s focus on the subject because of the
need to save money on embassies, regulate the banks and other financial
problems. He thought that Germany and Denmark were the countries most
in favour of the European-wide grid. He referred to www.Roadmap.eu
which is similar to, but not the same as PWC’s “100% renewable electricity
A roadmap to 2050 for Europe and North Africa”
http://www.pwc.co.uk/pdf/100_percent_renewable_electricity.pdf

Governments look at and price various fuel mixes of renewables, fossil fuels
and nuclear. The assumption is that fossil fuel prices will not rise more than
general inflation, or that the risk of this is listed separately user “Risks”.
Some of us feared that risks would be overlooked and decisions based on a
narrow economics assessment which excluded the risks of “peak oil” and the
like.

Davis Langdon would like to thank all our guest speakers, but especially those expert
members of TREC: Robert Palgrave, Hywel Roberts, and Leon diMarco, who give
their time freely for a good cause. Special mention must be given to Leon, a
physicist who runs FSK Technology, has carried out a lot of research, helped to
recruit speakers and has given short presentations at a number of meetings now.

David Weight. Editor, Davis Langdon.