Moorside clean energy hub is a proposal put forward on 30 June 2020 by two consortia, one led by

EDF EDF may refer to: Organisations * Eclaireurs de France, a French Scouting association * Education for Development Foundation, a Thai charity * Électricité de France, a French energy company ** EDF Energy, their British subsidiary ** EDF Luminus, ...

and the other by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

, to create an energy hub that would produce electricity and hydrogen through the use of nuclear power and

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

. The hub would be constructed on the cancelled Moorside nuclear power station site, which was abandoned by Toshiba in 2018.

History

In 2020, EDF Energy put forward plans to build two EPR units, replicating

Hinkley Point C Hinkley Point C nuclear power station (HPC) is a two-unit, 3,200MWe EPR nuclear power station under construction in Somerset, England. The site was one of eight announced by the British government in 2010, and in November 2012 a nuclear site ...

and Sizewell C, for a total capacity of 3.2

GWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James W ...

. In parallel, a Rolls-Royce-led UK SMR consortium announced plans for a low-carbon power station around a small, light-water reactor

Rolls-Royce SMR The Rolls-Royce SMR, also known as the UK SMR, is a small modular reactor (SMR) being developed by the Rolls-Royce (RR) company in the United Kingdom. The company has been given financial support by the UK Government to develop its design. It i ...

linked with renewable energy generation,

hydrogen production Hydrogen production is the family of industrial methods for generating hydrogen gas. As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas and other light hydrocarbons, partial oxidation of h ...

and battery storage technologies. The

Nuclear Industry Association The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) is a subscription based trade association for the civil nuclear industry in the United Kingdom. It represents more than 260 companies across the nuclear supply chain. The diversity of NIA membership enables ...

welcomed the proposal for the Moorside site, with the CEO adding, "These are exactly the attributes the country needs to bounce back from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, deliver jobs, and get us on track to hit Net Zero. Large scale and smaller, next generation technologies have a huge amount to offer working as part of the clean energy hub concept. They can deliver clean electricity and achieve deeper decarbonisation through the creation of hydrogen, clean fuels and district and industrial heating." On 11 November 2020, the BBC reported that Rolls-Royce has plans to construct up to 16 SMR's in the UK, with a capacity of 440 MW each. In 2019, the company received £18 million to begin designing the modular system, and the BBC claims that the government will provide an additional £200 million for the project as a part of its green plan for economic recovery. Rolls-Royce claims that the project will create 6000 jobs in the midlands and the north over the next 5 years and that the technology will also provide export technologies.

Proposals

Low Carbon Electricity Generation

The consortium proposes the construction of 2 EPR reactors with an electrical output of 3200MW and a thermal output of 8000MW, as well as a number of small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors which would be able to generate low carbon electricity for the national grid, as well as thermal energy for use in the surrounding communities and other parts of the clean energy hub.

Green Hydrogen

The consortium has proposed that the hub uses

High-temperature electrolysis High-temperature electrolysis (also HTE or steam electrolysis) is a technology for producing hydrogen from water at high temperatures. Efficiency High temperature electrolysis is more efficient economically than traditional room-temperature elect ...

, which uses heat to improve the efficiency of electrolysis to generate hydrogen. The consortium would utilise low cost energy during periods of high production or low demand to generate hydrogen, as well as waste heat from the power station. The consortium argues that the hydrogen would be able to be injected into the national gas grid to help lower the carbon intensity of it, and in future replace all of the natural gas in the grid. The hydrogen generated would also be able to be utilised in transportation as the consortium would be able to supply hydrogen for use in Heavy Goods Vehicles, Trains, Buses and Shipping.

Energy Storage

As a part of the consortiums proposals, electricity would be able to be stored on site. Electricity would be able to be stored using

cryogenic energy storage Cryogenic energy storage (CES) is the use of low temperature (cryogenic) liquids such as liquid air or liquid nitrogen to store energy. The technology is primarily used for the large-scale storage of electricity. Following grid-scale demonstrator ...

systems where a 4 stage process would be used, which would allow for rapid responses to changes in electricity demand. Another method that has been proposed is the use of electricity to create hot and cold temperature stores. The temperature difference is used to then rotate a generator and produce power when required. Additional electricity storage can be added at low cost by increasing the heat storage capacity.

References