Archive for January 2012

Danish EU presidency won't be blown off course

January 18, 2012 8:03 AM by KelvinR

In terms of bad timing, it couldn’t have been worse – as Denmark was accepting the EU presidency and heralding a drive for “green growth”, Danish wind power company Vestas announced it was cutting 2335 jobs.

This left Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt using her presidency launch speech to answer questions on how much of a blow the Vestas announcement was to the country's clean energy ambitions.

“This feels today like an enormous setback,” she said, “but this setback should not make us change our strategy. We need to be world leaders in energy efficiency, new technologies, green technologies, because we think it is not only good for the environment but it is also good business for Europe.”

European Commission president Manuel Barroso jumped in to back Thorning-Schmidt: “To be frank, it’s not only this field we are seeing losses of workers. So most likely, it would be a reflection of the overall crisis of Europe. The reason behind the crisis in Europe is not because of the investment in green technology.”

Despite the Vestas distraction, Denmark’s six-month tenure at the helm of the presidency should indeed be good news for the renewable energy industry in Europe.

Martin Lindgreen, head of department at Denmark’s ministry of climate, energy and building, has said that the Danish presidency will result in “milestones being defined or approaches sought for later agreements on renewables and energy efficiency, oil and gas and carbon capture and storage”.

Denmark has bold plans for CCS, a Smart Grid and, of course, wind power, and is making headway in all these areas.

If renewable power needs a rallying call, no-one can shout loudest than the Danes, because nothing convinces more than leading by example - and the Danish blueprint for renewable growth has few peers.

 

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Vestas will weather the storm

January 16, 2012 5:32 AM by KelvinR

The admission by Vestas president Ditlev Engel last week that the company has “a credibility problem” was refreshingly candid.

Announcing a restructuring that would result in more than 2000 jobs cuts, he said he could understand if people outside the firm believed it to be “in a state of crisis”.

And it is in a state of crisis, but it is far from alone. In a turbine manufacturing market that has become saturated in an incredibly short period of time, the established players – like Vestas – are feeling the pressure from new entrants.

This was always going to happen, but now there will be a period of adjustment when the market, having expanded to accept the new kids on the block, gives them a trial period to prove themselves.

If their products cannot find regular buyers in a sector that is demanding technological excellence and innovation on a daily basis, they too will first find themselves in a state of crisis, and then out of business. Engel called this the “elimination race”.

Meanwhile, players like Vestas must adapt to weather the storm, and it will be a tough time – especially if you are one of the 2335 staff about to be made redundant.

But traditionally, established companies survive, because they have built their brand on a measured approach with the technological know-how to respond to market demands. This results in full orderbooks – which is just what Vestas also has at the moment.

 

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Licence to kill nuclear’s image?

January 13, 2012 10:36 AM by KelvinR

As a means of shoe-horning your way onto the news agenda, the tactic this week of the Royal Society of Chemistry worked a treat.

It claimed, quite straight-faced, that the 1962 James Bond film Dr No had ruined the previously unblemished public image of the nuclear power industry.

The society’s president David Phillips said that the film – in which the eponymous villain plans world domination from his nuclear reactor – presented a view that atomic energy was a “barely controllable force of nature” and as such had resulted in a “remorselessly grim” public perception ever since.

Having seen the film several times, I can honestly say that this train of thought has never occurred to me, but maybe I was too distracted by Sean Connery’s action antics and Ursula Andress rising from the Caribbean surf.

Naturally the society’s claim was swiftly rubbished, not least by the government’s climate change advisor Professor Tom Burke, who said that “the idea that Hollywood has made people sceptical about nuclear power is a bit like thinking that it’s gangster movies that are responsible for crime waves”.

And of course he’s right, as the society itself would privately acknowledge. What the society is trying to do via its Bond-bashing is drive home a message that nuclear power needs a “renaissance” and that, despite events in Japan last year, is still a safe means of power generation.

But the nuclear industry seems to have weathered the post-Fukushima storm pretty well and the sought-after ‘renaissance’ is underway in many countries – the UK and the Czech Republic to name but two.

And public opinion is not all one-way traffic. A recent poll found that the strongest anti-nuclear sentiment was in Japan, understandably, Germany, and, surprisingly, France. But the pro-nuclear figure had risen in the UK since the last poll in 2005, and was the same in the US. 

Maybe the Royal Society should distract attention from nuclear by lobbying the Bond scriptwriters to feature a criminal mastermind who sabotages the solar panels on the White House (yes, there are some: put up by Carter, removed by Reagan and soon to be reinstalled by Obama), or targets other energy sources. Coalfinger? Dr NOx? A View to a Kilowatt?

 

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Oiling the wheels of industry

January 11, 2012 3:52 AM by KelvinR

It is all too easy when talking in ‘big picture’ terms about power generation to overlook that part of the sector which quite literally oils the wheels of the industry – lubricants.

The grand plans of companies and even governments rely on the lubricants market to not only keep pace with technological developments, but try to keep a step ahead of demands.

And nowhere is this more true right now than in the gas turbine market. In November the International Energy Agency declared in its annual World Energy Outlook that we are entering a “golden age of gas”.

The IEA forecast that global consumption of natural gas will catch up with coal by 2035, with unconventional gas resources, such as shale gas and coal-bed methane, playing a pivotal role.

The hiatus in the nuclear sector caused by the disaster is also presenting opportunities for gas fired power stations, particularly combined-cycle gas turbine plants.

PEi recently carried out a survey in conjunction with Shell Lubricants of power industry professionals, and respondents recognized these trends and agreed that they presented key opportunities for players in the turbine oil sector – 23.8 per cent strongly agreed and 54.3 per cent agreed that the move away from nuclear would increase the power generated by gas turbines.

Another 35.1 per cent strongly agreed and 56.6 per cent agreed with the view that greater grid balancing of renewables would increase the need for grid balancing by gas turbines.

Indeed, the glut of renewable power expected to come online in the next few years means power plants must be flexible like never before.

The intermittency issues associated with both wind and solar mean that facilities have to be able adapt to conditions at the flick of a switch, feeding the demand for high-performing lubricants.

The race for ever-greater efficiency and flexibility – exemplified by innovative new turbines from Siemens and GE – reflects this fast-changing power landscape.

As the power generation sector enters 2012 it is facing opportunities and challenges like never before, and acknowledging and then utilizing the expertise of the lubricants market will be key to seizing those opportunities and overcoming the challenges.

To read the full PEi/Shell Lubricants survey, visit http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2011/12/gas-power-generation-outlook-opportunities-maintenance-challenges.html

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