The GE Brief: June 24, 2021
PUMP UP THE VOLUME
A longtime hydropower pioneer, Austria’s energy transition is moving mountains — by moving water. ÖBB, the country’s main railway operator, is taking Austria’s electrified railway system to a new level by adding variable-speed pumped hydro storage to the mix and essentially building a giant battery high up in the mountains. Scheduled to come online in 2025, ÖBB’s 170-megawatt Tauernmoos plant will operate in two modes. In pump mode, it will utilize low-cost surplus power from Austria’s grid to push water uphill 260 meters and store it in a lake. In turbine mode, the water will reverse course, running downhill through the same pump turbine to produce electricity. The plant can then dispatch that power to the grid to help smooth any gaps in supply from other renewable energy sources.
The race to zero: Tauernmoos will be much more than a powerful source of on-demand renewable power for the country’s trains. Pumped storage also underpins Austria’s goal of power generation from a 100% renewables-based grid by 2030. And in a world-first for a variable-speed pumped storage plant, a single original equipment manufacturer — GE Renewable Energy — is not only designing, building and installing Tauernmoos’ two 85-MW pump and turbine generator units, it will also be responsible for integrating the power transformers and frequency converters that will help ensure smooth, flexible and synchronized electricity transfer between the plant, network and grid. “We are delighted to join forces and help ÖBB Infrastructure demonstrate the role that hydro storage solutions can play in accelerating the energy transition,” says Pascal Radue, CEO of GE Renewable Energy Hydro Solutions.
To learn more about pumped hydro’s role in Austria’s clean-energy playbook, click here.
SECOND WIND
Wind power is a fast-growing source of renewable energy, but that doesn’t mean the industry isn’t trying to lower its carbon footprint. One way to do it involves lowering emissions in the wind turbine’s entire life cycle, from raw material sourcing to manufacturing processes to component transportation. That’s why GE Renewable Energy signed preliminary agreements this month with German and French-Swiss companies to dismantle, shred and co-process the blades from some of the continent’s onshore turbines that are approaching the end of their lives.
Call it a movement: The deals come on the heels of a landmark agreement with Veolia North America late last year to recycle blades removed from its onshore turbines in the U.S. GE Renewable Energy’s European partners will follow a similar process: recycling the glass fibers and fillers from the decommissioned blades to be used as raw materials in cement, while recovering the organic materials as an energy source for the manufacturing process. Europe’s cement manufacturers are aiming for net-zero emissions by 2050, and GE says manufacturing cement this way could reduce CO2 emissions by about 20% compared to conventional processes. Jérôme Pécresse, CEO of GE Renewable Energy, called the deals “a truly exciting next step in our journey to introduce new circular life cycle improvements for the wind industry in Europe.”
Read more about how wind turbine blade recycling is helping Europe decarbonize here.
THE COOLEST THINGS ON EARTH ?
1. Up And Atom
Researchers combined sheets of graphene with targeted antibodies to create a sensor that detects SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
2. Can You See Me Now?
Australian engineers have developed an ultrathin night-vision film that’s “extremely lightweight, cheap and easy to mass produce,” and could someday be applied to everyday eyeglasses.
3. Hungry For More
Scientists disguised a light-activated "Trojan horse" drug as a chemical food compound, tricking bacteria and cancer cells into ingesting it.
For more of this week’s coolest things on Earth, click here.
— QUOTE OF THE DAY —
“It will provide system strength and inertia to the grid, and will help safeguard the security and reliability of the energy supply.”
— Pascal Radue, CEO of GE Renewable Energy’s Hydro Solutions, on Tauernmoos, the new 170-megawatt variable-speed pumped hydro storage plant in Austria
Quote: GE Reports. Images: GE Renewable Energy. ÖBB.