Powering Britain: Keeley Donovan explores Yorkshire’s key role in nation’s energy revolution

A new BBC series is examining the rapidly changing face of energy generation in Britain – and Yorkshire’s role at the heart of it. Chris Burn speaks to presenter Keeley Donovan.
Drax Power Station is among the places featured in the new series. Picture by Simon HulmeDrax Power Station is among the places featured in the new series. Picture by Simon Hulme
Drax Power Station is among the places featured in the new series. Picture by Simon Hulme

She braved a simulated underwater helicopter crash, severe sea-sickness and scaling a giant wind turbine but perhaps the biggest and most unexpected challenge for presenter Keeley Donovan when making her new programme Powering Britain came when it was time to record her voiceovers for each episode.

The four-part programme taking a look behind the scenes at the nation’s biggest energy production plants began filming in summer last year and carried on up until the first lockdown in March, with the finishing touches applied after that because Donovan was expecting her first child, a baby girl called Scout who was born in July.

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“I ended up doing some of the voiceovers heavily pregnant two weeks before the baby was due under a duvet in the back bedroom,” Donovan explains over the phone about her working from home arrangements. “The other two were done in the same way just after my daughter was born. It was pretty tricky doing the voiceover - it was difficult working remotely, normally I sit in an edit suite and watch the pictures as I speak.

Keeley Donovan's new show Powering Britain is on BBC Two tonight.Keeley Donovan's new show Powering Britain is on BBC Two tonight.
Keeley Donovan's new show Powering Britain is on BBC Two tonight.

“I was doing it completely blind and completely breathless, thinking ‘please don’t go into labour’.”

The first episode of Powering Britain focused on the world’s largest off-shore wind farm Hornsea One aired last week on BBC Two (but is still available to view on iPlayer), with tonight’s programme taking a closer look at the workings of Drax Power Station near Selby and the way it is shifting from using coal to biomass to produce energy.

The final two episodes later this month visit the Morecambe gas field in the Irish Sea and travel to Britain’s biggest operational nuclear site at Heysham on the Lancashire coast.

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While the show contains plenty of facts and figures about the massive scales of the various operations, its central focus is on the army of people working flat out – often in very challenging conditions – to meet the nation’s energy demands and keep our lights and kettles on.

From the chef who has worked on rigs around the world now serving meals on Hornsea One to the young woman in charge of helicopter transfers in the Irish Sea gas field, Donovan says filming with them was an eye-opening experience.

“One of the things that really struck me was the way of life that people live to bring us electricity, particularly at the wind farm and the gas terminal. For most of them they live half-a-year away from home in the middle of the sea, working 12-hour shifts in quite basic accommodation with not a lot of downtime.

“I hadn’t given that an awful lot of thought before.

“With Steph, who was in charge of the helicopter transfers, I have never met anyone so passionate about their job before. She was a really good character.

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“With any of these things, it is all well and good talking about the facts and figures but people like to relate to the people on the sites and hear their stories.”

With Hornsea One, which started supplying power to the national electricity grid in February 2019, being 75 miles off the Yorkshire coast and Drax having been a key – but often–controversial part of life in this region since it opened in 1974, the series highlights how this region’s evolving role in energy production.

“Traditionally Yorkshire has always been at the heart of powering the nation – it was the coalfields in the 1970s and 1980s and now as we move towards renewables, Yorkshire is playing a massive role in that,” Donovan says. “Drax which was once known as the biggest polluter in Britain and is now converting to using biomass. The North Sea (where Hornsea One is located) is the perfect place for wind power to be created.”

Drax’s move from coal to biomass, which involves the burning of wood pellets, has not been without controversy itself. Last year, environmental organisations raised concerns about wood being imported to the plant from forests in the United States. But earlier this year, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund Norges Bank Investment Management removed Drax from its investment blacklist, citing its move away from fossil fuel to cleaner energy sources.

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Powering Britain does not go into detail on such contentious matters beyond a brief mention – something Donovan says was a deliberate choice.

“The programme isn’t a critique of energy policy – we do touch on the more controversial side because for some people it is controversial. But the focus of the show is more on how the power was made and the nuts and bolts behind it.”

Tonight’s programme sees Donovan follow engineers as they undertake a £50m maintenance programme involving moving equipment weighing 300 tonnes. There are also giant boilers and turbines being refurbished as Drax gets one of its six generating units reconnected to the National Grid.

In the opening of episode of the series, before travelling out to Hornsea, Donovan’s two-week training involved a simulated helicopter crash where she had to escape from being strapped in upside down and underwater.

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She says she welcomed the challenge, which was filmed before she was pregnant.

“I really like that adventure-type stuff – it was a lot of fun. The only thing was remembering I was being filmed and where to look to deliver the line to camera after getting out of the pool. The actual training was good.”

But she admits that actually travelling out to the wind farm by helicopter did bring some nerves as she wondered whether the training would be needed in real life.  

“When we got in the real helicopter going out it was in the back of my mind but they wouldn’t have put us up if they thought the weather wasn’t good enough. We felt in very, very safe hands. It was quite spectacular coming out to land in the middle of the North Sea with no land nearby but these giant turbines around.”

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The location of Hornsea One was chosen specifically because it is so exposed to the wind and Donovan says getting around the giant site brought another challenge.

“When we were out in the North Sea we had to get a small boat to take us to the platform.

“I got really seasick and it made me quite sleepy. It was so awful but I had to do an interview and so you have to be professional and enthusiastic for the camera.”

She says she hopes the series will open people’s eyes to what goes on to bring us all the power we tend to take for granted.

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“We don’t really give it a second thought when you switch on the kettle or light or electric shower. This shows what goes on behind the scenes to make that happen.”

Hometown being transformed by energy jobs

Keeley Donovan says seeing how the renewable energy industry is helping create new jobs in her hometown of Grimsby was an “eye-opener” for her.

In the first episode of the series, Donovan visits Grimsby where Hornsea One operators Orsted have a huge operations and maintenance facility that is a base for vessels picking up supplies for the six-hour journey to the wind farm.

“It is in part of the world that used to be at the centre of the fishing industry – now they have hundreds of new jobs being created because of these onshore operation.

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“Just down the road from my parents are some of the substations that take the power to the National Grid. It was a real eye-opener for me.”

Powering Britain is on BBC Two tonight at 7.30pm and continues at the same time for the next two Thursdays.

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