E&T Mag: Electrifying Britain - the Great Grid Upgrade

A light breeze is all it takes to turn a giant wind turbine, each blade longer than a football field with tip speeds reaching 321km/h (200mph). When the wind blows, the electricity generated by a single rotation of a turbine can power a home for two days.

Off the north-east coast of England and deep into the North Sea’s Dogger Bank, where the world’s largest offshore wind farm is being built, vast turbines are harnessing the blustery winds day and night. Scotland, to the north, with its abundance of natural power, has more electricity than it can consume. “There’s more power coming down than current links can cope with,” says Manu Haddad, professor in high voltage engineering at Cardiff University – one of a handful of universities working with National Grid. “It’s like a river trying to flow through a little pipe.” 

Speeding up delivery of the UK’s strategic transmission infrastructure to transport clean electrons to London and the south-east of England, where demand is highest, is a complex and urgent puzzle. Slow planning processes are clogging up development. By 2030, the Labour UK government has pledged to decarbonise all electricity, five years earlier than its predecessor. This requires a drastic revamp of the grid with thousands of miles of planned new high voltage cables – the ‘motorways’ of power across the country and under the seas.

Read the story here

https://eandt.theiet.org/2024/11/11/electrifying-britain-great-grid-upgrade