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Home-grown wind power reduces fossil fuel imports

Two new training initiatives for the wind power industry as work begins at Hull assembly plant

 

New, additional wind power generating capacity would make the UK’s energy supply more resilient by cutting costly imports of fossil fuels even further, according to a study commissioned by wind and marine energy trade association RenewableUK and carried out by Cambridge Econometrics. In 2013, wind energy already reduced the UK’s need to import coal by an estimated 5mn tonnes, and gas by 1.4bn cubic metres, says the report.

 

Some 56% of the UK’s gas supplies and 79% of coal were imported in 2013 and, without wind energy, import levels would have been higher. The report suggests that it would have cost more than £580mn to import the quantities of coal and gas displaced by wind.  

 

The report also looked ahead at how using either more wind or more gas would serve the UK’s energy needs in 2020 and 2030. As the cost of wind is predictable, using a greater amount of it to generate electricity amounts to investing in an insurance premium against the uncertain cost of gas. 

Meanwhile, figures from National Grid for January show that wind energy broke new records (again) for weekly, monthly and half-hourly generation. January was the most productive month ever for wind energy, providing 14% of Britain’s electricity (4.13 TWh) – enough to power the equivalent of 8.7mn UK homes. The weekly record was also broken in January with 1.12 GWh generated, and the half-hourly record was exceeded on 2 January when wind supplied 31% of Britain’s total electricity demand. 

Growth in the use of wind energy is being is reflected by the establishment of new training establishments and courses to serve the industry.

First, offshore industry expert AIS Training is expanding its existing training village on North Tyneside. The new £1mn Renewable Energy Centre of Excellence, which is accredited by wind industry bodies the Global Wind Organisation (GWO) and Renewable UK (RUK), will deliver the full suite of technical skills and competency training required by the wind and renewables sectors. Courses will include combined GWO/RUK Working at Height and Rescue, Manual Handling, Fire Awareness, First Aid and Sea Survival qualifications. 

The new centre will feature a 15-metre climbing and rescue platform which has 12 stations incorporating vertical fall-arrest safety systems, as well as a mock nacelle, to will mimic the field conditions found on real-life wind turbines.  

Second, DONG Energy has joined forces with Newcastle-based Maersk Training. A 12-week training course developed by Maersk covers areas such as working in confined spaces, electrical awareness, working at height, manual handling, sea survival, first aid and fire awareness, along with several weeks of hands-on experience working offshore on wind turbines.

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