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Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Projects
Digital Inspector – the future of welding quality The methods currently in place to address welding quality issues are not applied to every weld, due to the effort required in connecting to the technology, and the volume of data which is handwritten. This inevitably results in variable weld quality, excessive amounts of data duplication and human error when converting paper records to a digital format. Digital Inspector is an innovative solution to welding problems that are faced by industries that use welding and inspection services. The system is being designed to bring several paperwork elements together, using new hardware and software. This will allow customers, engineers and inspectors to monitor, complete and approve weld quality, in real-time. We have partnered with National Gas Transmission, United Living Infrastructure Services, Triton Electronics, The Weld Institute (TWI) and Human System Interactions to develop an innovative technology that addresses the risks to weld quality and construction sector scalability.
Benefits of Digital Inspector • Revolutionises pipeline welding by allowing digital tracking of all welding activity and quality documents. • Significantly reduces the manual tasks currently being undertaken on site and in the office. • Connects back-office engineering and quality functions to live site tasks with real-time weld data acquisition, creating a digital thread to welding and quality outputs. • The customer will be able to see live project costs weld by weld. • The engineer will be able to transmit, monitor and collect data on weld requirements and the inspector will monitor compliance. • All paperwork associated with these activities will be digital and populated live, available to all parties as soon as they are completed.
EMstor We are developing a 100% hydrogen pipeline network in the East Midlands to connect clusters of potential hydrogen users and producers. This project will investigate options for medium and large-scale storage of hydrogen to enable the flexible use of hydrogen in the region. This SIF project is looking for a local storage option. We will explore how the geology of the East Midlands can facilitate gigawatt and terawatt scale storage, considering options such as lined rock caverns, depleted hydrocarbon fields and onshore saline aquifers. We will compare options to storage requirements, looking for pilot sites that could be developed and connected into our hydrogen network, enabling additional industrial connections and carbon saved.
Storage means that more electrolytic hydrogen can be produced and saved for when it is needed at times of peak consumption. This is a real benefit because it means that we can use up renewable electricity that is produced when demand is low, reducing renewable energy curtailment (wastage) which means lower customer bills. The core innovation aspect of this project is to undertake a first of its kind feasibility study into the suitability of the geology of the Midlands to host these storage technologies. This will produce a catalogue of the cost-effective medium and large-scale hydrogen storage options in the Midlands, determining their pros and cons – such as capacity, Technology Readiness Level and developing an understanding of costs for different options and technical issues. We will then match these against the determined hydrogen production, demand and storage needs, in order to identify the most viable storage options to progress to the next Research & Development stage.
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