Eirgrid almost ran short of electricity last week

[joe sod]

Can you explain why with the detail you have on supply mix and demand projections?

From 2025 unless we build new power stations to replace the ones that we are shutting down like the peat and coal power stations we will not have enough supply except for the very low demand scenario,

"Thereafter, some generation plant is assumed to shut down because of emissions restrictions and the EU Commissions Clean Energy Package. By 2026, a deficit of capacity is forecast in all scenarios except the Low Demand forecast. Adequacy studies results for Ireland are listed in Table 1. With a low availability scenario (worst year in 5 years), there would be a deficit of plant by 2026. If base-load high-carbon plant were unavailable from 2026 (e.g. two out of three peat units), this capacity would need to be replaced."

All through the report you linked it points to deficits in supply after 2025 unless we build new power plants. This was written in 2018 and presumed the availability of moneypoint until 2025 which is now in doubt. Of course it uses technical jargon so as not to be so blunt "dispatchable generation" does not include wind and solar but this must be able to meet at least 100% of demand obviously . So even if we have 40% supply from renewables we must also have another 40% "dispatchable generation" in order to be availabe to "dispatch" when there is no wind.

 

[Nermal]

Significantly poorer? Everything I read and hear indicates the opposite.

The higher the fraction of our electricity we wish to consume from intermittent, cheap renewable sources, the more we have to spend on grid upgrades and storage. If we don't want to spend gargantuan amounts on storage, we have to spend on non-renewable back-up. By the time this is all accounted for, electricity is no longer cheap.

By the way, building all this infrastructure - again, just to decarbonise electricity generation alone, not food production or transport or any of that other stuff - is going to put out a giant 'burp' of carbon in itself. Now, you shouldn't be selfish and expect to use that power yourself - we'll be needing most of it to try to pull all that carbon back out of the atmosphere again...

Sorry, I meant to say ' vote for me and we'll all get rich insulating one another's houses'

 

[jpd]

De-carbonising was never going to be cheap - but so far, no politician has the courage to say that.

Instead we get fed tales of green this and green that - but most of it pie in the sky.

The era of cheap energy is over and gone for ever so we will just have to get used to the new norm and make the best of it.

 

[Zenith63]

De-carbonising was never going to be cheap - but so far, no politician has the courage to say that.

Instead we get fed tales of green this and green that - but most of it pie in the sky.

The era of cheap energy is over and gone for ever so we will just have to get used to the new norm and make the best of it.

The cost of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries have been plummeting for decades and this will continue as we manufacture more of each. I’d say we’re actually just entering a new era of cheap energy.

 

[joe sod]

The cost of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries have been plummeting for decades and this will continue as we manufacture more of each. I’d say we’re actually just entering a new era of cheap energy.

I presume you must have read Enid blyton and liked the secret seven and famous five when you were young, they were great stories but unfortunately they do not exist in reality.
Because the cost of providing the backup is borne by the grid not by the wind and solar providers themselves its easy to say it's cheap, however if they were tasked with providing 40% power whether the wind blew or not and it was the responsibility of the renewables to provide the backup then we would know the true cost of renewables.

 

[Zenith63]

I presume you must have read Enid blyton and liked the secret seven and famous five when you were young, they were great stories but unfortunately they do not exist in reality.
Because the cost of providing the backup is borne by the grid not by the wind and solar providers themselves its easy to say it's cheap, however if they were tasked with providing 40% power whether the wind blew or not and it was the responsibility of the renewables to provide the backup then we would know the true cost of renewables.

And yet the world’s scientists and energy experts agree with Enid and me.

 

[joe sod]

Joe do you genuinely feel you’ve spotted something so basic that all the professionals in EirGrid, who spend all day every day thinking about this stuff have not realised and considered? I’m not saying these organisations never make mistakes, but there’s no history of it in this space and this stuff is just simple math, there’s no subjectivity to it.

Maybe I was too sarcastic in my last reply Zenith , thats the problem with some posters on this site they resort to glib one liners which I indulged in myself there. I agree Eirgrid and ESB are great organisations and have built up a formidable reputation, however I think energy supply has become deeply politicized now and there are other organisations involved in licencing power generators that have a very narrow focus that dont have to worry about continuity of supply. Therefore that problem is thrown back at the engineers and technicians in Eirgrid at the coalface luckily they coped this time. Obviously the situation that happened 2 weeks ago was not foreseen by the report produced by Eirgrid , that only pointed to problems happening after 2025. I think a major issue is that the routine maintenance at Moneypoint was delayed because of the Covid restrictions and the difficulty in getting the parts and experts in from overseas to do it.

 

[Leo]

Fair enough, that's their business case. It doesn't make any allowances for the influence of the data centres on the domestic electricity supply and this thread is not about the justification of data centres, but the record amount of energy we're using, several decades into a climate crisis.

Not really clear what you're saying there. What doesn't 'make allowances for or the influence of the data centres on domestic electricity supply'? That's Eirgrid's role and their planning and reports have been encompassing both for years.

 

[Leo]

Glanbia et al, as private companies, have no obligations to purchase dairy output from Irish farmers and it is only through the largesse of successive Governments here that the ill-conceived promotion of Irish dairy in Asia occurs.

You clearly have no understanding of the structure of Glanbia and the influence and power that Glanbia Co-op have over the operation of the PLC. The Co-op (farmer owned) have majority control of the Dairy entity and set the rules. Any changes to rules such as the obligation to accept all milk supplied by their producers requires a 75% majority vote.

 

[joe sod]

another worrying report on newstalk business this evening about the looming energy crisis coming . We won't be able to rely on interconnectors to fill the energy when the wind is not blowing like we thought we could because every country is cutting back their coal generating power stations to comply with the european regulations. At the same time the French nuclear reactors are coming to the end of their life cycle and are not being replaced with enough new generation to replace the old ones. Therefore every country is reducing its base loads conventional power stations so nobody is going to have loads of excess electricity to export when there is a very cold spell across the continent. I think Eirgrid will have to do a new plan, as the 2018 one linked here has already been surpassed by events and is out of date now, the assumptions it relied are happening now rather than in 2025.

 

[lledlledlled]

another worrying report on newstalk business this evening about the looming energy crisis coming . We won't be able to rely on interconnectors to fill the energy when the wind is not blowing like we thought we could because every country is cutting back their coal generating power stations to comply with the european regulations. At the same time the French nuclear reactors are coming to the end of their life cycle and are not being replaced with enough new generation to replace the old ones. Therefore every country is reducing its base loads conventional power stations so nobody is going to have loads of excess electricity to export when there is a very cold spell across the continent. I think Eirgrid will have to do a new plan, as the 2018 one linked here has already been surpassed by events and is out of date now, the assumptions it relied are happening now rather than in 2025.

We build a small nuclear plant in Ireland and instantly get carbon-free energy security and become a net electricity exporter.

 

[Purple]

Nuclear is extremely expensive. It has lots of climate and reliability advantages, but its proponents rarely mention the costs.

1950's Nuclear is expensive. There have been few new power plants commissioned since the 1980's and most of those were designed in the 60's. New Nuclear is clean, intrinsically safe and uses existing waste as a fuel. Unfortunately it is a political non starter.

 

[fidelcastro]

We build a small nuclear plant in Ireland and instantly get carbon-free energy security and become a net electricity exporter.

I think you need a min of two plants/reactors.

 

[lledlledlled]

I think you need a min of two plants/reactors.

Why so?

 

[fidelcastro]

Why so?

In case one is required to go offline.

 

[joe sod]

I see another amber alert in last few days from eirgrid, very cold weather, no wind, very high demand because of weather. They had to start up another generator at moneypoint to deal with it. It's looking obvious now that they can't close moneypoint, eamon Ryan either goes with green ideology and risk power cuts or gets real.

 

[Eeyore]

According to the article in yesterdays IT:-
"Industry figures say that amber warnings are not “uncommon” but pointed out that yesterday’s alert followed another in December."

I wonder just how often these amber alerts happen. They seem to be uncommon enough to merit an article in the paper each time they occur.

 

[Zenith63]

They seem to be uncommon enough to merit an article in the paper each time they occur.

I suspect the increase in attention is correlated to the movement to keep Moneypoint open. The article shared here from December was mostly about job losses and the impact of the plant closing on locals, the amber alert was just the first couple of lines.

 

[shweeney]

Eirgrid must be reading this thread:
[broken link removed]

 

[joe sod]

I suspect the increase in attention is correlated to the movement to keep Moneypoint open. The article shared here from December was mostly about job losses and the impact of the plant closing on locals, the amber alert was just the first couple of lines.

Electricity shortage brought Ireland close to power cuts

Amber alert sent to power suppliers predicted ‘tight generation capacity margins’

www.irishtimes.com

this is the article about last wednesdays orange alert.
I cant quote but will paraphrase,

Orange alerts are not uncommon but this alert followed shortly after the alert in December and is a worrying trend. They argue that December's closure of two peat power stations in the midlands contributed to the problem. They would have produced 240Mw of electricity which would have underpinned supplies during the alert.

This is not about local concerns as this does not count with Eirgrid or Industry, in fact the concern is that Ireland will be seen as an unreliable electricity supplier to the big Pharma and IT industries here if we continue to have these orange alerts. The hard reality of power and energy is pushing up against ideology and government tokenism.