MSc students visit Electric Mountain

Life in EEE 20 March 2018

Eleanor Kajuba is studying MSc in Electrical Power Systems Engineering. Eleanor recently attended a study trip to Electric Mountain in Snowdonia and talks about her experience here. 

With a background in Electrical Engineering and a job in the power sector in Uganda, I wanted a more in-depth knowledge in power systems and this course fitted my needs perfectly. In addition, the opportunity to study in the University of Manchester which is among the top universities in the field of electronic and electrical engineering in the world was a plus.

In February I finally had a chance to visit the famous “Electric Mountain” and most importantly Dinorwig power station with a few of my classmates and some students from the MSc in Renewable Energy course. I first heard about Dinorwig power station during one of my lectures in Power System Operations & Economics on Hybrid participants in Electricity Markets. Our lecturer Dr. Victor Levi named it as one of the powerful reasons why it was worth coming to Manchester to study power engineering and after this trip, I fully agree with him. I had heard of pumped storage hydro plants all the way from my undergraduate course but I never got the opportunity to visit one, so when this opportunity came up, I was more than excited and instantly signed up for it. In brief, pumped hydro power plants generate during peak hours and consume power for pumping during low load hours.

Dinorwig power station is found in North Wales, a trip of about two hours from Manchester. As we drew nearer to our destination, one question that lingered in my mind was why there were no signs of transmission towers as seen from any ordinary generating station but all we could see were the beautiful snow capped mountain peaks. The answer to my question would come shortly during the tour.

From the outside all that is seen is the beautiful Elidir Mountain but the tour revealed what was hidden behind the stone. Our tour guide was very interesting and through her words, I could imagine the power station from its inception to to-date. In the mountain, we went through several kilometers of tunnels, visited the machine halls to see the six turbines and their corresponding generators. Dinorwig, according to our guide, is the largest man-made caverns in Europe, large enough to contain St. Paul’s Cathedral. I could never have imagined that all this engineering was deep inside that mountain!! In order to preserve the beauty of Snowdonia National Park, the entire plant is within the mountain and the transmission cables run underground from the power station to the National grid substation.

What fascinated me most about Dinorwig power station is its ability to reach maximum generation from zero in less than 20 seconds. Wow! That is pretty fast. Dinorwig is very critical and it provides backup supply to the National Grid at times of excess load for example during an important soccer match when most of the households in the UK have switched on their televisions and turned on their kettles to make cups of tea.

This trip helped me make sense of so many concepts I had only studied in theory. Pumped storage and how reserves work and the part they play in system control now make so much sense since I was able to see how it is done in real life.

It was a wonderful trip and I am grateful to the School of EEE for organising it.

Eleanor

EleanorElectric MountainElectric PowerMScpostgraduateSnowdonia