There have been recent debates and discussions surrounding the power generation industry, as to the best method

of power generation to be employed in the UK, predominantly because of environmental issues and also growing unstable political climate in the Middle East and the third world. As an Electrical Power Engineer you are required to investigate and research into the various methods of electrical generation and distribution for domestic and industrial purposes. You should discuss at least 5 methods available. Compare the efficiency and viability of 3 of those methods in the UK. In your report include the environmental and social implications. Your final submission should include a recommendation of your preferred method of generation with justifications.

With the oil price soaring, UK government made it clear last year that they would like to be more ambitious for nuclear plans. However, it wasn t easily accepted by the critics who are not happy with its high cost and attraction to terrorism. As the existing plants are very close to the end of their life, it is also important to consider their immediate replacement. Britain has recently set out plans to speed up process for the big wind farms and nuclear power generation. There are different types of energy generation methods that Britain can look into. Some of these can be used domestically while some are only possible on industrial basis. The methods available are listed and discussed below:
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Nuclear power Wind Power Solar photovoltaic plants Hydroelectric power Tidal energy

Nuclear fusion power: With a potential of safe, clean and virtually endless energy supply nuclear fusion has been considered as the energy of future. World-wide combined effort has been put in the research to harness electricity. The basic principle is to combine two isotopes of hydrogen i.e. deuterium and tritium, which would release Helium and some excess energy contained the free neutron. However, to overcome the rejection force of deuterium and tritium a large amount of energy has to be supplied and a favourable condition (150 million degree Celsius) has to be created in the reactor. Nuclear plant at Culham, UK, is using a Russian designed reactor named Tokamak to control high temperature plasmas. Efficiency and Viability: Efficiency is only the reason why fusion isn t still in practise and remains as big question to scientists. The best existing experiments need as much power to heat the plasma as they produce in fusion power. However, a power plant that is going to be built in Cadarache, France in near future is expected to generate 500MW power with the supply of only 50MW. Still a lot of research has to be put into it as the ratio of energy input to energy output is not that impressive.

Wind Energy: For centuries, wind energy has been utilised by sail boats and windmills. However, from the last two decades, the modern concept of utilising wind energy to generate electricity has been taking a much faster pace than expected. Wind Energy Converters (WEC) convert kinetic energy of wind into electric energy. The basic principle is to connect rotating turbine blades with generator and produce electricity. Wind energy applications in the UK range from small battery charging applications producing useful electricity remote from the electricity distribution network, to large wind farms producing electricity competitive with conventional power stations. Currently it s only providing 1% of the total electricity generated. [7] Solar Photovoltaic Plant: it is the method of converting solar radiation into electrical energy. Though there are different ways of converting solar energy into electric energy solar photovoltaic method is found to serve the best result. Solar electric panels are used to generate power when exposed to solar radiation or high levels of light. It is the only process where the process of mechanical into electrical can be skipped. PV panels are now available in a range of technologies; however the most popular types are still silicon-based monocrystalline, polycrystalline, and amorphous (aSi) panels.[2] Hydroelectric power [8]: It is the method of generating electricity by using the flow of water from rivers or lake. How much electricity can be generated depends on the kinetic energy carried by the water which depends on its flow/quantity and the height from which it is falling. Higher the height from where it is falling more the electricity can be generated. The kinetic energy is converted into mechanical energy by turning the turbine. Rotating turbine which is connected to generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. Tidal energy: Tidal power is another form of energy that UK can look into. Out of 20 different sites over the whole world where tidal energy is possible, eight of them have been listed in UK and it has the potential to meet up to 20% of total UK demand. Before tidal energy meant the difficulties with tidal barrage, but with developing research and technology, other different ways of generating power has been found out. The most popular methods are tidal barrage and tidal stream system. Tidal stream system is relatively easier to build and costs less to maintain. Sea Gen, is the UKs first commercial scale underwater turbine generating 150kW of electricity. [10] Currently, power generated by tidal energy costs 3M to every MW power and it takes many years to get the return. This is the reason why it hasn t been of any interest to private investors. It s another major disadvantage is the effect its barrages causes to marine life of the site.

Comparison: Hydropower is also the most efficient way of generating electricity. A modern hydro turbine generator can convert over 90% of the energy in the available water into electricity. This is far more efficient than any other form of generation. [6] While theoretical maximum energy a Wind turbine can extract from wind energy is only about 60%; though, over the course of one year it can only generate about 30% of its theoretical maximum output. Still a lot of research has to be put in PV cells to bring it into competition with hydro and wind as its current efficiency ranges from just 15%17% of the available power from the sun. [5]

Hydropower is also the most inexpensive way of generating electricity. When placed at right location with proper design, it is far more cost effective than wind power and PV solar cells in terms of watts generated per GBP spent. A typical wind turbine for electrical generation will repay the energy used in its manufacture in the first 6-9 months of its operation. [7] A report by Emerging Energy Research in 2006 revealed that wind energy is only marginally expensive than coal fired and natural gas power plant, without taking the CO2 emission into account. Besides efficiency, PV panels are quite behind wind and hydro in terms of cost. It is believed that, in a country like UK, it takes more than 100 years to pay off the cost of installation and maintenance of those panels. Table 1 shows the cost of generating electricity (pence per KWh) without the inclusion of cost of CO2 emissions.

Table 1: Cost of generating electricity (pence per kWh) with no cost of CO2 emissions included[12] Availability of hydro, solar and wind energy differs from country to country, region to region, depending on the geographical location and resources available. Talking about UK in particular, it is the windiest country in Europe with a practical potential of 50TWh per year only on land. [3]. However, UK is not equally blessed with solar power. Considering the fact that it is not one of the hottest countries and it drizzles/rains during all seasons, it doesn t take much to come to a conclusion that solar panels aren t the best option in the UK. Though hydropower is the world s largest source of energy, only 2% of electricity generated in UK is from hydro. [4] This could be due to the difficulty in constructing suitable dams as the country is relatively flat.

Social and environmental implications: There aren t any direct links of CO2 emission or pollutants from above mentioned forms of renewable energy, which makes them completely environmental friendly. However, each of them, have been criticised for one reason or another. Solar PV panels, though is very friendly, environmentally and socially, the process linked with its manufacture is not

that friendly. Research done by Environment Science and technology states that the CO2 emissions vary between 21 g - 43 g CO2-eq/kWh depending upon the type of PV panel.[9]Wind energy, however, has more disadvantages on the social part rather than environmental. Most of it is to do with the noise, birds, livestock s and its visual impact. With improving technologies, modern wind turbines have been successful to avoid noise and large scale wind turbines are now equipped with bird avoidance systems, which solves most of its shortcomings. Glazing effects to the motorists also have been solved by using colour absorbing coatings on wind turbine blades. However, visual impact to the people and livestock s who do not like its appearance is something that might take more than technology to solve. Though, hydropower was popularly believed as cleanest source of power, new researches done in some of the biggest dams have proved that it is not as green as it looks like. Organic matter trapped at the bottom of the dams, where there is no supply of oxygen, have been found to release a huge amount of methane and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Research has shown that one hydropower station at Brazil had more contribution to climate change and global warming than the sum of 54 natural gas power stations. [11]

Conclusion: [12] Each method of generation has got both advantages and drawbacks. The scope of building hydroelectric power plants in UK looks very nominal because of the facts that most of the sites have already been exploited and also due to the unacceptability of construction of dams for impoundment of large water resources. Though PV technology is advancing rapidly, it is still not the best possibility yet due to the immaturity of technology and relatively low content of solar radiations in the UK. So, from all different angels, considering the drawbacks of other renewable sources and keeping in mind that UK is windiest country in Europe and isn t very far off from other cheap resources in terms of cost, wind energy serves to be the best option for UK.

C:\Users\BI\Documents\bekar internship\WORLD ENERGY PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES.mht http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7424158.stm http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20091109/tpl-environment-us-energy-britain-nuclea-19346ad.html http://www.jet.efda.org/pages/fusion-basics/fusion1.html#top

http://www.jet.efda.org/pages/fusion-basics/fusion1.html#top http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=nuclear+f sion+efficiency&btnG=Google+Se u arch&meta=&aq=1m&oq=fusion+effici kaltschimtt M, Streicher W, Wiese A, Renewable Energy, 2007, pp[2] http://www.solar-wind.co.uk/solar_panels.html [3] http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file17789.pdf [4] http://www.nef.org.uk/renewableenergy/hydro.htm [5] http://www.bwea.com/ref/faq.html#efficient [6] http://www.british-hydro.org/hydro_facts.html [7] http://www.nef.org.uk/renewableenergy/wind.htm [8]http://www.reuk.co.uk/UK-Hydro-Power-Stations.htm

[9] http://www.leonardo-energy.org/emissions-photovoltaic-manufacturing [10] http://www.tidalenergy.eu/sea_gen.html [11]http://www.reuk.co.uk/Hydro-Contributes-to-Global-Warming.htm [12] http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/Cost_of_Generating_Electricity.pdf http://www.tidalenergy.eu/tidal_stream_systems.html http://www.tidalenergy.eu/tidal_energy_uk.html

Part B: Based on your industrial visit to the Didcot Power station, discuss important design considerations for coal and gas generation station. Please include in brief discussion on the control and monitoring system used in the Didcot power station control room. Include in your discussion how automation has been used to reduce staff requirements and operate a power station more effectively. (40 marks) Didcot Power Station is made up of two power stations i.e. Didcot A and Didcot B. Didcot A is a dual fired power station with capability to burn both coal and natural gas.

http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090119223726AA26WSS https://www.rwe.com/web/cms/mediablob/en/217416/data/216592/38006/rwe -powerinternational/power-generation-services/practical-support/operations-and-maintenance/Operatingflexibly-Didcot-A-makes-over-750-starts-in-one-year.pdf http://www.apms.org.uk/casestudies/docs/cs_c01.pdf http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5392/is_200209/ai_n21318059/ http://4hv.org/e107_files/public/1247082859_1721_FT0_hvhf_transformer.pdf http://www.sea.siemens.com/us/internetdms/AMD/ProcessAutomationComm/ProcessAutomation/Docs/prql-7.pdf http://www.npower.com/rwenpowercr/5_responsible_business/5_2_low_carbon_economy/5_2_2 _2_using_biomass.html http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Didcot_Power_Station Part C (30 marks) Explain the process of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity in the UK from the 400KV super grid to the supply into houses and businesses, comparing ring and radial methods of distribution. Your report should include, where it is appropriate for each method; 1. Type of cable in use and design consideration when placing pylons 2. Description of unit and non unit protection systems used for power generator in a power station,

3. Describe the business model used in UK power stations, which would govern how much power individual power stations would need to generate to supply to the grid.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Electricity_distribution http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Fossil_fuel_power_plant