British Gas Research Articles

Fate of fluorine in stratified samples from BGL gasifier at Hailar Chemical Plant, Inner Mongolia: An intermediate process perspective

This study investigated the fate of Fluorine (F) during the super high temperature (2000 °C) gasification process by analyzing 23 stratified samples inside the British Gas Lurgi (BGL) gasifier in production. Through sequential chemical extraction (SCEP), ion selective electrode (ISE), scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM-EDS), high-resolution transmission electron microscope with energy dispersive spectrometer (HRTEM-EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), this article complements the intermediate forms of transformation of F, in addition to the methods of deduction of the fate of F through input and output.Overall, the concentration of fluorine gradually decreases with increasing temperature and ≈1200 °C (14th layer) is the key temperature for its volatilisation. This may be related not only to the volatility of organic matter, but also to the significant contribution from the melting of a large amount of silicate and aluminosilicate minerals in the sample.In addition, the fluorine concentration remained stable from layer 14 to layer 27 (≈2000 °C), rather than continuing to evaporate, due to the formation of a new, stable mode of fluorine occurrence: Ca-P-F-Si minerals have been identified. The free and active SiO2, possibly derived from the melting of quartz and kaolinite, played a key role in preventing the melting of fluorapatite. The mechanism of formation of the new refractory materials (Ca-P-F-Si minerals) needs to be further validated by laboratory and computer simulations.

Assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of methane regulations in British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACT Many jurisdictions are introducing methane reduction policy as part of climate commitments, with a focus on the oil and gas supply chain. Periodic comprehensive leak detection and repair (LDAR) surveys or screening leak detection and repair surveys are required in the British Columbia, Canada oil and gas sector to reduce unintentional methane emissions caused by leaking infrastructure. By finding and fixing leaks quickly, emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, are reduced. In this study, we explored how effectively British Columbia’s regulation, deposited in December 2018, made progress towards meeting the policy objective of a 45% decrease in methane emissions by 2025 from a 2014 baseline. We evaluated the performance and cost effectiveness of regulatory-prescribed LDAR programmes using data collected by the BC Energy Regulator (formerly BC Oil and Gas Commission) for the 2020 year, and survey cost data submitted by service providers. We found that the new regulation was only partially effective due to low compliance rates. We also observed heavy tail leak distributions in LDAR data collected by service companies, but comparatively narrow leak distributions in data from permit holders who internalized LDAR operations, suggesting a difference in work practice or the use of equipment. Comprehensive leak detection surveys were found to be more cost efficient ($23 CAD/tCO2e reduced) compared to screening surveys ($1,787 CAD/tCO2e reduced) because more methane leaks are detected in comprehensive assessments. To meet methane reduction targets, we recommend that: 1) jurisdictions work to improve compliance rates by introducing minimum administrative penalties specific to noncompliance; 2) that all future LDAR surveys are instrument-based; 3) limiting turnaround time limits so that repairs are not delayed indefinitely; and 4) that LDAR completed internally by permit holders undergo independent third-party verification.

From intern to chief of staff

Petrophysicist Oliver Grimston talks about his career at British oil and gas company bp, from taking part in their graduate programme to his current role as the firm’s chief of staff in Iraq.

Cross-sector sustainability benchmarking of major utilities in the United Kingdom

Benchmarking can be a useful tool for utility companies to improve their efficiency, offering many potential positives such as assessing performance objectively, exposing areas where improvement is needed, and identifying best performing companies, ultimately illuminating possible strategies for poorer performers to implement. Despite these positives, the challenge remains of how to compare the performance of different organisations from different sectors. This research aimed to develop a methodology to effectively compare companies across sectors using UK utilities across the water and sewage, energy, and communications sectors as a case study. A methodology was constructed based on service, environmental, and financial metrics, and cross-sector benchmarking was undertaken, which generated performance scores based on company metrics relative to sector peers. This circumnavigated issues of indicators often being mismatched across sectors and the lack of relevance and context when sectors do use similar indicators. Results showed that the sample of 18 utilities had two distinct clusters, one of eight sector leaders and the other of ten lower performers. Sky had the highest overall score of 13.5 (maximum 15), suggesting it significantly outperformed the rest of the communications sector. Similarly, British Gas and SSE lead the energy sector, whilst Wessex, Severn Trent, and United Utilities lead the way for water and sewage companies. The two distinct groups of sector leaders and lower performers can be employed to identify other companies that may offer learning opportunities. Top performers can assess top performers in other sectors to identify how they might continue improving, rather than be potentially limited within their sectors. Conversely, lower-performing companies can look within and across sectors to identify best practices to improve their performance. The methodological development and UK utility sustainability results collectively provide novel insight into the water, energy, and communication sectors and contribute to the international academic literature on benchmarking by illustrating an alternative and unique solution to comparing diverse sectors in any region.

КОНЦЕПТУАЛІЗАЦІЯ РИЗИК-МЕНЕДЖМЕНТУ У СИСТЕМІ КОРПОРАТИВНОГО УРЯДУВАННЯ БАГАТОНАЦІОНАЛЬНИХ ПІДПРИЄМСТВ

The purpose of the article is to summarize and present the fundamental trends of the last decade related to the formation of the role and place of risk management in the system of corporate governance of multinational enterprises (MNEs). The analysis is based on the latest research by leading international researchers, such as American scientists Warren Bennis, Bert Nanus, Hugh Grove and Lorenzo Patelli, British scientists Mingzhui Wang, Elizabeth Kelan and Kevin Crowley, international organizations Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, Group of Thirty, Institute of international finance and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The conducted analysis clearly indicates that failures in MNEs risk management over many years led to catastrophic losses in various industries, when such failures, as in the energy sector, led not only to financial, but also to significant environmental consequences. Among the most significant incidents, we can highlight the accidents on the oil platform "Deepwater Horizon" of the British oil and gas company BP in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico and the Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima-1 in 2011. Often these failures also contributed to failures in corporate governance, where boards of directors did not fully consider the risks that MNEs were taking and/or imperfect risk management systems. Thus, the conceptualization of risk management in the system of corporate governance of MNEs becomes an important component of achieving medium and long-term strategic goals of MNEs in conditions of growing macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty.

Detecting Pipeline Pathways in Landsat 5 Satellite Images with Deep Learning

Energy system modeling is essential in analyzing present and future system configurations motivated by the energy transition. Energy models need various input data sets at different scales, including detailed information about energy generation and transport infrastructure. However, accessing such data sets is not straightforward and often restricted, especially for energy infrastructure data. We present a detection model for the automatic recognition of pipeline pathways using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to address this lack of energy infrastructure data sets. The model was trained with historical low-resolution satellite images of the construction phase of British gas transport pipelines, made with the Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper instrument. The satellite images have been automatically labeled with the help of high-resolution pipeline route data provided by the respective Transmission System Operator (TSO). We have used data augmentation on the training data and trained our model with four different initial learning rates. The models trained with the different learning rates have been validated with 5-fold cross-validation using the Intersection over Union (IoU) metric. We show that our model can reliably identify pipeline pathways despite the comparably low resolution of the used satellite images. Further, we have successfully tested the model’s capability in other geographic regions by deploying satellite images of the NEL pipeline in Northern Germany.

Franco-British responses to chemical warfare 1915–8, with special reference to the medical services, casualty statistics and the threat to civilians

AbstractThis dual-focussed examination will critically compare and contrast the British Royal Army Medical Corps and the French Medical Service’s involvement in the Western Front chemical campaign between 1915 and 1918. Because the Anglophone historiography has tended to marginalise the French contribution to the allied chemical war, this article will attempt to re-balance the historical narrative by emphasising the collective nature and importance of this joint Franco-British enterprise. By interrogating a raft of under-utilised primary evidence in the French and British archives, this investigation will contribute to the ‘alliance literature’ by arguing that when it comes to aspects of the Franco-British chemical war such as the co-operation of the medical services, the appellation ‘together but alone’ does not fully hold. The article will explore avenues of the two national armies evolving process of mutual medical assistance, material exchange and scientific collaboration. The striking similarity of French and British gas casualty statistics is highlighted with reference to the overall congruence of their anti-gas strategies – notwithstanding the problematic nature of these statistics. In addition to enhancing soldiers’ resistance to the poison gas threat on the battlefield, the Medical Services were also responsible for the protection of local civilians in the war zones. With reference mainly to France, this investigation will discuss the significance and implications of the poison gas threat to the home front. Finally, the impact of chemical weapon production upon civilian war workers in France and Britain will be commented upon.

Visible Legacies of Invisible Resources: Gas Infrastructure, Women, and Environmental Control in 1930s British Documentary Movement Films

Three short British documentary movement films produced for the British gas industry, Housing Problems (1935), The Smoke Menace (1937), and The Obedient Flame (1939), highlight the importance of switching to gas use in homes. These films advertise efficient, quiet, and invisible gas as a solution to social and environmental ills. The regulation of this resource, and thus the onus of environmental regulation, falls primarily into the hands of women. The films grant agency to both energy infrastructure and its human mediators while stressing their need to operate unseen.

Characterizing oil and gas wells with fugitive gas migration through Bayesian multilevel logistic regression

Oil and gas wells are engineered with barriers to prevent fluid movement along the wellbore. If the integrity of one or more of these barriers fails, it may result in subsurface leakage of natural gas outside the well casing, a process termed fugitive gas migration (GM). Knowledge of the occurrence and causes of GM is essential for effective management of associated potential risks. In the province of British Columbia, Canada (BC), oil and gas producers are required to report well drilling, completion, production, and abandonment records for all oil and gas wells to the provincial regulator. This well data provides a unique opportunity to identify well characteristics with higher likelihoods for GM to develop. Here we employ Bayesian multilevel logistic regression to understand the associations between various well attributes and reported occurrences of GM in 0.6% of the 25,000 oil and gas wells in BC. Our results indicate that there is no association between the occurrence of GM and hydraulic fracturing. Overall, there appears to be no well construction or operation attribute in the study database that is conclusively associated with GM. Wells with GM more frequently exhibit indicators of well integrity loss (i.e., surface casing vent flow, remedial treatments, and blowouts) and geographic location appears to be important. We ascribe the spatial clustering of GM cases to the local geologic environment, and we speculate that there are links between particular intermediate gas-bearing formations and GM occurrence in the Fort Nelson Plains Area. The results of this study suggest that oil and gas wells in high GM occurrence areas and those showing any attribute associated with integrity failure (e.g., surface casing vent flow) should be prioritized for monitoring to improve the detection of GM.

The British Gas Fire

22 | International Union Rights | 28/2 FOCUS | A CHANGING POST-PANDEMIC WORLD FOR LABOUR The winter of 2020/21 was a dark one for many, but in the middle of it a fire was lit. Rather, 10,000 small flames, which made up the individual picket lines of striking members of GMB Union employed by British Gas. This marked the largest dispute seen in the UK during COVID, & the largest to hit the gas industry since the 1970’s. The story of British Gas, serves as an example of an underlying current in the industrial trajectory of the United Kingdom. British Gas was one of the jewels in the crown of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisation agenda. Fast forward to more recent times and the top brass of Centrica (the private company that has retained the British Gas brand) have managed to turn a company previously worth billions into a billion pound loss. While the business was busy continuing to lose money and making deeper and deeper cuts you might expect the unions on the ground to be busy resisting. That was sadly not the case, and the issues that came to the fore during the gas strike of 20/21 have their roots here. In 2016 British Gas also announced it would be closing a call centre and office in Oldbury (West Midlands), with a loss of approximately 680 jobs. The unions recognised by British Gas chose not to fight the closure. Roughly the same time as the call centre staff were facing a tidal wave of cuts, the employer made a move on the pensions of the gas engineers. The GMB approached this move by the employer through attempting to negotiate a settlement, which the senior GMB reps at British Gas then recommended to the membership. The union was forced to do an aboutface when the grassroots members of the GMB not only shot down the negotiated offer the union presented to them; but began to self-organise in their anger at the union structure which had found itself so far removed from where they the members stood. In the end the GMB managed to avoid a mass exodus through the combination of a change in the top of the union bureaucracy and a quick renegotiation of the previous offer with a slight enhancement that was reluctantly voted through. Why is understanding the backdrop so important? It matters, because while the scandal of privatisation, offshoring of jobs and cuts has been the narrative of many once great companies/institutions such as British Gas; the way the union reacted, by cultivating a serving culture rather than an organising culture-where maintaining a good relationship with the employer was prioritised over ensuring a defence of the union members interests, is also the narrative behind the continued decline of British trade unionism. The pensions dispute was the canary in the mine of the GMB’s structure within British Gas. If you could pinpoint a key moment when the eventual outcome of what happened with the British Gas strike in 20/21 could have been averted, it would have been an intervention following its failings during the pensions dispute. The saga over the pensions dispute was a clear indication that the union was out of sync with the membership. Where the union failed to learn this lesson, the employer didn’t. The lesson the employer took from the pensions dispute was that the union structure was out of touch with the membership and therefore on the one hand too weak to get a negotiated offer through the membership, and on the other too weak to fight the company off. The mistake the employer did make was in thinking that they, the company, were in touch with the workforce. Fire and rehire is nothing new to the industrial landscape in the UK, however its use has become both more prevalent and more high profile in the wake of Covid as a fast-track way for scurrilous employers to strongarm their workers into submission. Fire & Rehire is the process by which an employer can legally dismiss and re-engage its workforce en mass if it can argue (against a low threshold of proof) that contractual changes...

Editorial: a changing post-pandemic world for labour

2 | International Union Rights | 28/2 EDITORIAL Editorial: a changing post-pandemic world for labour The latest edition of IUR focuses on changes taking place in and around the world of work. Our selection reveals labour law reforms but no consistent pattern, with progressive announcements in some countries and sweeping attacks in others. We open with welcome news from the US, where the Biden administration has quickly introduced much needed reforms. Lynn Rhinehart describes the so-called PRO-Act as ‘by far the most significant piece of labour law legislation in decades’ promising to stop employer interference in union elections, restore workers’ bargaining power, improve relief for illegally fired workers, and override ‘right to work’ laws. It seems the US could rapidly see very significant improvements for trade union rights. As David Bacon’s piece on union access to farm workers reveals, however, there remains strong opposition to even basic union rights for even low paid and temporary workers. Over in Ukraine it is a different picture. As in other former Soviet states, the aspects of trade union law that were the bedrock of a very strong framework of social protection are being identified by a modernising administration as archaic barriers to business. Rights and privileges such as union ownership of and provision of fitness and holiday institutions - which gave trade unions considerable powers within the workplace and indeed a strong social role generally – are also all under threat. In New Zealand there is also a sense of radical reform, albeit it a very positive and pro-union agenda, with the government promising a new sectoral bargaining framework. Many looking at the proposals see real possibilities, but if the government is so supportive of workers’ rights why has the country not ratified ILO Convention No. 87, and why are the nurses on strike again? The background to the recent violent repression of a strike at a power station in Banshkhali in Bangladesh is set out for us by Anupoma Joyeeta Joyee. Seven strikers were shot dead at Banshkhali, making it one of the most severe recent cases of strike repression, though one that has been largely overlooked by the global unions. ICTUR is further dismayed to record the killing of another migrant worker activist from one of Italy’s base unions, which appears also to have gone unmentioned by the ITUC. And Labourstart’s Eric Lee raises with us another recent case where he argues similarly that the global unions could and should have responded to the case of an arrested migrant rights activist. We turn then to the other aspect of change discussed in this edition of IUR, which concerns not labour law but the changing nature of work and new trade union strategies and practices. Associate Professor Huang Yu brings a warning from China that workers are so far failing to fight for ‘the robot dividend’, managing at best to sustain conditions. And the other dramatic transformation affecting trade union work over the past 18 months has been the struggle to adapt and continue trade union work under the conditions of the pandemic. Dr. Niall Cullianane and Gareth Murphy discuss how the Irish FSU union has adapted to online tools, celebrating some success, ‘the shift to online unionism enhanced some opportunities for officers and staff to share ideas more frequently’, but noting that ‘socially distanced’ outdoor meetings were still regarded as important, and that ‘exchanges with employers have been less than ideal’. Hazel Nolan discusses relating themes around online outreach and activism in a major dispute with British Gas, revealing unexpected potential for online trade unionism to have a dramatic impact and to generate an impressive level of activism and member involvement. We close this edition of IUR with thoughts from ICTUR President and Vice President Lord John Hendy QC and Professor Keith Ewing, who remind trade unionists of the importance of language with their warning against the pernicious phrase ‘the labour market’, which they argue is giving ‘legitimacy to a capitalist mythology in which buying and selling labour is a natural and unalterable part of the human condition’. Daniel Blackburn, Editor Next issue of IUR Articles between 850 and 1800 words should be sent by email (mail...

The British Gas Fire

The British Gas Fire

Water footprint of hydraulic fracturing in Northeastern British Columbia, Canada

The method of hydraulic fracturing used to exploit unconventional shale gas has raised public concerns over the volumes of freshwater that are extracted for injection operations as well as the volumes of wastewater generated as a by-product of gas production. Using data from the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission, this paper examines the volumes of produced and injected water from hydraulically fractured gas wells in Northeastern British Columbia. The two major producing shale gas basins in the province are the Montney and the Horn River. In this study, these are divided into several sub-basins based on existing geological and reservoir engineering applications. For each sub-basin the average volumes of wastewater- and injected water per well are calculated and then normalized to cumulative gas production. Ratios of injected water: gas production and wastewater: gas production are then applied to estimated volumes of remaining gas reserves in each sub-basin in order to calculate a total water footprint of future exploitation. These extrapolated water footprints were further elaborated into three scenarios of wastewater recycling rates: 0, 40, and 100% re-use. This study also compares the quality and quantity of wastewater produced from hydraulically fractured wells to their conventional counterparts in the province. Based on these calculations, the total future freshwater withdrawal and wastewater production volumes for all basins range from 1.65 to 3 billion, and 0 to 1.35 billion cubic metres, respectively. Volumes of freshwater withdrawal are relatively modest compared to other industries when considering the size of Northeastern British Columbia and the time-scale of extraction. In general, hydraulically fractured wells in Northeastern British Columbia produce volumes of wastewater that are equal to or lower than those required for injection. Unconventional gas wells often produce far less wastewater than their conventional counterparts.

Investigating the hydraulic role of a large buried valley network on regional groundwater flow

An understanding of the three-dimensional hydrostratigraphic architecture of a buried valley network, in particular the continuity of permeable units within their fill, is needed to evaluate the resource potential and role of buried valley aquifers in regional groundwater flow. In this study, a facies modeling algorithm within the exploration and production software Petrel was used to construct a geological model of a buried valley network located in the central Peace Region in Northeast British Columbia, Canada. Facies were interpreted using resistivity inversion results from an airborne electromagnetic survey (SkyTEM) and borehole gamma-ray and lithology logs. This detailed geological model and a simplified geological model of the buried valley network were used to develop two interpretive numerical groundwater flow models in MODFLOW. Calibration was performed using baseflow estimates derived using a novel approach whereby upper and lower bounds for baseflow indices were combined with streamflow estimates from the Northeast Water Tool (NEWT), a hydrological modeling tool developed for water allocation for industrial use by the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission. The modeling results suggest that permeable deposits exist within the buried valleys, but are not regionally connected throughout the whole network, and thus do not play a significant role in the regional groundwater flow regime. However, locally extensive permeable deposits occur within the buried valleys and may offer viable water sources for domestic use or to replace existing surface-water licenses for industrial use.

Steering the ‘C-Day’: Insights from the rapid, planned transition of the UK's natural gas conversion programme

The article studies the steering strategies pursued during a major sociotechnical transition in the then state-owned British gas industry. We focus on the ten-year (1967–1977) national project to convert 35 million appliances to run on natural gas instead of manufactured gas. The article : a. addresses the issue of steering in the multi-faceted, complex process of conversion and identifies the context of and challenges faced by the natural gas conversion programme in the 1960s and how actors responded and coordinated action; b. Identifies modes of steering followed by key actors and institutions of the period; c. Identifies essential precursors for this successful steering, including: the recognition of the challenges the industry faced in the pre-transition years; an openness to experimentation, R&D and organizational and technical change; and harmonious relations with government. We argue that the steering approach needs to combine an emphasis on planning and institutional and regulatory innovation with aspects of the mundane governance approach. Our analysis shows, with reference to the UK’s low-carbon gas transition, that while rapid, planned transitions are achievable, they may require complex, demanding forms of steering and governance that may prove hard to achieve in today’s socioeconomic and political conditions.

A fully coupled fluid-structure interaction simulation of three-dimensional dynamic ductile fracture in a steel pipeline

Long running fractures in high-pressure pipelines transporting hazardous fluid are catastrophic events resulting in pipeline damage and posing safety and environmental risks. Therefore, the ductile fracture propagation control is an essential element of the pipeline design. In this study, a coupled fluid-structure interaction modelling is used to simulate the dynamic ductile fractures in steel pipelines. The proposed model couples a fluid dynamics model describing the pipeline decompression and the fracture mechanics of the deforming pipeline exposed to internal and back-fill pressures. To simulate the state of the flow in a rupturing pipeline, a compressible one-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model is applied, where the fluid properties are evaluated using a rigorous thermodynamic model. The ductile failure of the steel pipeline is described as an extension of the modified Bai-Wierzbicki model implemented in a finite element code. The proposed methodology has successfully been applied to simulate a full-scale pipeline burst test performed by British Gas Company, which involved rupture of a buried X70 steel pipeline, initially filled with rich natural gas at 11.6 MPa and −5 °C.

Full-Scale Experimental Verification of the Explosion Shock Wave Model of a Natural Gas Pipeline

As developments in natural gas pipelines increasingly incorporate higher grades of steel, larger diameters, and higher pressures, the consequences of an accident caused by leakage, explosion, or ignition become progressively more severe. Currently, major technical obstacles include the quantification of the impact of an explosion shock wave of a high-strength, large-diameter natural gas pipeline, and the selection of a reasonable shock wave overpressure model appropriate to the operating conditions. In this paper, six models of shock wave overpressure theories, namely, the TNT equivalent method, the TNO method, the multienergy method, the British Gas method, the Shell method, and the Lee formula, were compared and analyzed to determine their applicability. A shock wave model adapted to the characteristics of a full-scale test was proposed, and the model verification of a full-scale blasting test was conducted on pipelines with diameters of 1422 mm and 1219 mm, respectively. Subsequent results indicated that the modifications to the TNT equivalent and the test parameters correlated with changes in the suitability of the model. Henrych’s formula calculation model of the British Gas method was found to correspond strongly with the measured value, in which the absolute value of the relative error was less than 30% and the absolute error within the range of 78 m to 800 m was no more than 0.05 MPa. Thus, the Henrych formula was adopted as the primary model formula for the shock wave overpressure calculations in this study. To further correct the error of the model, the trend between the curve obtained by the Henrych formula and the fitting curve of the measured value was compared and analyzed. The positive and negative compensations of the shaded area before and after the intersection point were carried out, and the new error correction overpressure model formula was obtained by fitting, with the error controlled within 15%.

The “Mangle” of Human Practice

Praça Mauá, 1 – Centro, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 20081-240, Brasil https://museudoamanha.org.br/enWe are accustomed to museums full of heritage displays from bygone eras, helpfully “seriated” for the visitor to tell a story of linear human progress toward an “end”: the great metanarrative of (Western) modernity. This is not so with the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) in Rio de Janeiro. A joint public-private partner venture (by the City of Rio de Janeiro, the Roberto Marinho Foundation, Banco Santander, the British Gas Project, and the government of Brazil), the museum was conceptualized as a dark but openended narrative on climate change and the future of humanity.

Why Consumers Switch Energy Suppliers: The Role of Individual Attitudes

ABSTRACT Since 2008, fewer customers switched suppliers in British electricity and gas markets despite the potential for financial gains, suggesting that psychological factors may affect switching behaviors. Using a unique nation-wide British survey, we explore the influence of consumers’ attitudes and perceptions on switching behaviors and assess the differences in switching propensity across different groups. Support for simplifying energy tariffs, professed less difficulty in understanding energy bills, expected difficulty in changing suppliers and lack of attention to the issue of energy prices are associated with lower switching activity. At a time of high saliency, political party voting intention was strongly related to switching. Unlike the bivariate analyses conducted by the regulator and the competition authority, our multivariate analysis show few demographic factors affect the likelihood of switching except for educational attainment and tariff payment patterns. Remedies aiming to encourage switching cannot be targeted correctly unless the supporting analysis is robust to alternative model specifications.

Development Progress on the Ceres Power Steel Cell Technology Platform: Further Progress Towards Commercialization

Ceres Power is continuing to make excellent progress in the development of its low-temperature metal supported SOFC design (the ‘Steel Cell’) based predominantly around the use of ceria. This unique design architecture allows for a robust, low cost, subsidy free fuel cell product, whilst retaining the advantages of fuel flexibility, high efficiency and low degradation. Over the last year, several significant technological and commercial developments have taken place. The latest generation of SteelCell technology (v4.0) has completed validation and verification testing, and is now the standard version of the technology offered to customers. The v4.0 cell/stack technology has a significantly simplified and lower-cost manufacturing process relative to earlier technology generations, whilst offering improved performance and comparable degradation. v4.0 stacks have been incorporated into natural-gas fuelled Ceres Power SteelGen 700We micro-CHP demonstrators, which have been deployed in several locations in the UK as part of a field trial in association with British Gas funded by the European Ene.field program. In addition to this Ceres is also working with Nissan to evaluate the application of SteelCell technology to an electric vehicle range extender application, taking advantage of the thermal cycle and mechanical robustness of the technology, which is at least an order of magnitude better than published data from any other SOFC stack developer. In addition to an ongoing joint development agreement with Honda, Ceres has also been granted a US DoE grant working with Cummins on a 5kWe-class stationary power generator for use in data centers. Ceres has also announced a joint development and licensing agreement with another large global OEM to develop a multi-kWe-scale micro CHP system.A major focus of ongoing technology development is to further improve stack power density, durability and efficiency in line with the technology roadmap for next generation products. Significant progress has been demonstrated at the R&D level on all of these requirements, and the design improvements to achieve them will be incorporated into the next generation of SteelCell technology.