May 07 - Sunday Herald

An Australian renewables start-up is hoping to deflect local opposition to a wind farm currently under consideration by North Ayrshire Council, by applying to build a hydrogen plant that would allow it to feed electricity into the grid even on calm days.

In a GBP60 million project in the 70,000acre Clyde Muirshiel regional park, the Sydney-based firm Wind Hydrogen has patented a scheme for using wind power to produce hydrogen which can be stored and converted into electricity when there is no wind.

The company claims that the linked developments would overcome the problem of wind power intermittency, and if built would be the first such project in the world.

On a visit to Scotland in April, Wind Hydrogen's American chief executive Larry Podrasky said that solving intermittency would change the way that wind farms were perceived by electricity companies.

"It means that we can meet electricity demand throughout a full 24-hour period rather than it just being an intermittent system that's supported by [other sources of energy] coming through from the National Grid. It means that wind farms can move up the electricity rankings, " he told the Sunday Herald.

According to local campaigners, however, Wind Hydrogen is "misleading" affected communities by making a "fallacious" link between the wind farm and the hydrogen plant. They claim that the energy used to produce the hydrogen is not derived from the turbines and that the project therefore does not solve intermittency.

Wind Hydrogen originally started making presentations to Ayrshire communities in early 2006, when it proposed a 125-turbine farm and a hydrogen plant with a total capacity of 375MW of electricity in a GBP150m project which would have been the largest in Scotland. Strong local opposition meant that the project was never submitted to the planning authorities.

The firm then switched wind farm sites within the park from Ladymoor to Kings Law and in June last year submitted an application for only 24 turbines producing 48MW - just below the 50MW level above which projects are "called in" by the Scottish government. With a decision on the wind farm expected later this year, the company is now submitting an application for the 5MW hydrogen plant 5km away from the proposed site of the turbines, in the town of Kilbirnie.

Robert Maund of the Ladymoor Wind Factory Action Group said campaigners were still opposed to the scheme, on the grounds that regional parks should not be used for wind farms.

He said: "It's not just the structure of a wind farm. There has to be a road to every single turbine. There has to be a large hard standing beside each one for cranes. Drainage chains are put in and very large ditches are dug to put the cables in. They also require quarries."

The Wind Hydrogen wind farm application is one of around eight for the park, all of which are opposed by the group, which claims the support of all the affected community councils.

There has also been a local petition taken on by the Scottish parliament against development in regional parks, which awaits a response from the government, expected after the summer recess.

The Scottish government recently rejected an application on appeal by Airtricity to build a wind farm in the park close to Greenock, while an application by Renewable Energy Systems near Kelburn that was turned down by North Ayrshire Council is just about to reach the appeal stage. However, several small farms have been given permission by the council in the past near Dalry and Ardrossan.

Of the Wind Hydrogen application Maund said: "There is no physical link between the hydrogen plant and the wind farm. When all the turbines are running, all the electricity goes into the national grid, so the hydrogen plant could be anywhere."

Charlie Woodward, manager of Clyde Muirshiel park, called the link between the two projects "fallacious" and said he the park had "grave concerns". He added that the wind farm project suffered from being on the edge of an EU special protection area, which has been noted in an objection raised by Scottish National Heritage.

There has also been an objection from National Air Traffic Control, which is concerned about the effect on aircraft radar.

A spokesman for Wind Hydrogen said: "This project will contain the UK's fi rst grid-connected commercially sized prototype hydrogen balancing facility. The wind farm will generate the required amount of electrical power required to power the hydrogen balancing facility.

Excess electricity from the wind farm is being utilised through transfer via the grid to the hydrogen plant. "

HOW IT WORKS

Wind Hydrogen's plant works by electrosis - passing an electric current through water, separating it into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen is then stored in a diesel generator, where it can then be used to fi re turbines and produce electricity when there is no wind to turn the turbines at the wind farm. Alternatively, it can be converted into liquid hydrogen and sold to third parties for other uses. The company has registered commercial patents for the process for the UK and US which it claims is the answer to wind's "variable output" problem.

Originally published by Newsquest Media Group.

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