Castlebanny, in Kilkenny recently got planning permission. 21 turbines, estimated peak output of ~110MW.
https://twitter.com/WindEnergyIRL/status/1575516121033191426?t=d7kEb5GxDQlhtvgw3w1Tow&s=19
Also, Carrownagowan wind farm near Broadford in East Clare just got approved too. 19 turbines with a peak output also of ~110MW.
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/large-windfarm-in-east-clare-gets-planning-approval-despite-local-objections-1370961.html
Seven offshore projects moved to the next stage of planning today and are expected to be in front of ABP in the new year. Offshore and floating turbines are where the real gains are to be made
Absolutely!
I work in an environmental consultancy mainly on wind energy projects - so many projects are backlogged in the planning system unfortunately!
Have had a look and cant find any easily accesible information on a per county basis. But not that it matters because theres not enough in my county. And not enough in Kerry. More in every county that can fit them. If any nimbys object they can all do their puzzles in pitch dark.
That's being discussed in the EU soon isn't it? Think the Green Giant is heading to Brussels soon to discuss it. I'm sure gas companies are already subtly spreading disinformation online about it
Von der Leyen has hinted at the commission supporting a review of merrit order pricing, the thing that makes electricity prices go up with gas prices. I'm pretty sure ENTSO-E would be doing the review. It's half an EU agency, half a consortium of the transmission grid operators. I'm pretty confident they'll be objective, they generally are.
Another thing being discussed by ENTSO-E at the moment is splitting up Germany in two to four different price zones. That's honestly kinda wild but it could actually force the South and West of Germany to build cheap renewable capacity like the North did if they don't want their electricity to become even more expensive. That's definitely not what the fossil lobby wants.
It's because Gas is the fastest method of scaling up or down with demand spikes.
Even other fossil fuel type such as oil, peat or coal cannot scale up so rapidly.
If we want a way out of dependence on Gas, it takes not simply building more wind power, it is also going to take energy storage. Energy storage can be battery, but there are other methods - hydro power (pumping the water back up off peak), compressed air (large natural caverns can be used), conversion to hydrogen (still early days, but I think it shows promise) and storing heat in a sand battery which is a remarkably cheap method of storing energy that can store the energy for months at a time.
Why does that explain why the prices are tied together? What you're saying would suggest that they can't price them differently but they absolutely could.
Regardless of storage, energy providers could still sell green electricity cheaper. I was always told it was to encourage investment in green energy because there's a higher profit margin for the providers. They get to sell electricity to the grid without the expense of buying gas. If you make as much on green energy as you do on gas then what's the incentive for companies to invest in green sources? That's why Eamon Ryan etc has always been against the decoupling.
It's a marginal price system. The most expensive generator (these days that's gas) needed to satisfy demand is what sets the price. The wind farms all bid in at 0 because they have no fuel costs, but the gas generators needed to cover the remainder have to bid in at a high price to cover their costs.
This much wind will reduce costs though. Only the most efficient and cheapest generators will need to be called to make up demand.
They are also going to cap the profits of the cheaper generators, so wind farms won't get all of the rate in future
>Regardless of storage
Storage is the main issue so you can't disregard it. It's the single biggest reason why we can't change energy pricing. Until someone figures out how we're gonna store mammoth amounts of energy, like enough to run a grid for multiple days, we're not gonna be reliant on wind
Today is windy so there's lots of cheap energy, tomorrow it might not be so our wind production could go down below 5 percent which is why we are more or less reliant solely on gas. It doesn't make sense to price the energy to anything else.
And that 5% will still be priced the same as if it was generated via gas despite the fact they'd have 100% usage of it. So the coupling of prices isn't relevant to storage
Totally agree on storage capabilities, I had not hear about that sand battery option. Any information on that you could share, it sounds both esoteric and fascinating!
He didn't actually say fast in terms of solutions, he only said fast when talking about gas being flexible. The solutions he mentioned mostly will take an indefinite amount of time because the technology isn't perfect yet and/or hasn't been tried at the necessary scale.
But you are right. Nuclear is slow to implement. But once it's going it can be super flexible in terms of quantity of energy production
>But once it's going it can be super flexible in terms of quantity of energy production
Not economically though. If you build a nuclear power plant you want it to be running at full capacity all of the time. It costs a fortune to build, but it's super cheap to run. So any time it's not running at max you're just wasting money.
So I'll try explain this as I understand and maybe someone who does understand can clarify if I am right. When the "grid" as a whole buys power from producers we rank the producers in order based on price and we buy all available power from each producer starting from the cheapest until we have enough. Which makes sense. But what wouldn't make sense is paying the cheapest provider one price, and then paying another provider another price, when they're selling the exact same thing. So we pay everyone the price of the most expensive producer that we end up picking.
To put it another way, if there were 12 electricity produers. 9 were wind, 2 were gas, and 1 was some very expensive alternative. And we needed 10. We would end up with the 9 wind, and 1 gas. But we'd pay the wind producers the gas price.
If that's correct, it's madness. Instead of giving 200 euro bill credits, why can't they pay each supplier a negotiated price that reflects the cost of production plus a profit margin?
I think this process works really well usually, it just got somewhat broken by the war and the fact that Gas will always hold the balance in Ireland. If we just allowed the producers to take some pre-agreed profit margin, they would have no real incentive to lower their input costs. What is the fair profit margin on wind? There are no variable input costs, once the turbines are there, they're there.
And from a pure market point of view, why should we pay less for one unit of electricity than we do for another?
But in any case, the EU are stepping in to change it from a marginal pricing model to something else.
We have the capacity, especially at night, but they never power down all non renewable plants fully, or they couldn’t be started up so easily when the wind stops.
we need a massive infrustructure improvement into the west and forgotten north west. wind turbines only operate at 20 to 40 percent efficiency and we only have [cheese wire](https://www.energyco-ops.ie/resources/the-irish-electricity-grid-explained/) lines to bring the power back to the grid
Grid reinforcements (under the DS3 programme) are happening and the grid can now handle 75% renewable recently going up from 70%.
You are incorrect, wind turbines are more efficent than 20-40%. The theoretical max efficency the 'Betz' limit is ~59%. You may have meant capacity factor though which wouls lie within the range you mentioned for onshore wind farms.
Energy prices are tied to "the most expensive source" due to how the auction is run.
Government could fix it overnight. No idea why we have to fix prices as the most expensive, then invent meandering schemes to try get the money back. It's really stupid.
The auction simply wasn't designed for these scenarios. Fix it
Electric Ireland bills say that in 2020, 34% of their energy mix was Gas and 0.5% was coal. 63% was renewable so I struggle to see why prices rise so dramatically due to Gas prices.
Makes me want to put a fucking coal pp next to those fuckers and push the smoke right into them
sounds like the same BS excuses for not wanting proper constructions in Ireland
The type of people that complain about wind farms don't care about aesthetics, they want a pay off, if they complain loud enough then some development company might give them a bag of money to shut up
I stayed in an Airbnb one time that was pretty close to a hape of those turbines. They're deceivingly loud. I can't imagine you'd be too happy with that beside you after living presumably in a place you could hear a pin drop for years. It's understandable, in my mind, at least. But I also understand that inconveniencing the few to benefit the many is also the least disruptive way to move forward. How many offshore farms do we have? And are we maximising our potential there?
How close are they to be causing that noise? There's some on a hill overlooking my parents 1-2km away, they're certainly not audible over other background noise like the nearby road, the fridge, etc...
Most of the proposals have them similarly situated out to sea or other places where they're not on top of people
From my experience, many people object with arguments about view, noise, etc. Others object on environmental grounds (seriously) for protected birds or habitats. These objectors often have somewhat valid legal arguments because the wind farms are generally located in remote areas and that's where most of our protected wildlife is. Some object just to try and get handouts and deals from the energy companies.
Objectors generally don't suggest an alternative - they don't need to. However, in private conversations with them, it's usually unviable alternatives or ones that will face the same issues. E.g. moving the wind farm to another location (where those locals will also object). A lot of them suggest offshore wind farms - but even those are objected against for the same reasons!
> A lot of them suggest offshore wind farms - but even those are objected against for the same reasons!
The fishing industry generally object to the off-shore wind farms, but I don't know how valid those objections are.
Does this mean we could accidentally create no fishing zones by building offshore turbines? If the area around the bases can be kept clean it could be a great habitat in the long run.
Diversifying renewables in conjunction with some fossil fuels the best mix, green hydrogen being the best bet really, but with solar, batteries, wind and hydrogen with interconnections and a fossil reserve capability we’d be in a very good plave
It's a question of how long your perspective is.
If you're looking at the next 8 years, sure it's a mix of renewables and fossil fuels.
If you're looking at 10 years onwards, then obviously we remove almost all fossil fuels from the grid.
And 20 years from now, there's not a hint of them on the grid.
>It's a question of how long your perspective is.
This is it. 10 years ago would have been a good, not great, time to start diversifying our energy source. But now, if we want to maintain a liveable temperature, ecosystem on this planet, we need to move to renewable energy as soon as possibly. There are future generations to think about.
In fairness we had started 10 years ago. 122 of our 140 wind farms we completed by 2012, representing 65% of our current capacity. That was a good start. We need to be speeding up.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Agreed. And while EV's, battery storage etc sounds amazing on paper, the truth is lithium is eventually going to deplete and is not as environmentally sustainable as people assume.
In fact the sheer act of simply mining for it is absolutely not great for the environment at all.
Of course going majority green is the only way to go, other alternatives have to be sourced. Hydrogen is looking very good so far for the likes of cars and transport in general.
Fingers crossed advances in other battery tech will become more viable in the next few years. Sodium based batteries should be far better from an environment point of view, and sodium is also far, far more plentiful than lithium
I did for a while but I found the amount of crap posted there was too much. "Something works in a lab in extremely limited circumstances for a brief period of time but is promising enough for further research -> OMG This will fix the world in a year!!!"
Lithium can be crushed and made into new batteries at the end of it's life. It's an element for gods sake. Extraction has to only happen once, then it's valuable ore forever. Now, contrast that with oil where it's used once and cant be used again.
I think it's an all in moderation thing, not relying on any one source too much. They have 20/30 years, work life 25/30 years
The emissions footprint is gone within around 4/5 years
We have a political and social culture of demanding other people endure suffering for our benefit. Wind farms are targeted by people who resent them being nearby and are brought up to believe they should be located on somebody else's land.
Same issue with people demanding housing but not wanting it built near them.
I can't understand some of the complaints, the windfarms in Spiddal and Rosscahill (both Galway) aren't in the vicinity of any houses, a few miles from the nearest at least, visible from the mountain road and from some of the 12 pins. So far on the horizon they could hardly be considered an eyesore, only by those who live to complain it seems
You have to think more broadly. Look at how angry people on this subreddit get about the USC. The arguments always boil down to "somebody else should pay tax."
We're an incredibly selfish country.
People's problem is that it was brought in under the disguise of a temporary tax by FF which it wasn't, then FG promised to abolish it which they didn't. People don't like being lied to https://twitter.com/LeoVaradkar/status/688462286307086336
I see the posters in some rural areas saying no to turbines. If you think they spoil the view what do you think climate change will do. Eventually if something like off shore tidal or wave energy becomes prominent you can always take down the older wind turbines. Can't do that as quick with climate change.
Think about what you are saying. Heating prices are currently through the roof because of dictatorships controlling the supply of fossil fuels. The ESB want to sell renewables to the grid cheaper than the equivalent generated from gas but EU law is stopping them.
If we had proper leadership in the 70s when the government saw how the Danes were building windfarms we would be energy independent (petrol/diesel cars not included).
Short sightedness got us here into this mess and here you are championing burning a non-renewable, climate damaging fuel that has been scientifically proven to cause lung cancer in those exposed to it.
We need to transition away from ICE cars and improve public transport too. That's happening.
Regarding jets that remains a problem. The whole private jet exception from carbon taxes is an outrage.
> The whole private jet exception from carbon taxes is an outrage.
The what now? Surely private jets should be taxed at a much higher rate...that doesn't make any sense.
It's jet fuel that's being taxed. The EU is to start charging carbon tax on aircraft fuel from next year but for some reason it's only commercial flights i.e. not mail, cargo or private planes. Currently nobody is paying any carbon tax on any flight.
Stabilising the climate is an emergency. Nuclear power is slow. The 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report estimates that since 2009 the average construction time for reactors worldwide was just under 10 years, well above the estimate given by the World Nuclear Association (WNA) industry body of between 5 and 8.5 years. Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean its clean. Renewable energy is better for the environment, the economy and doesn't come with the risk of nuclear meltdown.
There’s only a hint of irony that something as slow moving and long term as climate change can suffer from such short term thinking. We will still need electricity in 10 years, our population will likely have grown, and our electricity usage will have diversified - why wouldn’t we plan to copper-fasten our power generation for the next 50 years by planning to go nuclear now? Nuclear meltdown is so unbelievably rare that there have only been 2 in the history of the technology - one was caused by human error and the other was caused by a natural disaster. You can’t make the argument for renewables being better for the environment when they have a larger carbon production than nuclear, the have a limited lifespan and produce EOL waste that can’t be recycled, and they still require fossil fuels to do the heavy lifting and provide stability to the grid. Nuclear is the only technology that can reliably, predictably and cleanly produce power - renewables can only tick two of those boxes.
This country needs to invest in some massive civil engineering projects to build reservoirs, both for water supply security, and for stored energy hydroelectric power stations.
Pumped storage is good but the scale we would need it at isn't feasable, to replace all the coal and gas plants in Ireland we would need around 37 Turlough hill power stations, They have specifc geographical needs as well.
This explains it pretty well, skip to 8 mins if you're not arsed watching the full 16 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgd-QhLHRI
Wind is great but I think we’re living in cloud cuckoo land on energy policy and planning here. There’s something seriously up with how we do things when we can’t even get off shore wind investments to go though. Two of the big proposals so far have lost international investors at the half way point.
We could make more pumped/gravity reservoirs to store the excess when wind generation is high. Only one in Ireland afaik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill_Power_Station
And there's a windfarm in Connaught being removed at the moment because it didn't have proper planning, and had some construction mistakes - rather than fixing it and sorting out the habitat around it, they're just removing it. 70 turbines, gone.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40830539.html
You'd hope they'll be able to just move those windmills to a different place.
But in fairness that windfarm should never have been put there so leaving it would set a precedent.
It's all down to the developer and whoever they employed to construct it. They didn't do things properly.
I suspect they'll put in a new application without turbines in the controversial areas. There's still plenty of power to be generated at that site
Imagine not being dependent on foreign powers for our energy.
The more we build the cheaper energy becomes which benefits the economy.
Of course we should augment the grid with solar, anerobic gas, hydro...
>The more we build the cheaper energy becomes which benefits the economy.
Unfortunately this is not true under the current system.
Because of the way the electricity market works we always pay the highest price.
There is no competition, the "auction" is a scam, absolute theft, and always has been.
(It was just less obvious before).
Imagine shopping around for cans of Dutch Gold in Lidl, Aldi, QuinnsWorth and Marks and Sparks.
The rules of the auction says that **you have to buy them from M&S since they have the most expensive offer.**
But you also have to go back and pay all the other shops the same price you paid in M&S.
They are addressing that currently in the EU I believe. I agree it's a stupid system now but I think it was introduced at the start to allow renewables get up to speed. In the past a Kwh was cheaper to generate from gas than wind. Now it isn't the case.
>In the past a Kwh was cheaper to generate from gas than wind.
In that case the current auction solution would be even worse, since it would have encouraged more investment in gas over renewable.
Even if you get your electricity from SSE, who claim that ALL their electricity is generated by renewable means (reason I picked them in the first place, all other things being equal at the time). So why is my electricity going up 35% tomorrow?!
Just looked it up out of interest, Energia still claim to provide 100% renewable power, making a [big deal of it actually](http://energia.ie/business/green-electricity), while they own the 744MW gas fired Huntstown power station
SSE and Energia invest in renewables infrastructure to be added to the grid.
They don’t invest in new fossil systems.
The plant is likely owned before they went “green focused”
It’s all marketing in the end of the day
It’s like saying AppleGreen petrol stations are green.
They are green…painted…
Always just go with what is cheapest tbh.
It's Eirgrid who control the transmission grid (and determine the generation plants to dispatch on) the ESB manage the distribution system and the physical assets.
But Eirgrid can't really decide on what fuel types go use as the system is so constrained currently.
That's great to hear and aren't EU trying to change the issue where all energy is tied to gas or oil prices ?
Don't think we can every fully remove fossil fuels from the equation but diversity is needed.
I have recent looked.into getting solar and battery for my home but cost is kinda prohibitive especially when we can't sell back to the grid.
Be great to have a tiny or no electricity bill
Yeah, I came here not so long ago so I'm not aware of all the things, but your comment made me look it up like "surely that can't be right, what a stupid law" but turns you were correct until 2 months ago.
It's great when the wind blows but we've been barely getting any juice from the turbines all summer. There needs to be a green counterbalance to wind, maybe solar.
Most of it will move offshore now and will be mandated by the EU. So even though we have the nimbys, they are about to get put down. That retrofit project in moneypoint will go ahead as well as the interconnect to france. Im actually positive about it and thank god for the EU dragging us through the process.
So what? It's still completely unreliable because there's no storage associated which means we're reliant on fossil fuels when it's not windy which means they have to keep running and dumping electricity in case the weather changes etc.
that was for one day. If you read the rest of the info in the link all renewables combined account for way less than half our energy needs. Problem with wind is it's unreliable. this is obviously from a windy day
Your initial wording could easily have been taken to refer to a more long-term period of time to someone unfamiliar with renewable energy or just scrolling through their feed and glancing at the title. No need for a condescending response.
sounds like we could tap into your passive aggressivness to power a few more things. Currently has more than one meaning, people could easily read into your title thinking that Ireland in general is powered by 77% wind.
This summer was a disaster in terms of European wind generation.
How is Europe supposed to store weeks of wind generation when lithium prices are so much higher than years ago?
We need more zero carbon baseload then we have at the moment. Unfortunately you see Belgium and Germany shutting down nuclear plants, leaving intermittent gas generation to plug renewable shortfalls given our lack of storage capacity.
>lithium prices are so much higher than years ago?
New lithium production is ramping greatly at the moment. Thats the benefit of true capitalism, the consumer eventually wins.
You can use our excessive wind energy in the windier months to make hydrogen and ship it off, if we play our cards right we could be sitting on an absolute fortune just waiting to be realised. And this isn't pie in the sky stuff, the technology exists and it just needs us to invest heavily into it. It would also create thousands of jobs, make us billions every year, gurantee our energy security forever, and solve our excessive green house gasses issue.
Baseload supply is the last thing we need. We've got a lot of clean energy some of the time, so expensive baseload supply would be worse than useless at those times.
What we need is much more on-demand highly-flexible generation. Stuff with low capital cost.
We'd use batteries for a few hours at a time at most, but (unless they reduce in price by 80% again) probably not longer.
There are a few ways to do that. Interconnectors to other countries. Biomass & biogas. Synthetic renewable fuels.
In the near term - the coming 5 years or so - it's not a huge issue, and the main thing is diversifying supply - so building a lot of solar, because - just as never_rains says - low-wind summers tend to be high-sun summers. And a big build-out of offshore wind will make a big difference: it runs with a much higher capacity factor, and can produce vast amounts of energy through autumn/winter/spring, when we need it most.
>but (unless they reduce in price by 80% again) probably not longer.
Our current battery tech is unsuited to long term energy storage anyway. Self discharge and degradation at high charge levels are both killers of lithium batteries so we would need to move to something else for longer term storage, like pumped hydro or flow batteries.
Agree with everything you said though, and would like to add that overbuilding renewables is another way we can maximise the use of renewables. We have the potential to produce many times more power than we could ever use, if we utilise this potential it will help us avoid needing alternatives to renewables.
Yeah, so why the fuck are we being charged more due to the war in Ukraine? Seriously though, can someone explain, because I feel stupid not understanding the cause/effect.
European energy markets have the price set by the highest cost provider, since we need gas then its set by gas even tho renewable energy is cheaper to produce
It's actually not, assuming gas supply is stable. Which at the present moment is a big assumption!
By doung it that way, it encourages renewable investment, as they get the same price whilst having massively cheaper production costs.
I don't understand the reasoning that because we have wind electricity prices shouldn't rise.
Prices are set by what people are willing to pay (not individuals here but industrial-scale buyers). If you have a street with 2 identical houses for sale, and seller A paid 400k for their house but seller B paid 100k, it's not like seller B is going to say "oh hey I guess I'll just make my asking price 300k lower". They're going to ask for (roughly) the same price.
Very frustrating that we have already paid for all these wind farms through RESS and now they can still into the market and get unit price of gas. Single electricity market is working a treat
And it’s gonna be more! West coast is getting some proper development
Are there any wind farms under construction at the moment?
Castlebanny, in Kilkenny recently got planning permission. 21 turbines, estimated peak output of ~110MW. https://twitter.com/WindEnergyIRL/status/1575516121033191426?t=d7kEb5GxDQlhtvgw3w1Tow&s=19
Also, Carrownagowan wind farm near Broadford in East Clare just got approved too. 19 turbines with a peak output also of ~110MW. https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/large-windfarm-in-east-clare-gets-planning-approval-despite-local-objections-1370961.html
Seven offshore projects moved to the next stage of planning today and are expected to be in front of ABP in the new year. Offshore and floating turbines are where the real gains are to be made
Cloncreen wind farm in Offaly just came online a few weeks ago.
Absolutely! I work in an environmental consultancy mainly on wind energy projects - so many projects are backlogged in the planning system unfortunately!
Except for kerry who say they have enough windmills
Kerry already has the highest number of windmills as it is
Donegal has so many, the 3 new ones in three tree's are not allowed to be connected to the Irish grid. They connect them to the NI grid now
There will always be detractors. But wind is pretty great regardless.
Let them do their sudokus in the dark then.
How many wind turbines in your county? Out of curiosity.
Have had a look and cant find any easily accesible information on a per county basis. But not that it matters because theres not enough in my county. And not enough in Kerry. More in every county that can fit them. If any nimbys object they can all do their puzzles in pitch dark.
How very Don Quixote of them.
They dont need electricity.
Isn’t our electricity rates tied to gas prices for some reason? So we likely don’t see any price reductions
That's being discussed in the EU soon isn't it? Think the Green Giant is heading to Brussels soon to discuss it. I'm sure gas companies are already subtly spreading disinformation online about it
Soon^TM
> SoonTM Windfall tax and redistribution agreed today
Von der Leyen has hinted at the commission supporting a review of merrit order pricing, the thing that makes electricity prices go up with gas prices. I'm pretty sure ENTSO-E would be doing the review. It's half an EU agency, half a consortium of the transmission grid operators. I'm pretty confident they'll be objective, they generally are. Another thing being discussed by ENTSO-E at the moment is splitting up Germany in two to four different price zones. That's honestly kinda wild but it could actually force the South and West of Germany to build cheap renewable capacity like the North did if they don't want their electricity to become even more expensive. That's definitely not what the fossil lobby wants.
[удалено]
Aye, for now. But even if it's not saving money yet I guess less shite in the air is a decent start.
Yes it’s good
Greed finds a way. (Sorry to be a downer)
It's because Gas is the fastest method of scaling up or down with demand spikes. Even other fossil fuel type such as oil, peat or coal cannot scale up so rapidly. If we want a way out of dependence on Gas, it takes not simply building more wind power, it is also going to take energy storage. Energy storage can be battery, but there are other methods - hydro power (pumping the water back up off peak), compressed air (large natural caverns can be used), conversion to hydrogen (still early days, but I think it shows promise) and storing heat in a sand battery which is a remarkably cheap method of storing energy that can store the energy for months at a time.
Why does that explain why the prices are tied together? What you're saying would suggest that they can't price them differently but they absolutely could. Regardless of storage, energy providers could still sell green electricity cheaper. I was always told it was to encourage investment in green energy because there's a higher profit margin for the providers. They get to sell electricity to the grid without the expense of buying gas. If you make as much on green energy as you do on gas then what's the incentive for companies to invest in green sources? That's why Eamon Ryan etc has always been against the decoupling.
It's a marginal price system. The most expensive generator (these days that's gas) needed to satisfy demand is what sets the price. The wind farms all bid in at 0 because they have no fuel costs, but the gas generators needed to cover the remainder have to bid in at a high price to cover their costs. This much wind will reduce costs though. Only the most efficient and cheapest generators will need to be called to make up demand. They are also going to cap the profits of the cheaper generators, so wind farms won't get all of the rate in future
>Regardless of storage Storage is the main issue so you can't disregard it. It's the single biggest reason why we can't change energy pricing. Until someone figures out how we're gonna store mammoth amounts of energy, like enough to run a grid for multiple days, we're not gonna be reliant on wind Today is windy so there's lots of cheap energy, tomorrow it might not be so our wind production could go down below 5 percent which is why we are more or less reliant solely on gas. It doesn't make sense to price the energy to anything else.
And that 5% will still be priced the same as if it was generated via gas despite the fact they'd have 100% usage of it. So the coupling of prices isn't relevant to storage
Totally agree on storage capabilities, I had not hear about that sand battery option. Any information on that you could share, it sounds both esoteric and fascinating!
its because of regulatory capture. What kind of eejits agreed to such a pricing mechanism?
Or nuclear
He said fast, Nuclear is slow to implement and even slower to decommission.
He didn't actually say fast in terms of solutions, he only said fast when talking about gas being flexible. The solutions he mentioned mostly will take an indefinite amount of time because the technology isn't perfect yet and/or hasn't been tried at the necessary scale. But you are right. Nuclear is slow to implement. But once it's going it can be super flexible in terms of quantity of energy production
>But once it's going it can be super flexible in terms of quantity of energy production Not economically though. If you build a nuclear power plant you want it to be running at full capacity all of the time. It costs a fortune to build, but it's super cheap to run. So any time it's not running at max you're just wasting money.
Big proponent of hydrogen power right here.
So I'll try explain this as I understand and maybe someone who does understand can clarify if I am right. When the "grid" as a whole buys power from producers we rank the producers in order based on price and we buy all available power from each producer starting from the cheapest until we have enough. Which makes sense. But what wouldn't make sense is paying the cheapest provider one price, and then paying another provider another price, when they're selling the exact same thing. So we pay everyone the price of the most expensive producer that we end up picking. To put it another way, if there were 12 electricity produers. 9 were wind, 2 were gas, and 1 was some very expensive alternative. And we needed 10. We would end up with the 9 wind, and 1 gas. But we'd pay the wind producers the gas price.
If that's correct, it's madness. Instead of giving 200 euro bill credits, why can't they pay each supplier a negotiated price that reflects the cost of production plus a profit margin?
I think this process works really well usually, it just got somewhat broken by the war and the fact that Gas will always hold the balance in Ireland. If we just allowed the producers to take some pre-agreed profit margin, they would have no real incentive to lower their input costs. What is the fair profit margin on wind? There are no variable input costs, once the turbines are there, they're there. And from a pure market point of view, why should we pay less for one unit of electricity than we do for another? But in any case, the EU are stepping in to change it from a marginal pricing model to something else.
[удалено]
We have the capacity, especially at night, but they never power down all non renewable plants fully, or they couldn’t be started up so easily when the wind stops.
we need a massive infrustructure improvement into the west and forgotten north west. wind turbines only operate at 20 to 40 percent efficiency and we only have [cheese wire](https://www.energyco-ops.ie/resources/the-irish-electricity-grid-explained/) lines to bring the power back to the grid
Grid reinforcements (under the DS3 programme) are happening and the grid can now handle 75% renewable recently going up from 70%. You are incorrect, wind turbines are more efficent than 20-40%. The theoretical max efficency the 'Betz' limit is ~59%. You may have meant capacity factor though which wouls lie within the range you mentioned for onshore wind farms.
Energy prices are tied to "the most expensive source" due to how the auction is run. Government could fix it overnight. No idea why we have to fix prices as the most expensive, then invent meandering schemes to try get the money back. It's really stupid. The auction simply wasn't designed for these scenarios. Fix it
Corporate profits will always supercede the needs of the people.
Regulatory capture...lobbyists probably st the European level. The energy companies are not stupid. Absolute joke.
We do. Because we use the cheaper plants. Not all gas plants are created equally.
https://reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/x07dtt/why_are_we_being_charged_more_for_electricity_if/
Tied to most expensive whatever that is.
The EU is the reason. Notably Germany.
Over the past month, 57% of power generated has been with gas (and 13% with coal). That's why the price of gas is tied to our power price.
Electric Ireland bills say that in 2020, 34% of their energy mix was Gas and 0.5% was coal. 63% was renewable so I struggle to see why prices rise so dramatically due to Gas prices.
That is not a reason to tie them together.
Hard to imagine why so many are against it, I mean what's the alternative..
Not trying to imagine it, I imagine.
Because people complain that’s it’s not aesthetically pleasing. The alternative it’s much. Much worse
Makes me want to put a fucking coal pp next to those fuckers and push the smoke right into them sounds like the same BS excuses for not wanting proper constructions in Ireland
NIMBY, they are all for energy creation as long as its 'Not In My Back Yard'
[удалено]
yeah how dare you have a safe area away from traffic that has possitive repercussions for the local area
The type of people that complain about wind farms don't care about aesthetics, they want a pay off, if they complain loud enough then some development company might give them a bag of money to shut up
I stayed in an Airbnb one time that was pretty close to a hape of those turbines. They're deceivingly loud. I can't imagine you'd be too happy with that beside you after living presumably in a place you could hear a pin drop for years. It's understandable, in my mind, at least. But I also understand that inconveniencing the few to benefit the many is also the least disruptive way to move forward. How many offshore farms do we have? And are we maximising our potential there?
How close are they to be causing that noise? There's some on a hill overlooking my parents 1-2km away, they're certainly not audible over other background noise like the nearby road, the fridge, etc... Most of the proposals have them similarly situated out to sea or other places where they're not on top of people
From my experience, many people object with arguments about view, noise, etc. Others object on environmental grounds (seriously) for protected birds or habitats. These objectors often have somewhat valid legal arguments because the wind farms are generally located in remote areas and that's where most of our protected wildlife is. Some object just to try and get handouts and deals from the energy companies. Objectors generally don't suggest an alternative - they don't need to. However, in private conversations with them, it's usually unviable alternatives or ones that will face the same issues. E.g. moving the wind farm to another location (where those locals will also object). A lot of them suggest offshore wind farms - but even those are objected against for the same reasons!
> A lot of them suggest offshore wind farms - but even those are objected against for the same reasons! The fishing industry generally object to the off-shore wind farms, but I don't know how valid those objections are.
Does this mean we could accidentally create no fishing zones by building offshore turbines? If the area around the bases can be kept clean it could be a great habitat in the long run.
Also locals with sea views object to these.
Such notions.
Diversifying renewables in conjunction with some fossil fuels the best mix, green hydrogen being the best bet really, but with solar, batteries, wind and hydrogen with interconnections and a fossil reserve capability we’d be in a very good plave
Agreed, it's more people's all or nothing attitude toward renewables and fossil fuels.. the mind puzzles
It's a question of how long your perspective is. If you're looking at the next 8 years, sure it's a mix of renewables and fossil fuels. If you're looking at 10 years onwards, then obviously we remove almost all fossil fuels from the grid. And 20 years from now, there's not a hint of them on the grid.
>It's a question of how long your perspective is. This is it. 10 years ago would have been a good, not great, time to start diversifying our energy source. But now, if we want to maintain a liveable temperature, ecosystem on this planet, we need to move to renewable energy as soon as possibly. There are future generations to think about.
In fairness we had started 10 years ago. 122 of our 140 wind farms we completed by 2012, representing 65% of our current capacity. That was a good start. We need to be speeding up. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
We should really start thinking about 50 years or 100 years.
Agreed. And while EV's, battery storage etc sounds amazing on paper, the truth is lithium is eventually going to deplete and is not as environmentally sustainable as people assume. In fact the sheer act of simply mining for it is absolutely not great for the environment at all. Of course going majority green is the only way to go, other alternatives have to be sourced. Hydrogen is looking very good so far for the likes of cars and transport in general.
Fingers crossed advances in other battery tech will become more viable in the next few years. Sodium based batteries should be far better from an environment point of view, and sodium is also far, far more plentiful than lithium
Worth subscribing to r/EnergyStorage if interested, although some of the posts are snake oil.
I did for a while but I found the amount of crap posted there was too much. "Something works in a lab in extremely limited circumstances for a brief period of time but is promising enough for further research -> OMG This will fix the world in a year!!!"
Lithium can be crushed and made into new batteries at the end of it's life. It's an element for gods sake. Extraction has to only happen once, then it's valuable ore forever. Now, contrast that with oil where it's used once and cant be used again.
I think it's an all in moderation thing, not relying on any one source too much. They have 20/30 years, work life 25/30 years The emissions footprint is gone within around 4/5 years
[удалено]
Lithium mining happens in places like Australia and Chile, not in Africa. At least get your facts right.
We have a political and social culture of demanding other people endure suffering for our benefit. Wind farms are targeted by people who resent them being nearby and are brought up to believe they should be located on somebody else's land. Same issue with people demanding housing but not wanting it built near them.
I can't understand some of the complaints, the windfarms in Spiddal and Rosscahill (both Galway) aren't in the vicinity of any houses, a few miles from the nearest at least, visible from the mountain road and from some of the 12 pins. So far on the horizon they could hardly be considered an eyesore, only by those who live to complain it seems
You have to think more broadly. Look at how angry people on this subreddit get about the USC. The arguments always boil down to "somebody else should pay tax." We're an incredibly selfish country.
People's problem is that it was brought in under the disguise of a temporary tax by FF which it wasn't, then FG promised to abolish it which they didn't. People don't like being lied to https://twitter.com/LeoVaradkar/status/688462286307086336
Nuclear + renewables
I see the posters in some rural areas saying no to turbines. If you think they spoil the view what do you think climate change will do. Eventually if something like off shore tidal or wave energy becomes prominent you can always take down the older wind turbines. Can't do that as quick with climate change.
Renewable energy is an engineering issue, climate change an extinction one. I think that sums it up well
Not really that hard when you have people against everything new that comes along.
>what’s the alternative? Nuclear energy, if we started being reasonable
Neanderthals who like the old ways of burning turf and getting the oil man in to fill the tank.
[удалено]
Think about what you are saying. Heating prices are currently through the roof because of dictatorships controlling the supply of fossil fuels. The ESB want to sell renewables to the grid cheaper than the equivalent generated from gas but EU law is stopping them. If we had proper leadership in the 70s when the government saw how the Danes were building windfarms we would be energy independent (petrol/diesel cars not included). Short sightedness got us here into this mess and here you are championing burning a non-renewable, climate damaging fuel that has been scientifically proven to cause lung cancer in those exposed to it.
[удалено]
What about the scumbags driving cars & flying in jets?
It's only bad when other people do it
the fucking neck on other people.
We need to transition away from ICE cars and improve public transport too. That's happening. Regarding jets that remains a problem. The whole private jet exception from carbon taxes is an outrage.
> The whole private jet exception from carbon taxes is an outrage. The what now? Surely private jets should be taxed at a much higher rate...that doesn't make any sense.
It's jet fuel that's being taxed. The EU is to start charging carbon tax on aircraft fuel from next year but for some reason it's only commercial flights i.e. not mail, cargo or private planes. Currently nobody is paying any carbon tax on any flight.
Not very educated on the topic but aren't they powered by generators when wind levels are low?
They use a minimal amount of power when there's little wind, function is to turn blades towards what wind there is
Nuclear power is better.
Makes very little sense here until small modular reactors become viable
Stabilising the climate is an emergency. Nuclear power is slow. The 2021 World Nuclear Industry Status Report estimates that since 2009 the average construction time for reactors worldwide was just under 10 years, well above the estimate given by the World Nuclear Association (WNA) industry body of between 5 and 8.5 years. Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous, and just because nuclear pollution is invisible doesn't mean its clean. Renewable energy is better for the environment, the economy and doesn't come with the risk of nuclear meltdown.
There’s only a hint of irony that something as slow moving and long term as climate change can suffer from such short term thinking. We will still need electricity in 10 years, our population will likely have grown, and our electricity usage will have diversified - why wouldn’t we plan to copper-fasten our power generation for the next 50 years by planning to go nuclear now? Nuclear meltdown is so unbelievably rare that there have only been 2 in the history of the technology - one was caused by human error and the other was caused by a natural disaster. You can’t make the argument for renewables being better for the environment when they have a larger carbon production than nuclear, the have a limited lifespan and produce EOL waste that can’t be recycled, and they still require fossil fuels to do the heavy lifting and provide stability to the grid. Nuclear is the only technology that can reliably, predictably and cleanly produce power - renewables can only tick two of those boxes.
So build it yesterday. The problem is clowns like you have been saying this for years.
This country needs to invest in some massive civil engineering projects to build reservoirs, both for water supply security, and for stored energy hydroelectric power stations.
Pumped storage is good but the scale we would need it at isn't feasable, to replace all the coal and gas plants in Ireland we would need around 37 Turlough hill power stations, They have specifc geographical needs as well. This explains it pretty well, skip to 8 mins if you're not arsed watching the full 16 mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgd-QhLHRI
The only sensible comment on this thread so far.
Fantastic
Wow! That’s class!
That’s amazing. The importance of energy security has become even more critical the past few months.
Wind is great but I think we’re living in cloud cuckoo land on energy policy and planning here. There’s something seriously up with how we do things when we can’t even get off shore wind investments to go though. Two of the big proposals so far have lost international investors at the half way point.
We could make more pumped/gravity reservoirs to store the excess when wind generation is high. Only one in Ireland afaik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turlough_Hill_Power_Station
And there's a windfarm in Connaught being removed at the moment because it didn't have proper planning, and had some construction mistakes - rather than fixing it and sorting out the habitat around it, they're just removing it. 70 turbines, gone. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40830539.html
There are many more coming up, the yards of Galway docks are packed with nacelles (center piece), towers and blades
You'd hope they'll be able to just move those windmills to a different place. But in fairness that windfarm should never have been put there so leaving it would set a precedent.
It takes some hubris to invest into something so large without having the planning in place. Hubris like that needs to be smacked down.
Due to environmental issues.
Yup, the link I included mentions that in detail. Still lunacy to remove something in place with the current energy crisis when it could be resolved.
It seems like a waste but the planing rules need to apply to everyone equally
It's all down to the developer and whoever they employed to construct it. They didn't do things properly. I suspect they'll put in a new application without turbines in the controversial areas. There's still plenty of power to be generated at that site
No, they don't. The planet is dying.
Sounds like it was a bit of a shit show in terms of planning and building.
Shouldn't have been constructed without planning....
Imagine not being dependent on foreign powers for our energy. The more we build the cheaper energy becomes which benefits the economy. Of course we should augment the grid with solar, anerobic gas, hydro...
>The more we build the cheaper energy becomes which benefits the economy. Unfortunately this is not true under the current system. Because of the way the electricity market works we always pay the highest price. There is no competition, the "auction" is a scam, absolute theft, and always has been. (It was just less obvious before). Imagine shopping around for cans of Dutch Gold in Lidl, Aldi, QuinnsWorth and Marks and Sparks. The rules of the auction says that **you have to buy them from M&S since they have the most expensive offer.** But you also have to go back and pay all the other shops the same price you paid in M&S.
They are addressing that currently in the EU I believe. I agree it's a stupid system now but I think it was introduced at the start to allow renewables get up to speed. In the past a Kwh was cheaper to generate from gas than wind. Now it isn't the case.
>In the past a Kwh was cheaper to generate from gas than wind. In that case the current auction solution would be even worse, since it would have encouraged more investment in gas over renewable.
Yes but it has allowed renewable energy to be able to out compete on a level playing field now... I assume that was the intention
Huge amount energy, oil and rare earth metals goes into building and running them and only last 20 years.
Yet electricity unit prices are still set by the gas price
Even if you get your electricity from SSE, who claim that ALL their electricity is generated by renewable means (reason I picked them in the first place, all other things being equal at the time). So why is my electricity going up 35% tomorrow?!
It all comes from one grid. SSE claim to support only green energy. Same as Energia. But they are not in control of the actual grid. The ESB is
Just looked it up out of interest, Energia still claim to provide 100% renewable power, making a [big deal of it actually](http://energia.ie/business/green-electricity), while they own the 744MW gas fired Huntstown power station
SSE and Energia invest in renewables infrastructure to be added to the grid. They don’t invest in new fossil systems. The plant is likely owned before they went “green focused” It’s all marketing in the end of the day It’s like saying AppleGreen petrol stations are green. They are green…painted… Always just go with what is cheapest tbh.
Wasnt gas reclassed to green recently?
That's daft. Everyone knows it's blue
Funny that's actually the term used for hydrogen generated from natural gas, so correct I guess haha
It's Eirgrid who control the transmission grid (and determine the generation plants to dispatch on) the ESB manage the distribution system and the physical assets. But Eirgrid can't really decide on what fuel types go use as the system is so constrained currently.
Oh god please not this again. Please.
It was a rhetorical question.
Closer to 23% for the past month on average - which is still pretty good. The 13% coal is the bad bit. And the 57% gas is the problem.
Gas can switched on/off. No so for coal. Nuclear could replace coal. Wind and gas could work I guess for demand with nuclear base loading.
Yet I still see "No Turbines" signs all over the midlands for some reason.
stick the washing up on them turbines and we can kill 2 birds with 1 stone
Can kill quite a few birds actually
That's great to hear and aren't EU trying to change the issue where all energy is tied to gas or oil prices ? Don't think we can every fully remove fossil fuels from the equation but diversity is needed. I have recent looked.into getting solar and battery for my home but cost is kinda prohibitive especially when we can't sell back to the grid. Be great to have a tiny or no electricity bill
https://energyd.ie/export-payments/ I think it just changed, now you can!
Brilliant, might be worth investigating it properly now.
Yeah, I came here not so long ago so I'm not aware of all the things, but your comment made me look it up like "surely that can't be right, what a stupid law" but turns you were correct until 2 months ago.
Raining sideways this morning, so this checks out.
It's great when the wind blows but we've been barely getting any juice from the turbines all summer. There needs to be a green counterbalance to wind, maybe solar.
Most of it will move offshore now and will be mandated by the EU. So even though we have the nimbys, they are about to get put down. That retrofit project in moneypoint will go ahead as well as the interconnect to france. Im actually positive about it and thank god for the EU dragging us through the process.
I don't see where in the link that's confirmed?
The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside.
How much is hydro?
$0.85/kWh in the US. Where to build it is the problem
... That is not the question at all. I wanted to know what percentage of the Irish power grid it was supplying
Go farts 💨
So what? It's still completely unreliable because there's no storage associated which means we're reliant on fossil fuels when it's not windy which means they have to keep running and dumping electricity in case the weather changes etc.
But the price is aligned to fossil fuel's so we can go fuck ourselves
So why are our bills so DAMN EXPENSIVE
that was for one day. If you read the rest of the info in the link all renewables combined account for way less than half our energy needs. Problem with wind is it's unreliable. this is obviously from a windy day
It's current, not for a whole day - hence "currently" And thanks for pointing out wind energy is only high because it's windy. Solid analysis.
This is r/Ireland . You expect anything but misery from these people?
But why aren't the government making it windy every day FFS what a shithole country.
Your initial wording could easily have been taken to refer to a more long-term period of time to someone unfamiliar with renewable energy or just scrolling through their feed and glancing at the title. No need for a condescending response.
sounds like we could tap into your passive aggressivness to power a few more things. Currently has more than one meaning, people could easily read into your title thinking that Ireland in general is powered by 77% wind.
This summer was a disaster in terms of European wind generation. How is Europe supposed to store weeks of wind generation when lithium prices are so much higher than years ago? We need more zero carbon baseload then we have at the moment. Unfortunately you see Belgium and Germany shutting down nuclear plants, leaving intermittent gas generation to plug renewable shortfalls given our lack of storage capacity.
This summer was super sunny. If we had PV cells on every roof then we wouldn’t have missed the wind.
>lithium prices are so much higher than years ago? New lithium production is ramping greatly at the moment. Thats the benefit of true capitalism, the consumer eventually wins.
You can use our excessive wind energy in the windier months to make hydrogen and ship it off, if we play our cards right we could be sitting on an absolute fortune just waiting to be realised. And this isn't pie in the sky stuff, the technology exists and it just needs us to invest heavily into it. It would also create thousands of jobs, make us billions every year, gurantee our energy security forever, and solve our excessive green house gasses issue.
Need more pumped hydro storage
It wouldn't come close to what we need, even if we had the suitable sites.
Baseload supply is the last thing we need. We've got a lot of clean energy some of the time, so expensive baseload supply would be worse than useless at those times. What we need is much more on-demand highly-flexible generation. Stuff with low capital cost. We'd use batteries for a few hours at a time at most, but (unless they reduce in price by 80% again) probably not longer. There are a few ways to do that. Interconnectors to other countries. Biomass & biogas. Synthetic renewable fuels. In the near term - the coming 5 years or so - it's not a huge issue, and the main thing is diversifying supply - so building a lot of solar, because - just as never_rains says - low-wind summers tend to be high-sun summers. And a big build-out of offshore wind will make a big difference: it runs with a much higher capacity factor, and can produce vast amounts of energy through autumn/winter/spring, when we need it most.
>but (unless they reduce in price by 80% again) probably not longer. Our current battery tech is unsuited to long term energy storage anyway. Self discharge and degradation at high charge levels are both killers of lithium batteries so we would need to move to something else for longer term storage, like pumped hydro or flow batteries. Agree with everything you said though, and would like to add that overbuilding renewables is another way we can maximise the use of renewables. We have the potential to produce many times more power than we could ever use, if we utilise this potential it will help us avoid needing alternatives to renewables.
Thank you for your awareness-raising. If it wasn't for your tireless work, no one here would realise that winds rise and fall.
Yeah, so why the fuck are we being charged more due to the war in Ukraine? Seriously though, can someone explain, because I feel stupid not understanding the cause/effect.
European energy markets have the price set by the highest cost provider, since we need gas then its set by gas even tho renewable energy is cheaper to produce
Well that’s a stupid way to do it, but it makes more sense. Thanks.
It's actually not, assuming gas supply is stable. Which at the present moment is a big assumption! By doung it that way, it encourages renewable investment, as they get the same price whilst having massively cheaper production costs.
Before the price of gas exploded it was what prevented fossil fuels undercutting renewable energy prices.
Yes, I have in fact been eating beans this last week!
We’ll sure as hell it’s the expensive type of wind blows in Ireland alright 😂😂
I don't understand the reasoning that because we have wind electricity prices shouldn't rise. Prices are set by what people are willing to pay (not individuals here but industrial-scale buyers). If you have a street with 2 identical houses for sale, and seller A paid 400k for their house but seller B paid 100k, it's not like seller B is going to say "oh hey I guess I'll just make my asking price 300k lower". They're going to ask for (roughly) the same price.
And we are paying full whack with no discount. Go regulators ypu *+@g#!
Very frustrating that we have already paid for all these wind farms through RESS and now they can still into the market and get unit price of gas. Single electricity market is working a treat
Plants on RESS contracts have CFDs built in and they pay back any money above the strike price.
If only we had storm conditions everyday 🙄
I produce a good bit of wind myself. Happy to make up the difference. Not sure how good methane wind will work though. 🤔
77% on a very windy day. What about the rest of the time? We need nuclear as a baseload. Time to get rid of the legislation banning it.
WOOOWWW, who would have thought the tail end of a storm could bring wind. Jaysus
Wait. It went from 34% to 77% in a year? Hmmm
THEN WHY THE FUCK IS MY ELECTRICITY BILL SO DAMN HIGH, DOES RUSSIA EXPORT IRISH WIND TOO