Notice: Doddington Lock and Islip Lock
When: 1 February 2017 between 10am and 2pm.
What’s happening: There will be a power outage at the locks during the period stated.
When: 1 February 2017 between 10am and 2pm.
What’s happening: There will be a power outage at the locks during the period stated.
The Environment Agency is reminding anglers of the importance of having a rod licence after a County Durham man was fined for fishing illegally.
Dean Ferguson, 49, of Browning Hill, Coxhoe, failed to appear for his court hearing at Peterlee Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 23 January.
In his absence he was fined £660, ordered to pay £127 costs and a victim surcharge of £66.
Shortly before midnight on the night of Saturday 6 August 2016, Environment Agency Fisheries Enforcement Officers were carrying out intelligence-led patrols on the River Wear in Durham city.
They saw Ferguson start fishing in the river using a double-handed salmon rod, and almost immediately he had foul-hooked a sea trout, which means the fish was hooked somewhere other than in the mouth.
He was stopped by the officers who searched his vehicle, and found the foul-hooked fish. Ferguson also admitted he did not have a valid rod licence.
He was summonsed to appear at court for the offences. It’s illegal to fish without a licence, and to fail to return to the water any fish that is foul-hooked.
Kevin Summerson, Fisheries Technical Specialist for the North East, said:
It’s vital that anglers abide by the law to protect the future of the sport and the quality of our rivers and fisheries.
We won’t hesitate to take action to stop illegal fishing and hopefully this will act as a deterrent for any angler thinking of cheating the system.
All the money raised from rod licence sales is used to protect and improve fish stocks and fisheries, benefiting anglers.
During 2016 in the North East there were six serious fisheries offences resulting in £460 in fines and £600 costs, plus forfeiture of equipment and a crushed vehicle.
There were a further 54 offenders prosecuted for 59 rod licence offences resulting in fines of £14,327, with four offenders also given conditional discharges.
Anyone discovered committing offences could face a substantial fine at court.
All income from rod licence sales is used to fund Environment Agency work to protect and improve fish stocks and fisheries, including improving habitats for fish and facilities for anglers, tackling illegal fishing and working with partners to encourage people to give fishing a go.
Buying a rod licence is quick and easy – you can buy them online at the Post Office.
The Environment Agency urges anyone to report illegal fishing by calling 0800 80 70 60.
A group of public agencies is hosting a drop-in event in Wakefield to explain how they work together to regulate the onshore oil and gas industry and protect communities and the environment.
The Environment Agency, Health and Safety Executive, Oil and Gas Authority, and Public Health England are hosting the event in the Kingswood Suite at Wakefield Town Hall, Wood Street, Wakefield, on Tuesday 7 February.
These agencies work together to assess the impacts of the oil and gas industry, to oversee industry operations, and to ensure that any exploration and development, including fracking, is done in a way that does not put people or the environment at risk of harm.
The drop-in session is one of a series of events that offer local residents, businesses and other interested parties in West Yorkshire an opportunity to find out about agencies’ roles and to ask questions and discuss any issues or concerns they have about onshore oil and gas development ahead of any future applications to develop operations in the area.
Everyone is welcome to attend at any time between 2pm and 7pm.
Updated: Carbon Capture and Utilisation Demonstration (CCUD) documents added.
Across government, Innovate UK, Research Councils, and BEIS expect to invest around £162 million in industrial research and innovation, including Carbon Capture, Use and Storage (CCUS).
As part of this commitment, within the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme, BEIS expects to invest around £100 million in low carbon industrial innovation to reduce the risks and costs of accelerating the roll out of low carbon technologies which will enable UK industry to remain competitive.
On 31 July 2018 BEIS launched a £15 million Call for CCUS Innovation to offer grant funding for innovation projects that lead to:
Funding of up to £5 million will be considered for feasibility studies, industrial research or experimental development projects; and up to £7 million for research infrastructure that enables the UK to conduct world-leading research and innovation into CCUS. Project funding will be available for up to 24 months, with projects finishing by 31st March 2021.
This Call will ensure the UK remains at the forefront of CCUS innovation, developing novel technology and processes that reduce the cost of deploying CCUS and positions the UK as a world technology leader in CCUS.
Applicants must complete and submit the application forms (see below) by email to Industry.Innovation@beis.gov.uk by Sunday 11 November 2018:
In 2017 BEIS commissioned Wood to execute a study assessing the most promising CO2 capture technologies in order to inform future innovation spending programmes and to shape future policy direction for carbon capture technologies in the power and energy intensive industries. A literature review of novel capture technology was completed, and eleven techno-economic benchmarks were studied.
This benchmarking comprised eight current state-of-the-art carbon capture on power generation, two leading next generation carbon capture technologies on power generation, and one carbon capture benchmark on hydrogen production.
The literature review and benchmarking report are being published to accompany the Call for CCUS Innovation. Innovation projects that focus on reducing the cost of capturing and sequestering CO2 will be compared to the benchmarks produced by BEIS/Wood, to determine if they produce meaningful improvements against the current state-of-the-art CCUS technology, and how robust the case is for them achieving these improvements.
As part of the BEIS/Wood study a levelized cost of electricity/hydrogen calculator was produced as part of the benchmarking analysis. This calculator allows applicants to compare their technology against the benchmarks produced in the study, and for this analysis to be used in project applications for the Call.
Low carbon hydrogen could play an important role in decarbonising industry, power, heat and transport. However, for a market to grow, potential users (in any application) need to be confident in supply of sufficient amounts of low carbon hydrogen at a competitive price.
The £20 million Hydrogen Supply programme aims to accelerate the development of low carbon bulk hydrogen supply solutions in the above sectors. It is aimed at projects at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 4 to 7, which could result in lower capital or operating costs when compared to Steam Methane Reformer with Carbon Capture & Storage (SMR+CCS), or improve the capture rates at a comparable cost.
The programme is now live. If you are interested in applying, please see the guidance, application and finance forms below.
The deadline to register your interest is 21 November 2018.
The deadline to submit proposals is 5 December 2018.
To support innovation in energy efficient technologies, the government will be investing up to £9.2 million for an Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator, to be delivered over the next 4 years.
This Accelerator will seek industry-specific solutions which are close to commercialisation by leveraging private sector investment and strengthening UK supply chains to reduce energy costs for UK industry. After a competitive process, the Carbon Trust has been awarded the contract to help BEIS deliver this programme. The Carbon Trust has been holding events to engage with both industry and their suppliers, and the competition is now open to applications.
We have recently committed £560,000 to 2 successful projects in the first round of the Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator (IEEA). The IEEA aims to broaden the range of technologies available for industrial energy efficiency, bringing down the cost for decarbonisation. More information on the companies that have successfully bid for these projects will appear shortly.
Further information is also available from the Carbon Trust
The Clean Growth Strategy highlights the need for industry to begin to switch from fossil fuel use to low carbon fuels such as biomass, hydrogen and clean electricity. Beyond 2030, the switch to low carbon fuels for industry will need to substantially increase in scale. Government has launched the first phase of an innovation competition which has been allocated up to £20 million which focuses on market engagement and potential scope for fuel switching in industry. The competition aims to stimulate early investment in fuel switching processes and technologies, so that a range of technologies are available by 2030 and beyond.
Element Energy successfully bid for the first phase which aims to understand the potential for industry to operate on low carbon fuels and the innovation required to enable this to happen, a report detailing Element Energy’s findings will be published in the autumn.
As part of the government’s Clean Growth Strategy BEIS has allocated up to £20 million to design and construct carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) demonstration projects. This programme is designed to encourage industrial sites to capture carbon dioxide which could then be used in industrial applications, while enabling learning and development of capture technologies at an intermediate scale, so reducing costs and risks.
The overall aims of the CCU demonstration programme are:
The programme is in 3 phases:
A £5 million Call for the Phase 2 Front End Engineering Design (FEED) Studies, part of the £20 million CCUD Innovation programme, provides grant funding for up to 5 FEED studies. These will produce cost estimates for the construction and operation of demonstrating CCU at the host site. The cost estimates are anticipated to produce cost accuracy of ±15% to allow BEIS and the developer to make a final investment decision.
The Call is open to all sizes of organisation and will provide grant funding for projects of 6-9 months, finishing before October 2019. The projects can involve working with international partners, but the work funded must be predominantly conducted in the UK.
BEIS will fund project proposals that meet the definition of Feasibility Study. Grants of up to £1 million will be considered under Article 25.
2 reports on carbon dioxide utilisation that were prepared by Ecofys and the Royal Society are also available.
In 2016 the UK joined a consortium of nine European countries to co-fund collaborative innovation projects into CCUS called Accelerating CCS Technologies (ACT). ACT is a European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) Cofund, which is a tool established by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation. The idea behind ERA-NET Cofunds is that European countries should join forces when it comes to funding RD&D and innovation on subjects of high European interest.
Under the scheme, 9 European countries – Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK – have come together to provide €25.34 million to support collaborative projects that can accelerate the deployment of CCUS within Europe; the European Commission adding a further €11.26 million, giving a total pot of €36.6 million.
Within the €36.6 million BEIS has committed £4.4 million, matched with a further £2.2 million in co-funding from the European Commission, to support UK participation in 5 collaborative projects with European partners.
Of the 8 projects selected in May 2017 the UK is contributing to 5:
ACORN: aims to initiate a low cost full chain carbon capture and storage project in North East Scotland that is readily scalable to nationally significant CO2 infrastructure
ALIGN: a large scale project aiming to accelerate the demonstration and implementation of European CCUS projects by addressing specific R&D gaps across the CCUS chain, including capture, transportation, storage and utilisation
DETECT: aims to provide pragmatic and reliable tools to reduce risks and costs for CO2 storage operations
ELEGANCY: aims to fast-track the decarbonisation of Europe’s energy system by exploiting the synergies between two key low-carbon technologies: CCS and hydrogen
PRE-ACT: an industry-driven research project with a strong focus on improving strategies for monitoring and management of pore pressure distribution to address the main storage-related challenges for the deployment of CCS: capacity, confidence and cost.
Please direct any other questions to industry.innovation@beis.gov.uk.
Updated: UK / Canada Smart Energy Systems Challenge now open to applications / South Korea Collaboration Competition winners announced
Enabling a smarter, more efficient energy system is a priority for government and in the Upgrading our energy system: smart systems and flexibility plan published in July 2017, the government committed up to £70 million to smart energy system innovation.
Across government, Innovate UK, Research Councils, and BEIS expect to invest around £265 million in smart systems research, development, and demonstration.
As part of this commitment, within the BEIS Energy Innovation Programme, BEIS expects to invest up to £70 million in the smart energy systems innovation theme.
As electric vehicles, smart devices, storage systems, remote connectivity and the like become more commonplace, the demands placed on our electricity grids are highly complex and very different from when they were built.
Through the Power Forward Challenge, the UK and Canada are jointly offering over £11 million to develop the best smart energy systems, including grids and storage, for the needs of the 21st Century, supporting the UK Industrial Strategy Clean Growth Grand Challenge around smart systems for the future.
The Challenge is looking for innovators from any sector who can bring disruptive technologies or new thinking to develop clean, robust and flexible power grids and energy systems that anticipate and meet the needs of networks around the world, looking ahead to 2030 and beyond.
BEIS will fund selected UK SMEs for participation support, and the Canadian government will fund the selected Canadian enterprises. UK SMEs can apply for up to £60,000 SME participation support for feasibility study development.
Read the detailed Challenge Applicant Guide and complete the online application forms available on the Impact Canada website.
In addition UK applicants should complete and submit, together with their application form, this UK Feasibility Study Annex:
BEIS will fund the selected UK-based demonstration projects and the Canadian government will fund the demonstration projects located in Canada. Project teams applying for support for demonstration projects must involve organisations from both the UK and Canada. The project teams can apply for funding contribution of up to £1.8 million per project for demonstration projects located in the UK.
Read the detailed Challenge Applicant Guide and complete the online application forms available on the Impact Canada website.
In addition UK-based project teams should complete and submit, together with their application form, this UK demonstration project annex:
We are holding an information event on 17 October 2018 at Telford in the UK:
For those who can’t attend either, we will post the webinar presentation here after the event.
Reflecting a shared interest in innovation to help to secure a smarter, efficient energy system, the UK and South Korean governments committed up to about £6 million in total, from 2018 to 2021, to deliver a bilateral competition on smart energy innovation. This innovation collaboration, announced by the Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry on 25 January 2018, is expected to help secure cost savings in the energy system by accelerating the speed and extent of deployment of smart, flexible energy system solutions as well as securing increased market knowledge and access in South Korea for UK companies.
This competition is now closed to applications. The 3 projects which have secured funding in the competition are:
All projects are expected to be completed and to disseminate learning by March 2021.
Full details of the competition:
The government is planning to commit up to £8.8 million to develop innovative approaches to energy management using smart meter data, tailored to the needs of smaller non-domestic sites.
The Non-Domestic Smart Energy Management Innovation Competition will aim to drive innovation in the energy services market in 3 priority non-domestic sectors (hospitality, retail, schools). It will help such non-domestic organisations cut their energy costs and be more energy efficient, enabling them to boost productivity and contribute to UK emissions reduction targets. It will also develop and strengthen the market for energy management products and services for smaller non-domestic sites, including both independent businesses and chains.
Up to 9 projects, distributed across these 3 sectors, will be selected to receive initial funding to develop innovative energy management solutions using smart meter data. Details of these initial projects can be found on the Non-Domestic Smart Energy Management Innovation Competition page
Details about the competition are set out in the Competition Brief.
This competition is supported by the findings of a major primary research project conducted over 2015 and 2016, which used a qualitative, cluster-based approach to identify the barriers and enablers to smart energy management in a variety of non-domestic premises. The design of the competition was also informed by an expert workshop convened by BEIS in March 2017.
The government is committing up to £7.75 million from 2018 to 2021 to support innovative domestic applications of Demand Side Response (DSR) technologies and business models. This grant competition will support up to 30 feasibility studies (Phase 1) and 10 demonstration projects (Phase 2) in domestic settings. We are looking for innovative, scalable and replicable solutions which could provide reliable domestic demand side response using a range of approaches, which could involve storage heaters, decarbonisation of heat and business models with novel usage of flexible demand.
This competition will be delivered in two phases. In Phase 1, grants of up to £30,000 will be awarded for 10 week feasibility studies. In Phase 2 grants of between £250,000 and £1 million will be awarded for demonstration projects, to be completed by 31 December 2020.
Details of the projects supported in Phase 1 of this Competition are set out here:
Full details about the competition are set out in the Competition Guidance Notes.
For more information, please email smart.innovation@beis.gov.uk
Research was commissioned by BEIS into realising the potential of DSR to 2025 to improve the evidence base on the potential of small-scale DSR and inform policy development targeted at a smarter energy system. The research uses an evidence review (a Rapid Evidence Assessment) and country case studies, both covering four research areas: policy interventions, business strategies, DSR products and services, and consumer engagement and participation.
As part of the Upgrading our energy system: smart systems and flexibility plan, in July 2017, government launched a competition on local flexibility markets, committing up to £600,000 for feasibility studies about innovative approaches that can be used to value and trade flexibility in the UK electricity system. This competition is now closed for entrants. Details of the projects supported by this competition:
Details about the competition are set out in the guidance notes:
For more information, please email smart.innovation@beis.gov.uk.
In July 2017, government committed up to £20 million for innovative projects that develop future electric vehicle-to-grid products, services and knowledge. Details about competition winners:
Innovation in Vehicle-to-Grid V2G Systems – Feasibility Studies – Competition Results
Innovation in Vehicle-to-Grid V2G Systems – CR D – Competition Results
Innovation in Vehicle-To-Grid V2G Systems – Real-World Demonstrators -Competition Results
Government launched a competition with up to £9 million available to reduce the cost of energy storage technologies (including electricity storage, thermal storage, and power-to-gas technologies). This includes a further £600,000 to support feasibility studies for a potential first-of-a-kind, large-scale future storage demonstrator. This competition is now closed for entrants. Details of the projects supported by this competition:
Grants have now been awarded for delivery of energy storage feasibility studies for large-scale future storage demonstrators. These initial feasibility studies are being led by the following organisations:
For more information, please email smart.innovation@beis.gov.uk.
Full details about the cost reduction competition, and the feasibility study are set out in the guidance notes here:
Government committed up to £7.6 million for innovative demonstrations of energy demand side response technologies in UK businesses or public sector organisations to reduce their energy use in peak times and provide flexibility to the energy system. This competition is now closed for entrants.
Phase 1 contracts have now been awarded for delivery of feasibility studies for the innovative non-domestic demand side response demonstrators. These initial feasibility studies are being led by the following organisations:
Details of the Phase 2 projects supported by this competition:
Details about the competition are set out in these guidance notes: