Unst energy system goes national
THE PURE Energy Centre in Unst was at the centre of a major development on the Scottish mainland on Tuesday when first minister Alex Salmond opened The Hydrogen Office – a state of the art demonstration and research facility powered by hydrogen fuel cell technology.
The £4.7 million facility in Methil, Fife is expected to become one of Europe’s leading locations for innovation and development of renewable technology.
The facility houses a novel hydrogen production system that captures surplus energy from a wind turbine, storing it as hydrogen when the wind isn’t blowing and then using a high efficiency hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity from this stored energy when required.
The hydrogen and fuel cell system on which it is based was developed by the Pure Energy Centre, at Baltasound, in Unst.
Mr Salmond said: “The Hydrogen Office is playing a leading role in the development of a range of carbon-cutting technologies – from the provision of clean energy for electricity, heat and transport to storing renewable power from other sources such as wind, as demonstrated at the site.”
Over the course of a year, the turbine will not only generate sufficient electricity and hydrogen for the heating and lighting requirements of the Hydrogen Office, but is also expected to export sufficient electricity to meet the annual energy demands of the Methil Docks Business Park.
Since it was commissioned in September, the turbine has exported over 350,000kwh to the National Grid.
Project manager Derek Mitchell said: “Storing wind energy as hydrogen; which we can do in large quantities and for long periods, means we can then use this energy for virtually anything, including in our cars, our cooking, our homes and offices. We can do this without generating any pollution or carbon dioxide and we can use this energy regardless of whether the wind is blowing.”
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The Scottish government says that renewables met over a quarter (27.4 per cent) of Scotland’s electricity needs in 2009 and this year the country is expected to exceed its national target of 31 per cent of consumption from renewables.
Last September the government raised the national target for 2020 from 50 per cent to 80 per cent of gross electricity consumed and says Scotland has around ten times the production of renewable energy compared to England per head of population.
Further information is available at http://www.hydrogenoffice.com/
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