Aberthaw, owned and operated by RWE npower, was playing a vital role in providing heat and power for 1.5 million people in Wales as demand for electricity across Britain soared in the winter weather.

Aberthaw station manager Phil Allen said: “When we were informed of the expected snow storms we put our plans into place to ensure that all essential workers were able to get into work. There are no problems with power generation and although we have obviously seen a rise in demand the situation is well under control.

“Aberthaw Power Station has good supplies of coal, and our local coal suppliers are cooperating to meet our expected future demands. We have contingency plans in place to ensure that all other vital supplies to the power station are not affected by the poor weather.

“Weather like this shows the need for a balance of fuel supplies for generating electricity across the UK. Demand is high at the moment but within the levels anticipated during the winter months. Aberthaw is playing a major part in keeping households and businesses warm throughout Wales.”

Aberthaw Power Station has a well-rehearsed system for gritting and salting roads within the site and clearing pathways for staff.

The biggest problem faced by RWE npower across the UK was getting staff into work on snow-clogged roads. Staff braved the snow to work at the company’s power plants and also into its customer service centres with a number making their way in on foot.

- Aberthaw Power Station can generate 1,500MW of electricity – enough to power the needs of some 1.5million people, equivalent to the total population of five cities the size of Cardiff. The station contributes over £50m to the Welsh economy per year.

RWE npower is an integrated energy business, generating electricity and supplying gas, electricity and related services to customers across the UK. We operate and manage flexible, low-cost coal, oil and gas-fired power stations – generating over 10.3 GW of electricity. We serve around 6.8 million customer accounts and produce more than 10% of the electricity used in England and Wales.

• Plugs into any PC’s USB port
• At the push of a button, the ecobutton automatically puts your computer into a special “ecomode” that saves more energy than normal sleep mode, drawing only the same nominal power as when the computer and monitor are completely shut down
• Save energy while taking a phone call or break, while doing paperwork or going to lunch or meetings,
• At the touch of any button, the computer instantly returns to where you left off and displays a splash screen showing both money and carbon (CO2) savings
• Your company logo, message and weblink can be incorporated into the ecobutton splash screen***
• Reduces company energy output and carbon footprint

Other Notes:

STANDARD SPLASH SCREEN (7-10 DAYS DELIVERY AFTER APPROVED ARTWORK) • Displays dollar and carbon savings for the time your computer was placed in “ecomode” • Displays daily and cumulative dollar and carbon savings ***BRANDED SPLASH SCREEN (3-5 WEEK DELIVERY AFTER APPROVED ARTWORK) • Displays daily and cumulative dollar and carbon savings for the time your computer was placed in “ecomode” • Displays your company logo • When logo is clicked, it launches company website • Three logo sizes available

Visit Ecobutton

The concept consists of two parts – a wearable sensor unit which can sense and analyze your environment, health, and local weather conditions, and a dedicated mobile phone.

The sensor unit will be worn on a wrist or neck strap made from solar cells that provide power to the sensors. NFC (near field communication) technology will relay information by touch from the sensors to the phone or to or to other devices that support NFC technology.

Both the phone and the sensor unit will be as compact as possible to minimize material use, and those materials used in the design will be renewable and/or reclaimed. Technologies used inside the phone and sensor unit will also help save energy.

Stay in touch with your health and local environment

To help make you more aware of your health and local environmental conditions, the Nokia Eco Sensor Concept will include a separate, wearable sensing device with detectors that collect environment, health, and/or weather data.

You will be able to choose which sensors you would like to have inside the sensing device, thereby customizing the device to your needs and desires. For example, you could use the device as a “personal trainee” if you were to choose a heart-rate monitor and motion detector (for measuring your walking pace).

Here are some other examples of customized sensing devices you could build:

A mobile device that builds on the “three Rs”

Reduce, reuse and recycle – the Nokia Eco Sensor Concept is built upon all three of these underlying principles of waste reduction. Emphasis will be placed on materials use and reuse in the phone’s construction:

A phone for the energy-conscious consumer

To complete the Nokia Eco Sensor Concept, the phone and detector units will be optimized for lower energy consumption than phones in 2007 in both the manufacturing process and use. Alternative energy sources, such as solar power, will fuel the sensor unit’s power usage. Thus, we aim to create a self-powered sensing device to reduce dependence on external, non-renewable energy sources.

Innovative Services

The possibilities to introduce creative and useful mobile applications and web services that build upon the environmental data collected from such a design concept are numerous. These services can range from personal health monitoring and improvement, to large-scale collective efforts to promote sustainable lifestyle choices. Even very simple environmental variables can bring about novel solutions when shared and integrated into a global network of mobile explorers.

The UK is missing out on an affordable and plentiful source of renewable energy through its failure to deploy micro-hydro technologies capable of generating usable power from existing river weirs.

That is the view of Steve Welsh, managing director of Water Power Enterprises (h2oPE), a so-called community interest company that aims to install 5MW of renewable energy capacity from micro-hydro projects by 2015 and reinvest its profits in community-led environmental projects.

“The infrastructure to do this is already in place, as there are thousands of river weirs across the country that were built during the industrial revolution and are still in good nick,” explains managing director Steve Welsh. “As the infrastructure is already there the capital costs are manageable – the issue is picking the right sites, gaining planning permission, clearance from the Environment Agency and a lease from the landowner.”

These barriers mean that renewable energy companies have so far largely ignored micro-hydro technologies on the grounds that the relatively small amounts of power generated means it would take five to seven years to deliver a return on investment. But Welsh insists that micro hydro technologies, such as modern Archimedean screws, will generate energy for around 40 years providing h20pe with a long-term and predictable revenue stream.*

Full Article – Source : ©BusinessGreen