Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 28TH FEBRUARY - 5TH MARCH 2020 | 11 Finance & Investment Severn Trent (SVT) has secured £1 million from the Carbon Trust to trial a sludge-processing system that will convert waste to agri-fertiliser and energy. The technology, developed by CCm, is being trialled at SVT's Minworth wastewater treatment plant and uses carbon capture technology to convert the sludge to energy. Bob Stear, chief engi- neer at SVT, said the company, WATER Severn Trent aims to create 'super fertiliser' from sludge which generates about half the energy it uses from anaerobic digestion and biogas, explored ways to lock up carbon dioxide generated by its processes. "What's particularly exciting about this project is that it has the potential to combine carbon dioxide with otherwise hard-to- treat ammonia and make what we hope will become a 'super fertiliser'," Stear said. SVT's project is part of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator programme, a government initiative to increase the use of energy-efficient tech- nology in industry, including wastewater treatment. SVT has opened a launch pad called the Resource Recovery and Innovation Centre at its Spernal treatment works where it trials innovative wastewater Policies 'not enough to attract investment' Industry figures call for changes to current rules if UK is to decarbonise its energy system Current policies and regulations will not attract the hundreds of billions of pounds of investment needed to decarbonise the UK's energy system, industry figures have warned. Speaking at an Energy UK event in London, they said sig- nificant changes will be needed if the country is to reduce green- house gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Kyle Martin, head of market insight at the consul- tancy LCP, said that in the more ambitious net-zero sce- nario envisioned by the Committee on Climate Change, generation capacity would more than triple over the next three decades to 360GW. This would require an investment of approximately £340 billion. He said the government has created numerous schemes to deliver these assets – contracts for differ- ence, the Capacity Market, the cap and floor regime for interconnectors, and perhaps soon a regulatory asset base mechanism for nuclear plants – but said: "I don't think any of these mechanisms really link up." Yet it is unclear how this would be achieved. Planned CfD auctions will not be enough, and any growth in renewable capacity will depress capture prices, under- mining the case for investment on a merchant basis. Cathy McClay, director of strategy, policy and regulation at Sembcorp Energy UK, said she was more concerned about whether there was enough flexibility available to operate a zero-carbon power grid. She described the electricity system operator's efforts to overhaul balancing and ancillary services as "encour- aging", but said she worried that smaller markets would quickly become saturated with existing technologies at the expense of those still being developed. TG ELECTRICITY Green power pledge from Scottish Power Scottish Power's pledge to sup- ply all customers on new fixed rate tariffs with 100 per cent renewable electricity from its own wind farms is a "natural step" for the company, according to the chief executive of its retail arm, Andrew Ward. He said the decision was prompted by growing public con- cern over the environment and the climate crisis in recent years. When the company announced the pledge, it drew a contrast with suppliers that greenwash their tariffs by purchasing REGO certificates from renewable generators without buying the accompanying power. He said Scottish Power already has enough generation to meet the needs of all 1.5 mil- lion of its household customers throughout the entire year and added that there is plenty more in the pipeline. This includes its mammoth East Anglia project, which could eventually provide up to 3.8GW of capacity. The first phase, East Anglia One (744MW), is cur- rently under construction and is due to be commissioned later this year. ELECTRICITY Subsidising onshore wind 'makes sense' A leading investor in renewable energy has told Utility Week the government must accept the economic argument that exclud- ing onshore wind from subsidies "makes no sense". Richard Crawford and Jaz Bains of The Renewable Infrastructure Group (TRIG) also warned the Conservatives that their pledge to reach 40GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 was "very challenging" and that a framework to incentivise investment was urgently needed. They spoke to Utility Week as the company released its financial results for 2019, during which it further diversified its investments away from the UK. However, Crawford, a director at InfraRed, TRIG's investment manager, said he expected a more active 2020 in the UK as off- shore wind projects come online. TRIG operates 74 projects – mainly wind and solar PV – across the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden and Germany. During 2019, it made seven acquisitions, including the 25MW Little Raith wind farm in Scotland. Last month, the group took on its first subsidy-free wind farm – the 35MW Blary Hill on the Kintyre Peninsula in west Scotland. Crawford said TRIG was keen to do more of these projects in the UK and that, at least in Scotland, the economic model makes sense. TRIG's portfolio has shiªed from an 80 per cent focus on the UK three years ago, to 55 per cent at present. This is the result of political uncertainty in the UK but also because of a more proactive attitude to renewable investment in other countries. '£340bn investment in generation needed' treatment before scaling up. The process uses captured carbon dioxide to stabilise nitrogen, phosphate and organic chemicals in the wastewater treatment streams and turn them into sustainable plant nutrients. The system should reduce greenhouse gas emissions on site and the co-generated heat can be used to reduce energy consumption across the site. This week

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