The electric power projects transforming the world
Suzanne Locke
15 May 2019
Galvanising the planet
As climate change has led to an alarming 1.6 °F (0.9°C) increase in the globe's average surface temperature since 1906, there is an urgent need for clean and green ways to produce power. Glaciers and ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising, and in response countries from China to Norway to the UAE have been planning huge and innovative projects and programmes to generate electricity in a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly way. From solar parks as big as Caribbean islands to fleets of electric buses, drones and cars, these are some of the ventures galvanising the planet.
Walney Extension offshore wind farm
Walney Extension, off England’s north-west coast in the Irish Sea, is the world’s largest operational offshore farm, overtaking London Array when it began generating power last year. With 87 turbines in an area the size of 20,000 football fields, it has a capacity of 659 megawatts and can produce clean electricity for almost 600,000 homes.
Walney Extension offshore wind farm
The UK has the largest cumulative offshore wind capacity in the world; Walney Extension will itself be overtaken by Hornsea One in Yorkshire once complete in 2020, which will product six gigawatts of power. Despite that, investment in clean energy in the UK has been falling since 2015.
Tesla’s Gigafactories
Tesla already has two US ‘gigafactories’ underway but its Chinese plant – which started construction in the Shanghai suburb of Lingang at the end of 2018 and is expected to be operational within months – is its first overseas. Gigafactory 1 in Nevada will be the world’s biggest building (illustration pictured) – big enough to fit 100 Boeing 747 jets inside.
Tesla’s Gigafactories
To produce 500,000 cars per year, Tesla says it will need the world’s entire current supply of lithium-ion batteries, so the Gigafactories will help it ramp up production. Teslas imported into China attract hefty duties, so founder Elon Musk also hopes to produce affordable local Teslas using the new Shanghai plant (pictured).
Japan’s Fujisawa Smart Town
Panasonic finished the Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town, built on an old Panasonic factory west of Tokyo, in 2014. The town has 1,000 homes connected to its own solar-powered smart grid – meaning the town is self-sustainable and can run off-grid for three days in case of a natural disaster such as an earthquake.
Japan’s Fujisawa Smart Town
Panasonic says the town sends 30% of the energy it creates back into the grid. Even its leaf-inspired road layout has a purpose – it sends a breeze down every street on hot days, reducing the need for air conditioning. Panasonic is now looking to build a new smart city, CityNow, outside Denver, Colorado.
Dubai’s solar park
Dubai began work on the $13.6 billion (£10.5bn) Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park (illustrated here) in 2012. With the UAE averaging 10 hours of sunlight a day, solar power is the obvious choice for the desert emirate. When complete in 2030 the 5,000-megawatt solar park will span 80 square miles and could power 1.3 million homes, making it the world’s largest solar park.
Dubai’s solar park
Phases one and two, comprising 2.3 million photovoltaic panels, are complete, while phase three is underway and will add another three million. Ground has also been broken on phase four, an 853ft tower which will use mirrors to focus sunlight and generate heat to power steam turbines that will provide electricity 24 hours a day.
Norway’s love of electric cars
Norway’s government has ensured the country is the fastest adopter of electric vehicles (EVs) in the world, with battery-powered cars now accounting for 58.4% of all vehicle sales, led by the Tesla Model 3. Norway has provided so many incentives that it just makes financial sense to buy electric.
Norway’s love of electric cars
Value-added tax of 25% upon purchase is waived in Norway, as is the annual road tax. There are no road tolls to pay and ferries are also free for EVs. There are no city emission charges, EVs can often park for free and use bus lanes for faster journeys, and there are many free public charging units. Even running costs are lower, because electricity is cheaper than petrol and diesel in Norway. The government plans to stop selling gas and diesel by 2025.
China’s Three Gorges Dam
The Three Gorges hydro-electric dam was first dreamed up in 1919 but took decades to turn into reality, finally becoming operational in 2012. The $37 billion (£28.4bn) plant was built across the Yangtze river, near Sandouping in western China, and is the world’s largest power station, producing 11 times as much power as the Hoover Dam.
China’s Three Gorges Dam
Standing 605 feet tall and 7,660 feet long, 1.3 million people were relocated to build the controversial Three Gorges dam, which submerged 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,350 villages. It has a capacity of 22.5 gigawatts and can hold 42 billion tonnes of water. However, the Chinese government admitted in 2011 that the dam had led to several environmental issues, such as landslides.
Medical emergency drones
Electricity has enabled drones to fly up to 20 miles away, which means that as well as bothering aircraft, they can now be used for good in natural disasters, rescue missions and, pictured here, in a drop of medical supplies in Ghana. The country, which has a poor road network, launched a fleet of drones this year: the president says it will be the “world’s largest drone delivery service”.
Medical emergency drones
This drone, designed at the Delt Technical University in the Netherlands, can fly at 62mph and has a built-in defibrillator to swiftly deliver support to patients suffering from heart attacks. Projects are underway to keep drones in the air longer by allowing in-flight wireless recharges or by harnessing solar energy.
Medical emergency drones
In April 2019, a drone was even used to transport a kidney for an organ transplant in the US state of Maryland. The flight from Baltimore to the University of Maryland Medical Center took 10 minutes to travel 2.8 miles. Drones reduce travel time as they don't have to contend with traffic, and this first drone-delivered transplant offers hope of more successful organ transplants in the future.
Huainan Solar Farm, China
The world’s largest floating solar farm, the Huainan site in China’s Anhui province, became operational last year with a capacity of 40 megawatts. The size of 110 football fields, the 160,000 solar panels float on a lake made from a collapsed and flooded coal mine – the ultimate symbol of China’s move to clean energy.
Huainan Solar Farm, China
Another 150-megawatt facility is planned in the same area this year. China's government says it will spend $360 billion (£276bn) on clean energy projects by 2020 to help shift the country away from fossil fuels. It is already the world’s leading producer of solar energy.
Shenzhen’s all-electric bus fleet
Dubbed the ‘silent revolution’, the mega-city of Shenzhen is now a peaceful and cleaner place, having switched its dirty, noisy, polluting diesel public transport for a fleet of 16,000 electric buses in a bid to cut the smog. There are 40,000 charging piles for the buses and the depots also have charging units; a two-hour charge at night is generally enough for a bus to run all day.
Shenzhen’s all-electric bus fleet
Plans are also afoot to convert all 22,000 taxis in the city to electric but the drivers say that, without fixed routes, it is much harder to reach charging points in time. With generous subsidies on offer until 2020, more than 30 Chinese cities also hope to achieve 100% electrified public transport.
Byron Bay solar-powered train
This small train company in Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia, has built the world’s first solar-powered train. The 1949 100-seater train, comprising just two carriages, shuttles back and forth on a 1.8-mile track between North Beach Station in Sunrise Beach and the Byron Beach platform.
Byron Bay solar-powered train
One of the derelict train’s diesel engines has been replaced with an electric motor, powered by a lithium-ion battery. Along with the photovoltaic panels on the train and platform roofs, it produces the energy to make 18 trips a day, as well as to send 60,000 kilowatt-hours back into the grid in a year – enough to power 12 three-bedroom houses. The other diesel engine has been retained as back-up, in case of an electrical fault.
Gansu Wind Farm Project, China
This wind farm in the Gansu province, near China’s Gobi Desert, is the biggest in the world, big enough to power a small country. The wind farm, also known as Jiuquan Wind Power Base, cost around $17 billion (£13bn), has more than 7,000 turbines and can generate a phenomenal 20 gigawatts of power. Yet it is said to be wasting 60% of the power it creates.
Gansu Wind Farm Project, China
One in every three turbines in the world is in China – a total of 92,000. Together, they could generate 145 gigawatts of electricity, double the amount produced by US wind farms. But they are built in the windiest parts of the country which, by their nature, are rural and too far away from the cities for it to be financially viable to transmit the electricity rather than use urban power plants.
The Geysers, California
This is the world’s largest geothermal and dry steam field, a 45-square-mile area in the Mayacamas Mountains, some 70 miles north of San Francisco. It contains 22 geothermal plants drawing steam from more than 350 wells to produce 1. 5 gigawatts of electricity.
The Geysers, California
The Geysers account for 20% of all green power generated in California thanks to a large magma chamber four miles beneath the surface and eight miles round. The first wells were drilled in 1921.
Bombora’s mWave
Wave power has proved elusive for decades, with many ocean wave and tidal lagoon projects around the world cancelled. Wave machines have to be huge to reach the ocean floor, making them massively expensive, while harnessing energy from ocean waves is unpredictable and unstable. But Australian company Bombora is showing signs of success, with its mWave converter.
Bombora’s mWave
Bombora is working on several projects, including one due for completion next year in Wales which is expected to produce 1.5 megawatts. The mWave has no external moving parts, which should make it more robust than many other previous wave machines.
First electric aircraft
Not content with leading the electric car charge, Norway is also taking to the air with its battery-powered plans. By 2040, Norway wants all short-haul flights leaving its close to 50 airports to be on electric aircraft.
First electric aircraft
This two-seater Alpha Electro G2 by Slovenian company Pipistrel is the very first electric aircraft; it was flown around Oslo last year by the Norwegian transport minister and the head of Norwegian airport company Avinor (pictured) in a journey which lasted just minutes but demonstrated their very serious intent to turn the air green.
Solar catamaran
The Tûranor PlanetSolar (tûranor means "power of the sun" in Elvish) is the first boat to circle the globe using solar power. It became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe on solar power alone in 2012 – 37,282 miles in 19 months without a drop of fuel.
Solar catamaran
The Swiss solar catamaran, built in Germany, is covered by almost 5,500 square feet of solar panels charging the two enormous lithium-ion batteries in the hulls of the 100-tonne ship. It is now used for scientific missions as tests can be run on the environment without any pollution from the boat.
From curing cancer to eternal life: when to expect the world's biggest breakthroughs
Comments
Be the first to comment
Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature