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An army of tree planters have hit the half-way stage in a carbon-neutral push to offset a project that will bring low-carbon energy to six million UK homes and businesses.

The National Grid-led team have planted the 3,000th tree along the 57km route of the high-voltage Hinkley Connection between Bridgwater and Avonmouth in south west England. As part of National Grid’s commitment to reduce the visual impact of construction works and building along the route, the team’s 2022/2023 workload to March was:

By 2025 a total of 6,019 trees, 35,807 linear metres of hedgerow and 261,301 square metres of woodland planting will have been put in the ground.

Last summer the team braved the hot weather to tend and water the thousands of young trees that have already been planted on the project line as part of National Grid’s five-year pledge to maintain fledgling trees and hedgerows.

Since planting began in January 2020, the team have sunk more than 17,826 linear metres of hedges, 114,546 square metres of woodland and 3,000 plus trees.

Steve Haskayne, Project Director on the Hinkley Connection Project, says: “We’re committed to leaving a lasting environmental legacy while minimising the visual impact of our works. We’re excited to have planted our 3,000th tree during this planting season.”

Educational and fun

An outdoor learning space at a school affected by the project works is to undergo a major overhaul from National Grid. A pylon and conductors spanning the school playing fields are being removed, so in return the children at Avonmouth CofE Primary School have been given new laptops and playground equipment.

The next phase of work will see an overgrown woodland area transformed into an educational and fun space for the children to learn about biodiversity. Works to be carried out this year will include creating pathways, a den and mud kitchen, pond-dipping platform (pictured), wildflower planting and the installation of bird, bat and hedgehog boxes.

The wide-open 'land of my fathers' is alive with natural resources… and opportunities to make the nation and world an even better place. The growing focus on protecting our natural world and climate concerns means Wales will be a key source of future low-carbon generation to help the UK meet its net zero goals.

The country also has its own ambitious climate targets, with a target for 70% of its electricity demand to be met by its own renewable energy sources by 2030. That’s where National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) aims to enable the green energy transition by investing in and upgrading the Grid’s infrastructure to allow connections to more forms of low-carbon power.

At the same time National Grid is committed to delivering these essential works in ways that preserve and enhance biodiversity and nature, while also reducing environmental impact. National Grid Sustainability Specialist Jonathan Miller shares four case studies and their targets from the Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystems report for Wales and beyond.

More power has been moved in and out of the UK through National Grid’s five undersea cables this year than ever before.

The company’s cables linking Britain with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway, have transported 12% more power than in the corresponding time last year.

That’s also 39% higher than two years ago, while Britain’s interconnector capacity reached its highest level this month with 8.4GW of interconnector capacity.

National Grid’s portfolio now totals 6.4GW – enough to power around 6.5 million British homes.

One of the cables, the 2GW cable which links Sellindge in Kent with Les Mandarins in Normandy, is National Grid’s longest-serving interconnector that has enabled power sharing with France since 1986.

Nicola Medalova, Managing Director of National Grid Interconnectors, said: “We’ve seen this winter that interconnectors are supporting security of supply in both Britain and the EU by doing exactly what they were designed to do – move large volumes of power quickly to where it’s needed most.

“Our interconnectors help to make Britain’s energy system more secure, enabling system operators to access electricity at the flick of a switch to respond to sudden changes in demand and supply. As we move toward a zero-carbon economy, the cooperation with our neighbours that we have seen this winter will be increasingly important, which is why it’s so wonderful to see such strong performance in a difficult period.”

As well as improving security of supply, interconnectors bring both financial and environmental savings by enabling the movement of clean surplus electricity between neighbouring countries.

Within seven years they could have saved the UK around 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide… the equivalent of taking two million cars off the road.

National Grid’s sixth interconnector – the 475-mile long Viking Link joining Lincolnshire with Revsing in Denmark – is currently under construction and expected to be complete by the end of the year. It will bring in enough clean energy for a further 1.4 million homes.

A hydrogen-powered generator successfully ran one of National Grid’s test centres in a trial that could be a catalyst in the move to a low-carbon future. The unit, whose only emission is water, could save an estimated 500,000kg of carbon if extended across all the business’s substation sites.

The generator was tested for 10 weeks at the state-of-the-art Deeside Centre for Innovation, a testing facility with a 400kV modified substation specialising in the development of innovative technologies.

The unit continuously powered the entire facility for the length of the trial and the findings are now being analysed by engineers to see if it can be rolled out nationally. The current diesel generators are only used occasionally with batteries to provide backup power to substations to run cooling fans, pumps, and lighting.

The generators have less than a one per cent chance of operating annually, but changing from diesel to low-carbon emission alternatives could reduce carbon intensity by 90% as well as the significant carbon emission reduction.

The Deeside unit has power capabilities of up to 100kW in continuous operation mode and up to 250kW for 45 minutes, and uses 100% green hydrogen. The unit is quieter and the hydrogen canisters used to fuel the generators can be safely stored on site.

Prem Ranjan, Test Engineer at the facility, says: “The unit was tested for different load profiles including typical critical substation equipment. The trial results for electrical performance and environmental aspects, along with hydrogen management at our substations, will now be examined as viable zero-emission alternatives to diesel backup generators.”

Data from the movable GeoPura 250kW hydrogen power unit (HPU) is being analysed to see if they can be viable replacements for the diesel generators at National Grid’s 250 substation sites.

Visit Deeside Centre for Innovation for more information.