More power to you

Steed Webzell discusses how key investment continues to drive the energy sector supply chain as sub-contract machine shops vie for competitive edge in the UK. The UK will still rely on oil and gas for 70 per cent of its needs despite the government achieving its target to source 15 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020. Mollart Engineering has secured a series of contracts for the continuous supply of a range of 'wire-line' components from its Chessington, Surrey and Resolven, Glamorgan facilities. The key to any successful deep hole drilling operation is the tooling, which is why Sandvik Coromant (0121 504 5400) has recently opened a Global Application Center for Deep Hole Machining at Cirencester. The current generation of turbines is capable of producing 5 MW of power from a turbine with blade diameters of 124 m.