Workpackage 1: Export Constraints, Externalities and
Opportunities
Strands
- Impacts of present grid arrangements and the short/medium/long
term implications of constraints - the aim is to produce the Definitive
Grid Repercussions Study for the Highlands and Islands region with
clear recommendations – led by OREF Chair, Dr
Gareth Davies and Dr Jim Chalmers,
with input from other OREF members/HIE and OIC.
[Report of this study incorporating the findings of Strand 2 to
have widespread circulation]
- Grid management – to examine the technical
mechanisms and limits to which these may relax present grid constraints
– led by Dr John Fletcher (Strathclyde).
[Output: report of this study and publications]
- Other opportunities for overcoming externalities
and constraints – to include local substitution of power
and fuel, and other means of securing an overhead capacity for marine
renewables projects from, for example, a gas/hydrogen powered electricity
generating plant - to be an exhaustive study of the range of such
possible alternatives – led by Dr
Sandy Kerr and Professor Patrick
Corbett.
[Output: structured workshop and iteration of findings among participants
to produce report and recommendations for further studies]
- Alternative energy storage and transport as means
of overcoming externalities and constraints - what are the options
and feasibility (production/storage/transport/ domestic/industrial)
and existing pilot project experiences – led by Dr
Jim Chalmers and Professor Frank
Rennie (UHI Millennium Institute).
[Output: major seminar organised by UHI to synthesise findings
in report form]
- The role of gas hydrates in the medium to long term – seeking to encapsulate the findings of work conducted by the
gas hydrates group in the Institute of Petroleum Engineering in determining
the feasibility and practicability of the use of hydrates for the
storage and transport of hydrogen, as a means of overcoming export
constraints - led by Professor Bahman
Tohidi (IPE/HWU).
[Output: report of this study]
- Examination of mechanisms necessary for market stimulation
to overcome constraints – what are the necessary mechanisms,
which would be pre-requisites to market solutions to overcoming externalities
and constraints – led by Dr Sandy
Kerr.
[Output: report of this study and publications]
