Contents

– Storage Appraisal Project. – £25m investment in offshore wind opportunities – Modelling tidal energy resources – EI Awards and Lecture series – Announcing the new ETI website

The ETI has announced a Request for Proposals for Hosting of United Kingdom Storage Appraisal Project Web-Enabled Database and GIS.

The UK Storage Appraisal Project (UKSAP) was commissioned by the ETI in September 2009. The project, led by Senergy Alternative Energy and involving the key centres of expertise in the UK in CO2 storage appraisal, is currently nearing completion.

The major deliverable from the project is a web-enabled database and GIS (WDG) containing the geological data, storage estimates, risk assessments and economics of the nearly 600 potential storage units identified by the project, covering both depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers. The ETI recognises that this project and its results represent a major UK asset, and now wishes to ensure that the project results, including the WDG, be made widely available to all parties working on or interested in CCS.

Through this RfP, the ETI is seeking an organisation with the capacity to licence the WDG, provide wide access to its contents, support users and act as a focus for its future expansion and development. The ETI’s required outcome is that access to the UKSAP WDG is made available to the wide UK CCS community, under conditions which would encourage widespread use, and that the database contents are developed as improved data and methodologies are developed. Through the widespread use of this national asset, the roll out of CCS in the UK will be enhanced.

View the Request for Proposals and the NDA here

The ETI has announced plans to invest up to £25m in an offshore wind floating system demonstration project which would open up new areas off the coast of the UK and help bring generation costs down.

It is estimated that the UK has over a third of the total European potential offshore wind resource – enough to power the country nearly three times over.

The project will see the design, construction and installation of a floating system demonstrator by 2016 at a relatively near shore site with high wind speeds up to about 10 metres per second in water between 60 and 100 metres deep.

Dr David Clarke, ETI Chief Executive said:

“Our studies have shown that access to high wind areas which are close to shore should be an attractive investment compared to some existing UK sites which are further from the coast in areas of lower wind.”
We see floating turbine technology being strategically important to both the UK’s energy supply and its industrial strategy which is why we are now seeking partners to carry out the development, installation and commissioning of a full scale floating wind turbine system demonstrator by 2016.”

The ETI will also commission a test site for the demonstrator with possible sites being provided to project participants during the design phase.

A Request for Proposal (RfP) has been issued for organisations wanting to get involved in the project.

The deadline for the notification of intention to submit a proposal is 6 January 2012 and the closing date is 27 January 2012.

View the Request for Proposal here

The UK’s tidal energy resources are to be modelled by the ETI in a project that will improve understanding of the possible interactions between tidal energy extraction systems as they are deployed between now and 2050.

The £450,000 Tidal Modelling Project running until the end of 2012 will be led by consulting, engineering and construction company Black & Veatch supported by hydrodynamic modelling specialists HR Wallingford and the University of Edinburgh. The work will be carried out in Redhill, Surrey, Wallingford, Oxfordshire and Edinburgh.

It will develop models of the whole UK Continental Shelf that will be used to investigate how energy extraction at one site may affect the energy available elsewhere. A wide range of possible future tidal stream and tidal range sites, with differing technology possibilities will be represented in the models.

View further information here

The Energy Technologies Institute was sponsor of the 2011 Technology Award at the annual Energy Institute awards.

The winner – Mott MacDonald and Beacon Power for the Stephentown flywheel energy storage plant – was announced by Dr David Clarke, ETI CEO, at a ceremony in London on 17 November, hosted by physicist and BBC Science presenter, Prof Brian Cox OBE.

The ETI is also sponsor of the EI’s Evening Lecture series.

The Energy Technologies Institute launched their new website this month. The new site features much more content than the previous version and also showcases all of our 34 commissioned projects to-date.

Visit the new ETI Website.

Find out more about us by visiting the new ETI website or by viewing the ETI’s new video and brochure