Case Studies

Electricity system outage planning is currently based on a worst-case scenario for each outage. 

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There is limited accounting for the potential impact of increasingly changing system conditions due to the increase in renewable energy generation or of changes to one outage as a result of other outages.  

This project is providing a solution to the need for better integration of risk estimation into the planning optimization and will develop a tool that facilitates the most efficient economic decision-making from the year-ahead plan to three-weeks ahead, and identifies and tracks risks from year-ahead to day-ahead. 

Read more about Lars Shewe's, Miguel Anjos' and Alemseged Weldeyesus' work here. 

Amy Wilson, Chris Dent and Stan Zachary have worked for over a decade with National Grid Electricity System Operator on risks of electricity capacity shortfalls and determining the necessary capacity to procure to keep this risk to an appropriate level. 

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Areas of collaboration have included design of the original Electricity Capacity Assessment study in 2011-2, assessment of the statistical relationship between demand and available wind capacity historically, how energy storage can be considered in these assessments, and how the contribution of different technologies can be assessed on a common basis when deciding what supply capacity to procure.

Read more about this work here.

The Island of Islay, located off the west coast of Scotland, is both a region of whisky production and key target for industrial decarbonisation. Fuel oil and kerosene dominate current energy demand across the island, accounting for around 80% of total energy demand. The eight (soon to be nine) whisky distilleries on the island consume significant amounts of imported fuel oil which is used to produce heat in the distillation process. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with fuel oil use alone amount to around 48,000 tCO2e per year. Given the Scottish Government's commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045, significant changes in how energy is generated, stored, and used, will be required on Islay.  

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Offshore wind turbines could provide the volume of power needed to help distilleries move to wider use of electric heating systems, supported with hydrogen generated via electrolysis locally. Hydrogen can also provide an alternative to diesel fuel for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) and agricultural vehicles as these vehicles are replaced over time. There are several design choices to be examined. These include: 

• Sizing of the wind farm and electrolysis unit to satisfy future expected demand from the distilleries and community; 

• Examination and optimisation of H2 or energy storage options given the intermittency associated with the wind resource; 

• Examination and optimisation of H2 transportation options.