Drax
COWI selected to advise on hydro-pump storage project in Scotland - Cruachan 2

COWI selected to advise on hydro-pump storage project in Scotland – Cruachan 2

COWI, a leading international engineering consulting group, has been awarded a contract by renewable energy company Drax. COWI, in collaboration with the Owner’s Engineer, Studio Pietrangeli, will provide consultancy services to support works in advance of the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of the expansion of Drax’s existing pumped storage hydro-electric

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Drax Becomes First to Capture Carbon Dioxide

Drax, the UK-based power plant, has become the first in the world to capture carbon dioxide from the burning of wood fuel. It has started a demonstration of a new technology that will capture 1 t/day of CO2 from a 100% biomass feedstock. The £400 000 project brings the prospect of

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Latest Issue
Issue 323 : Dec 2024

Drax

COWI selected to advise on hydro-pump storage project in Scotland - Cruachan 2

COWI selected to advise on hydro-pump storage project in Scotland – Cruachan 2

COWI, a leading international engineering consulting group, has been awarded a contract by renewable energy company Drax. COWI, in collaboration with the Owner’s Engineer, Studio Pietrangeli, will provide consultancy services to support works in advance of the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of the expansion of Drax’s existing pumped storage hydro-electric generation station located beneath Ben Cruachan in Argyll, Scotland. The expansion of Cruachan (known as Cruachan 2) is set to play a crucial role in strengthening UK energy security by offering long-term, large-scale energy storage to the UK’s electricity system, helping to reduce costs and prepare for a renewable-led future. Cruachan 2 is set to be built within a new, hollowed-out cavern which would be large enough to fit Big Ben on its side, to the east of Drax’s existing 440 megawatt (MW) pumped storage hydro station. The project will bring an additional 600 MW of power – increasing the site’s total capacity to over 1 gigawatt (GW). The new plant could be operational as soon as 2030, with almost 900 jobs created and supported during construction both directly and indirectly across the supply chain. Drawing upon its local expertise in Scotland as well as its UK-wide proficiency, COWI will play an important role in providing technical advice for the geotechnical, jetty / marine structures and tunnelling elements of the project. COWI’s involvement in the project will also extend beyond the power station to the wider Cruachan area by tapping into its extensive experience in rail to support considerations made for the railway line beneath which the new access and tailrace tunnels will run. Cruachan 2 will help support the UK goal of 30 GW of energy storage by 2030. As the UK integrates more renewable energy sources into the grid, storage facilities like this will be vital for balancing supply and demand and providing key services to stabilise the Grid. Andy Sloan, Managing Director at COWI UK comments: “We are delighted to have been selected to support Drax with this project. Scotland is undergoing a hydro-pumped storage renaissance. There’s a profound opportunity for hydroelectric developments in the UK, particularly in Scotland, which will not only address our need for long-term storage in the UK energy market but support our journey to net-zero by 2045.” Steve Marshall, Drax’s Development Manager, said: “Pumped storage hydro plants play a critical role in stabilising the electricity system, helping to balance supply and demand through storing excess power from the national grid. When Scotland’s wind turbines are generating more power than we need, Cruachan steps in to store the renewable electricity so it doesn’t go to waste. With the right support from the UK Government, Drax is ready to invest around £500m to more than double Cruachan’s generating capacity and support almost 900 jobs across the supply chain during construction.” Spanning a period of six years, a comprehensive construction program is expected to start in 2025 with ambitions to complete the project by 2030. Building, Design & Construction Magazine | The Choice of Industry Professionals 

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Drax Becomes First to Capture Carbon Dioxide

Drax, the UK-based power plant, has become the first in the world to capture carbon dioxide from the burning of wood fuel. It has started a demonstration of a new technology that will capture 1 t/day of CO2 from a 100% biomass feedstock. The £400 000 project brings the prospect of a carbon-negative power plant closer to reality, according to Drax. It is the first of several planned bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) projects planned at the site. “Proving that this innovative carbon capture technology works is an exciting development and another important milestone in our BECCS project. Climate change affects us all so this is of real significance – not just for us at Drax, but also for the UK and the rest of the world,” said Will Gardiner, Drax Group CEO. “The successful deployment of BECCS requires us to identify ways in which the carbon dioxide we’re now capturing can be stored or used in other processes and we’re working with the government and other businesses on that. We’re focused on working together to make the progress required for us to tackle climate change and enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future,” Will added. The demonstration started by Drax uses a solvent-based technology developed by UK-based C-Capture. The system started being commissioned by engineers in November 2018. The data that is obtained about the CO2 capture process will continue to be analysed throughout the pilot to fully understand the potential of the technology and how it could be scaled up at Drax. Identifying and developing ways to store and use the carbon dioxide being captured is part of it. “Working at this scale is really where the engineering gets interesting. The challenge now is to get all the information we need to design and build a capture plant 10 000 times bigger,” concluded Caspar Schoolderman, Director of Engineering at C-Capture.

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