Powering Britain - Wind

[Music] across the land and in our deep seas an army of people is working flat out to meet our energy demands we are fundamentally splitting the atom this is the story of those at the sharp end of the power industry energy production is changing in this series we find out how it works when you are trying to achieve two thousandths of an inch on something that weighs 80 or 90 tons that's what starts the men from the boys from nuclear power and offshore gas to biomass and harnessing the wind it's energy production on an epic scale can't believe i'm stored on the top of a wind turbine in this episode i meet the men and women building britain's biggest offshore wind farm this is how our power is made [Music] a green energy revolution is underway and it's taking shape in the north sea massive offshore wind turbines are providing an increasing amount of our energy but what does it take to build a wind farm and who are the people who make it happen i'm keeley donovan and like many people i know little of where my energy comes from so it's time to immerse myself in the world of offshore wind but the story doesn't start out here it's early morning in aberdeen and i'm about to do something i'm not really looking forward to anyone who works in the offshore industry has to undergo rigorous training safety is everything and that includes knowing what to do if your helicopter is forced to make an emergency landing it means i'll have to escape from a pretend helicopter that's turned upside down in the water [Music] so basically if everyone else has got to do it then i do too grace grace grace this pool isn't the raging north sea but i'm about to learn survival skills that might just save my life i hope that's a big enough breath [Music] well i survived just it's a really strange sensation in there it feels like you're in a washing machine being spun around and even though it wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be i definitely would not want to do that in the north sea a few weeks later with the training still fresh in my mind i'm at humberside airport near grimsby i'm heading for the hornsey one wind farm that's being built by the danish energy company orsted hornsey one is 75 miles off the yorkshire coast and as of 2020 it's the world's biggest offshore wind farm nearly twice the size of the previous largest it's a 45-minute helicopter ride which takes me over the factory and hull that manufactures the turbine soon we're out at sea passing the boats that take the blades to what's essentially a huge offshore construction site this is where many of haunty one's workers live it's a jack up vessel with metal legs that are driven into the seabed to lift it above the water and everywhere you look there are turbines [Music] they're mightily impressive 190 meters tall from sea level to the tip of the blade to put that into some kind of perspective if you were on the top of all of these things you'd be looking down at other giant structures like blackpool tower or the honda bridge the blades are huge too each one weighs 26 tons and is 75 meters long which is as large as the wingspan of the world's biggest passenger aircraft i'm keen on taking a closer look at the turbine but to get to one means getting off the jacket vessel and onto another boat but out in the north sea that's less than straightforward many offshore workers regularly take this journey and it starts by clambering down a ladder you're attached by a safety line and have a harness but the sea's swell tests your nerves there are 174 turbines in the horns one field in an area of more than 400 square kilometers you could easily fit the island of malta inside or if you like more than 58 000 football pitches [Music] these are the crew vessels they're like taxis taking staff to the turbines and all said construction manager gordon pope is going to help me understand how these giant structures operate it's absolutely massive it's absolutely huge especially when you're underneath it and you can tell with the scale of it it's over 180 meters tall which makes it taller than the gherkin in london and its wingspan is over 152 meters and what that means it's wider than the london eye the building of honzy one has pushed the limits of what was previously thought possible we're obviously over 70 miles from shore we have support vessels like we're standing on to crew transfer people around we're trying to do that over such a wide area and when we started this project we kind of jokingly called it a man in the moon project for orsted and industry the blades for these huge turbines are manufactured in hull by siemens gamesa each one is handmade from balsa wood fiberglass and resin they're so big they're wide enough at the base to accommodate an adult elephant they're brought out to hornsey one wind farm by boat and are assembled on site it's a complicated process firstly huge monopiles weighing 800 tons are driven into the seabed then the turbines are bolted on top with the blades added at the end each turbine can produce seven megawatts of energy making hornsey one the first wind farm in the world to generate more than one gigawatt of the power are super efficient just one rotation of the blades makes enough electricity to power a house for 24 hours so how do they work at the top of the turbine is a streamlined casing called the nacelle this contains the machinery that converts the wind to electricity the nacelle is able to pivot so the blades make maximum use of the breeze the wind pushes the blades which then slowly turn a rotor which is connected to the main shaft this drives the electrical generator which makes electricity by spinning magnets past coils of wire even the lightest gust will get the rotor and blades spinning the turbine is effectively self-starting this part of the north sea was chosen because of its strong breezes optimum wind speed for these turbines is just over 30 miles per hour and to prevent damage sensors will automatically turn them off when it exceeds 53 miles per hour they're remarkable bits of kit and engineers get them up and running in double quick time on this site averagely we've been from moving into position and then leaving the position so our turbines fully erect is taking around 16 hours what happens after that is a crew come in with another vessel and they're working the turbine to commission it all of our turbines are already live so they're already connected back to our substation so they can get it working and yet another 16 hours so feasibly in a day or two that'll be working we're always a day and a half just now we're aiming to get under a day on this site but currently yeah it's taking just two sets of 16 hours and you'll start producing electricity to the goods i'm impressed with that that's pretty quick the turbines feed their power to one of three offshore substations and it's from here that electricity is sent back to the mainland the substation transforms the power from 34 000 to 220 000 volts and it gets back to the uk on a series of underwater cables which if put end to end would stretch from london to newcastle it's impressive stuff especially when you consider what a hostile environment the north sea can be as turbine technician simon stevenson knows only too well that is a j-tube and the cables going down there into a trench upon which boulders have been covering it so it obviously needs to be armored they're very strong protected cables going for 80 miles and there's never a lot of power so that when you go home at night switch on the kettle the light comes on the water's boiling i know we're in the middle of the north sea but it is summer and it's blowing a gale does the weather affect how you work here well this site has been chosen specifically we want wind the power is being made and we're happy when you don't just get the windy you get the rain as well that must make working out here really hard we just keep operating we put on different clothing the only thing that will stop us would be lightning and if there's lightning we all take shelter until the lightning threat passes put on our raincoats and get back out and go back to work over in orsted's east coast control room they're also watching out for bad weather these turbines are very good electrical conductors so if a storm's brewing a lightning tracker makes sure everyone stays safe if lightning strikes within 50 kilometers of a site it will rumble with thunder if it strikes from the 25 kilometers of wind farm it will actually do a massive clap of lightning in the office louise crooks is part of a team that's constantly monitoring the safety of orsted's turbine workers it actually feels like we're in a thunderstorm isn't it so what happens when you hear that then as soon as that happens we put out an all stations alert to the field to let them know there's lightning in the 25 zone and send all of technicians to safe zones you can sail out in the morning and it's flat calm and it's a lovely day and within a few hours a massive storm is coming across and lightning is going off left right and center we're constantly tracking it we've got radar showing the rain that's coming if we've got lightning risks we're aware of it we've got wave boys showing the sea state in the field and on all systems we can see what the wind speeds are on every turbine but it's pretty serious stuff isn't it if you've got thunder and lightning out there presumably lots of stuff has to stop yeah as soon as there is light in the field work stops [Music] they're a tough lot out here and they're well looked after especially when it comes to food it's restaurant quality and with more than a hundred folk on board there are challenges for the chefs we're just about to feed the deer crew who have just finished in their shift which is probably about 107 tonight how hungry aren't they when they come in very hungry especially if they've been out to sea in the wind farm itself on the ctvs all i've had all day is a packed lunch which is just a sandwich sausage roll a mars bar and a can of cork that's it so they'll come back and they're good eaters very good little bit of pressure is do you have enough food and do you have the right food what goes down well for heaters love for haters you tried to make it like a restaurant so it's a different thing every day yes every day is a different meal and there's four meals a day [Music] carl's no stranger to an offshore life he's spent big chunks of time working on rigs off the west african coast a long way from home in the northeast of england does it take a toll on family life being away from the family for some reason um it does when i first started my youngest was five-year-old she's now 19. so basically i've missed seven and a half years of a life is that how it feels yeah sometimes it does it doesn't make up for it that you then home for long periods of time that's the best bit when you're at home you have the four weeks where you can spend as much time with them as possible and do what you want with them despite the drawbacks it's not a life that carl would readily swap when people ask what you do you say i'm a you know i'm a head chef offshore oh wow you're proud of it yeah i'm proud of it so should we get these oranges out yes yep and watch how fast to go britain's going through a renewable energy boom and one of its epicenters is the former fishing town of grimsby it's here that ulstead has the world's largest offshore operations and maintenance facility and it's all very high tech it's been built at a cost of 14 million pounds under the shadow of grimsby's dock tower [Music] it's a base for vessels picking up supplies for the six-hour journey to haunting one and for allstead boss darren ramshaw who grew up not far away it's a proud moment we've got our operations teams that go out there service our wind farms on a day-to-day basis just 350 people employed here all living within about an hour's drive 80 of the people about an hour's drive away from here so it's just a phenomenal place it's the biggest in the world and it's just a rejuvenation of grimsby it's fantastic and why grimsby it's got the facilities it's got the port and clearly the the wind farms out there that you can see just in the background it's got the infrastructure so here it made sense for the facilities what we've got and we've got talented people in the area that it's just a good rejuvenation this expanding energy business is having a big impact not far from grimsby there are two huge electrical substations one is complete the other is being built they'll receive power from the wind farms which comes via cables that are buried under miles of farmland the substations transform the voltage and send it onto the national grid and the construction work is planned with military precision so this is a planning meeting with a difference every day the team meet and they use this model which is a 50th of the size of the site to plan what's going on that day i've never seen anything like it [Music] it helps staff to visualize the site and as construction manager richard swan told me some solutions to problems are simple but rather clever one of the largest items that will get delivered is the transformers which are weighing around 250 tonne and are delivered at the dock scene in mingham uh they're brought to site on a multi-axle tractor trailer unit which will help distribute the weight as it travels on the local local roads around here um and then once they're on site they're they're moving to final position by what we call skidding which is essentially we set up two little tracks and we use pistons to slide the transformer across its position and just to help it on its way we use a little bit of washing up liquid just to make sure it slides nice and easy across so you're sliding a 250 ton transformer with some washing up liquid sometimes some difficult tasks just need some ingenious solutions the inside of these substations is like stepping into another world this high-tech kit takes electricity from hornzy1 when the power arrives here at the onshore substation in north killing home the power is stepped up by some transformers we call them super grid transformers and that steps up the voltage from volts to 400 000 volts that we are actually um stood in front of here now so 400 000 volts that's what's in these pipes that's right so when you think about um a home you have a highest voltage of 230 volts ac this is 400 000 volts so this is the highest voltage that you will actually get on any transmission system in the uk daniel katz is one of orsted's senior engineers who's played his part in britain's renewable energy bonanza you've been working in this industry for quite a while now are things just getting bigger and bigger yeah i mean even by austed standard haunted one is is groundbreaking in its nature it's it's a huge infrastructure project this is my eighth wind farm i've worked on and each wind farm's got progressively larger and larger the turbines are getting bigger and bigger they each have a higher capacity yeah it's it's it's becoming much much bigger and obviously much more of an efficient and low cost and low low cost method of producing power so what's it like working in the renewables industry fantastic i mean i often pinch myself to say i get paid for this work but it's it's really really good this is providing clean power to well over 1 million homes in the uk which is is fantastic thing to be involved in i'm going to think of this place every time i switch my kettle on for [Laughter] me too yeah and a million other people as well yeah i've set my eye on getting to the top of an offshore turbine so i'm back in the north sea and i'm hitching a ride on the eder mistral she's orsted's service operation vessel and plays a crucial role in moving staff around hornsey one and she's state of the art we're just about to transfer from the substation onto this boat and we're going to do it by this telescopic platform now this has revolutionized the way that crews move around from vessel to vessel because no matter what the state of the ocean is this thing compensates and stays steady and we can go now because there's the green light the edimistral can carry up to 40 wind turbine technicians and has a crew of 20 and as befits a ship that's kitted out to the same standard as a cruise liner she's rather plush inside the ship is designed to be comfort class 2 which is very very quiet so the technicians are disturbed by noise throughout the night or the day we have a rubber mounted tunnel thrusters which also reduces and double glazing basically inside windows also help in the lower decks where they are so it's it's a pleasure to driver and it's a pleasure to work in this environment after 30 years of oil and gas this is the way to go now renewables barry roberts is the boat's captain he's spent almost five decades at sea you must have seen some terrible weather out here um well up in the north i spent a long time west of shetland which is extreme uh up to maybe 14 meters significant waves which is about 50 feet for maybe a week or two you get used to it and uh the ship's safe you know how to chill act so uh once you've been there a few years it's uh it's easy there's no way you'd be working on these though in those kind of things oh gosh no we know the limits uh of the gangway which is what governs everything and when we get near that we do have good forecasting so as we approach that we know we can get the guys off the turbine we do not want to leave them on a turbine everything is aimed at making the working day as comfortable as possible oh it's like a big toy i'd never get any work done it's all a big toy you seem very relaxed for somebody who's probably not always working in a relaxed environment you have to be we're safe in your hands i hope so yes it's a safe ship it's a safe environment and that's how we keep it okay vessels like the eder mistral are transforming offshore working the telescopic platform means staff can walk to work it makes it much easier for the turbine technicians because out here the sea always has to be respected this is it's a really good ship i mean we had five meters out here the other day and we literally turned stern too and the waves just came and broke against the stern and we were just sat here really and it moved a little bit up and down but it was really really comfortable rebecca goth is the duty operations manager on the edermist trial she leads a team responsible for making big decisions who goes where and if it's safe for them to go out at all what's the weather like tomorrow so the weather tomorrow we've got a low significant wave height so we had a little blip that came through the other day and then you can see there so the significant is 1.3 meters and then it's dropping throughout the week because we're a long way offshore we've got a big swell out here which is consistent so we'd need to take that into consideration as well so we're not just looking at the total sea we've got to look at the swell the wind the waves and there's plenty on my mind as i gear up for what could be a bit of a physical challenge i'm going to attempt what many staff have to do in their daily work and that's get to the top of a turbine it's going to be a tall order so here i am in the wind turbine for the first time but that's where i want to go up there but i think i've got a few runs of this ladder to climb i'm wearing a harness and there's a device that will stop me falling off the ladder if i lose my footing but it already feels like hard graft [Music] that's the first bit of climbing don [Music] thankfully there's a lift to take me most of the way to the top tight in here oh this is probably a good time to mention i'm claustrophobic oh yeah i didn't fancy all those steps though so we're in the lift and we're going 100 meters up to another level near the top of the turbine and we're all secured in quite noisy by small space [Music] here we are on the top floor we'll flip this there we go all right we've made it just a few more steps to climb some people make a ladder climbing look incredibly easy i'm not one of them i won't be going that point i don't think yep [Music] and now i can see what makes these turbines so incredible look at it in here all these nuts and bolts just a snapshot of the engineering that's gone into one of these things so i've made it up to the your deck everything from this part downwards is the tower and everything from this part upwards is the head of the wind turbine [Music] there's a very slight sway goodness knows what it's like on a really windy day and i'm not even right at the top yet coming up [Music] and all that climbing and effort is about to pay off wow look at this i can't believe i'm stood on the top of a wind turbine just look at those blades there's just turbines everywhere you look [Music] and what makes it even more incredible is knowing the hard work and the and the journey of one of these turbines to getting to this stage this is amazing [Music] as workplaces go this has got to be up there with the very best offshore wind meets 10 of our energy needs and that figure is only going to increase hornsey one is now fully operational and ulstead will soon bring more wind farms to the yorkshire coast with haunzi two with plans for hornsey three and four to follow while ever the wind blows these huge structures will be doing their bit in keeping britain fully pound [Music] you

Channel: Levenmouth Academy DET Department

Views: 14,142

Keywords: engineering science, engineering, wind, energy, turbines, wind farm, national grid, renewables, offshore

Id: M3eTMN_izSY

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/JamesB5446]

Great to see something positive coming from my part of the world.

[u/kingofthejuices]

Incredible.