Reducing visual and noise pollution at substation sitesCopy Link

Background
ENGIE is currently regenerating a former power plant site in Rugeley, West Midlands into a mixed residential and commercial new development. It is in the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Economic Partnership area and the Stoke and Staffordshire Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) area. As part of the development there is a 400kV Substation on-site that cannot be moved or removed.

ENGIE is looking for innovative products and solutions that would assist with dealing with the visual and noise “pollution” of sites and buildings such as the mentioned substation – preferably in a combined way. For this competition, we would like to focus on the following 2 key areas.

1. Products and solutions that reduce visual impact of the 400kV station on the surrounding development.
2. Products and solutions that reduce the noise (humming) impact of 400kV substations on the surrounding development

Whilst not limiting the technologies from solution providers, it is expected that solutions would come from some of the following areas:

• Materials chemistry
• Creative
• Digital
• Agri-food
• Transport
• Infrastructure
• Industrial Design
• Biotechnology
• Robotics
• Sensors and advanced imaging

To meet the desired timescale and risks, it is preferred that the proposed solution, or the key part(s) of the solution, has been demonstrated previously but this is not essential. The solution should be health and safety requirements compliant.

Rewards and benefits
Successful applicants will be given an opportunity to participate in a unique, innovative project that ties in closely with the needs of a specific project, and the potential to be scaled up to other use cases. To do this they will get personalized support from ENGIE. The package may also include:

• Support from the Energy Systems Catapult or the KTN
• Support in the development of a prototype or pilot
• Technical support
• A place in marketplace events
• A potential business collaboration

Solution Requirements

Functional Requirements

• To develop and build a single or mix of solutions directly around the Rugeley substation or spread over the development that can tackle the visual and noise pollution of buildings or sites similar to the 400kV substation.
• While the need has arisen from the case study in Rugeley, the final solution is intended for use on any type of ENGIE building or site of a similar size causing this kind of pollution. These can be other energy generating stations including wind and hydro, factories, stadiums or public events, to name a few.
• While there are two categories, ENGIE is especially looking for integrated solutions that tackle both issues, and that provide additional social, environmental and economic value for the surrounding areas. That value should be taken into account when assessing the space needed for such a solution, as there is a trade-off between the value of the land occupied by the solution and the value created by the solution.

Technical Characteristics

• The site of the Rugeley Power Station is 139-hectare, owned by ENGIE UK, located next to the town of Rugeley with a population of c24,000.
• The coal-fired power station was decommissioned in 2016 and is currently being demolished. In the center of the site is a 400kV substation (see Figure 1).
• The 400kV Substation on-site that cannot be moved or removed.
• Dimensions of the site: 
• Scale of noise to overcome: Max LAEQ=56

Deployment Timescale

• Launch of the competition: 14th January 2019
• Deadline for applications: 24th February 2019
• Selection and notification of finalists: 1st March 2019
• Pitches from finalists to the members of the selection committee: w/c 11th March 2019
• Announcement of winners: 18th March 2019 

Eligibility and assessment criteria

Entrants to this competition must be:

• Established businesses, startups, SMEs or individual entrepreneurs
• UK based or have the intention to set up a UK base

Applications will be assessed on:

• Relevance to the topic
• Innovative nature of the subject
• Coherence of the proposed business model
• Feasibility/ economic viability
• Development potential
• Maturity of project/solution
• Ability to launch project quickly/Ease of implementation
• Price/quality ratio
• Suitability for the UK Market (inc. building regulations and certification etc.).

Cost Requirement and market size

• Best guess