• RWE committed to innovative solutions to ensure secure energy generation

RWE has two very different power generation sites near Great Yarmouth, that recently worked together to ensure continued delivery of secure electricity supplies. 

Scroby Sands is a 60 megawatt (MW) offshore windfarm, near the Great Yarmouth coast. The site was recently contacted by its local distribution network company - UK Power Networks East,  about a forthcoming network constraint. A network constraint takes place when the electricity transmission system is unable to transmit power, due to congestion at one or more parts of the transmission network. This incident was due to planned works by the network operator.

This constraint would have significantly reduced the wind farms export capacity to the network for nearly 16 days, and this reduced capacity could have had a significant financial impact.

The Scroby Sands operations team alerted our dedicated RWE Commercial Asset Optimisation team who are responsible for managing the output from the wind farm. They worked alongside RWE Supply and Trading who were able to identify similar patterns of constraints in the past, which had also affected RWE Generation’s nearby combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) Great Yarmouth Power Station.

The teams looked for a solution to ensure they could maintain generation from Scroby Sands. Great Yarmouth Power Station had surplus network capacity due to changes in UK market conditions driven by the COVID-19 pandemic.  The station teams at both sites worked together, enabling Great Yarmouth’s spare network capacity to be temporarily allocated to the wind farm. Scroby Sands was able to operate without a network constraint and this had no impact on the operations of the gas fired power station.

Phillip Croston-Clegg, Scroby Sands Wind Farm Plant Manager, said: “I would like to thank everyone involved in this successful collaboration across our RWE businesses. This clearly demonstrates the role all our generation technologies have in securing energy supplies.”

RWE is the second largest generator of power in the UK, with a diverse portfolio of onshore wind, offshore wind, hydro, the largest and most efficient fleet of combined cycle gas plants in the UK and a biomass plant; with an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2040.