CHP


Derbyshire’s latest peaking plant installation is seven months old


In April 2018 the leading gas engine specification and maintenance services provider, CooperOstlund, completed its first UK peaking plant installation. The project saw three, 2.7MW combined heat and power (CHP) gas engines installed at a site in rural Derbyshire. CooperOstlund joined the project halfway through after poor planning and incorrect engine installation from another contractor delayed completion considerably, reports UKPN.


requirements of the electricity grid. These kinds of plants are ideally suited to peaking reserve, power and grid support applications. According to CooperOstlund, project


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completion on this particular gas-powered facility in Derbyshire had been considerably delayed onsite by ‘poor planning and incorrect engine installation from another contractor’. In fact, CooperOstlund joined the project


halfway through when the site was still in development, nearly eight months after the start date. CooperOstlund was able to turn months of stagnation into activity and progress. The engines were quickly removed, floor and engine cell levelled, followed by a full re-install, allowing the site to be commissioned and operations just under seven month ago. Now fully operational, the plant is running


lectricity peaking stations, also called peak-lopping plants, are power plants designed to help balance the fluctuating power


at optimum efficiency - generating more than 8.1MWe energy to support the National Grid in times of peak demand. Speaking about the project, Stuart Cooper,


director at CooperOstlund, commented: “When it comes to CHP engine installation, it doesn’t pay to cut corners. In this instance, it doubled costs and lengthened timescales considerably. Fortunately, we were appointed just in time to rescue the project – which had struggled to get off the ground and was draining resources. Thanks to our team’s expertise, it was possible to quickly correct mistakes and ensure commissioning could be completed just a few weeks later.” Completed in April 2018, the peaking


facility has been fully-operational ever since. In t imes of high energy demand, the site’s engines generate sustainable power to supplement grid capacity. For more information about


CooperOstlund, or the company’s portfolio of gas engine specification and maintenance services, visit www.cooperostlund.co.uk.


“When it


comes to CHP engine


installation, it doesn’t pay to cut corners. In this instance, it doubled costs and


lengthened timescales


considerably. Fortunately, we were


appointed just in time to


rescue the project.”


- Stuart Cooper,


CooperOstlund


Capacity Market rules and the availability of 15-year fixed price capacity agreements have caused a sharp increase in interest in UK peaking asset development. Peaking units are cheap and


able to access a more flexible range of financing structures to enhance equity returns. These are attractive characteristics in a world awash with capital looking to invest in relatively low risk infrastructure projects.


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scalable relative to CCGT assets. And unlike CCGTs, the peaker investment case does not rely on volatile wholesale energy market returns. This means that peaking assets are


advantage over peaking plants and with 30GW of existing CCGT capacity, UK merit order competition between gas plant is fierce. As a result it has historically been hard to build an investment case for peaking assets, except as onsite backup or for the provision of ancillary services (e.g. STOR). But recent clarifications on the


Capacity Market The new Capacity Market may be set to turn UK generation investment on its head. Power plant development in the UK has historically been focused on combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants rather than peaking assets. CCGT have a clear efficiency


The UK and the


NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018 UK POwER NEwS


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