Another wind generation record in Ireland

probe

At 16h45 today, the tiny handful of windmills installed, by the fortunate few whose owners have managed to get past the mountain of bureaucracy and vested interests preventing the growth of renewable energy enterprises, hit a new record of 1,053 MW of output.

Almost exactly one third of the electricity demand in the country (3,193 MW) was met by wind, on top of the non publicly disclosed hydro and other renewable sources of electricity.

If Ireland had 10, 20 or 100x this installed generation capacity in wind and other renewable kit, it would have a big export earner - as well as providing a large proportion of the domestic energy requirement.

Pharma, cloud computing/search engines and related businesses are large users of electricity. It will increasingly have to become green electricity, or else.....

Time Ireland put the Norwegians out of business in the Euro energy market

old boy

well if you live in county limerick you have no hope of getting planning permission for one, no more planning permission for them, infar south limerick one cannot get planning permission for a house, yet the co.council could spend 6m on a building for themselves in kilmallock,

SeanW

I'm not sure you noticed, but it was unusually windy yesterday. Around where I live, we never see any wind worth talking about unless the whole country is engulfed in a storm. And as you can imagine, it was rather windy here most of the day.

Your post just highlights - in as much as highlighting is required - that with weather-based renewables, we get not so much an electricity supply, but random alternating periods of feast and famine, with bumper 'harvests' such as yesterdays being rare exceptions. So each time a new peak is reached, you can make these "Another wind generation record in Ireland" threads until the end of eternity, it doesn't make a difference until we find a way to harnass and store these peaks. Preferably this method will A) not involve flooding 10% of the national landmass or not cause an increase in our already high electricity tariffs.

Additionally, (given that the grid controller needed to ensure that the grid continued running when the wind drops) how many baseline generators were turned off? My guess is a figure closly resembling zero.

Macha

SeanW wrote: »

Your post just highlights - in as much as highlighting is required - that with weather-based renewables, we get not so much an electricity supply, but random alternating periods of feast and famine, with bumper 'harvests' such as yesterdays being rare exceptions..

They are rare but impressive given our relatively small installed wind capacity. Once more is installed, including higher load factors with offshore, we will see higher and higher records as well as significant baseload contribution. There are also less variable and dispatchable renewables such as tidal and biofuels.

SeanW wrote: »

it doesn't make a difference until we find a way to harnass and store these peaks. Preferably this method will A) not involve flooding 10% of the national landmass or not cause an increase in our already high electricity tariffs.

I wouldn't say our renewables capacity doesn't make a difference but the variability will have to be addressed.

SeanW wrote: »

Additionally, (given that the grid controller needed to ensure that the grid continued running when the wind drops) how many baseline generators were turned off? My guess is a figure closly resembling zero.

That is the whole reason we have gas turbines - can you back up your guess that almost none were turned off?

zod

SeanW wrote: »

A) not involve flooding 10% of the national landmass or not cause an increase in our already high electricity tariffs.

Is this in reference to spirit of Ireland ? the reservoirs they propose flooding are steep glacial valleys, which would mean tiny amounts of land.

SeanW wrote: »

Additionally, (given that the grid controller needed to ensure that the grid continued running when the wind drops) how many baseline generators were turned off? My guess is a figure closly resembling zero.

I think you may be wrong. 60% of our electricity generation is from natural gas (source) , which afaik are ramped up and down easily.


Interested to know what your solutions might be ?

Grudaire

zod wrote: »

Interested to know what your solutions might be ?

Oh no - don't give him an open shot like this to derail a wind energy thread talking about the n-word!

Seriously though. The spirit of Ireland proposals seem too good to be true, but they seem to answer all questions quite well. Is it as good as it seems? and should we all be lobbying the government, and opposition to get it done?

zod

Cliste wrote: »

Seriously though. The spirit of Ireland proposals seem too good to be true, but they seem to answer all questions quite well. Is it as good as it seems? and should we all be lobbying the government, and opposition to get it done?

Wind power could easily power this small Island, it already provides 39% at times. source . We have the best wind resources in europe, at least twice as good as Germany who make 4 times more power from Wind then we need source. Germany employs 90,000 people in the wind energy sector.

The UK is a HUGE market for green energy and will get bigger as the need to cap CO2 increases.

The problem of wind variation can be solved by a Better Grid / Interconnectors ( it's ALWAYS blowing somewhere ) and by innovative energy storage. Hopefully SOIs numbers will prove correct and we can leverage a few glacial valleys, there is a huge amount of investigation into this at the moment. Whether it will provide enough for baseload or even export is another matter.

We spend billions every year on fossil fuel, making our own energy is a no brainer, at least the Germans seem to think so.

Grudaire

zod wrote: »

The problem of wind variation can be solved by a Better Grid / Interconnectors ( it's ALWAYS blowing somewhere ) and by innovative energy storage. Hopefully SOIs numbers will prove correct and we can leverage a few glacial valleys, there is a huge amount of investigation into this at the moment. Whether it will provide enough for baseload or even export is another matter.

Hmmm *Goes to read more!*

zod wrote: »

We spend billions every year on fossil fuel, making our own energy is a no brainer, at least the Germans seem to think so.

I was reading talk of the Germans maybe trying to push for Solar power in Africa to supply electricity up to them! (New Scientist)

zod

Cliste wrote: »

I was reading talk of the Germans maybe trying to push for Solar power in Africa to supply electricity up to them! (New Scientist)

A similar plan for wind energy in the states is called the "pickens plan" where the hope is to deliver electricity from a wind corridor that goes down the middle of the states and deliver it to the cities on the coast.

That distance is many times the length of Ireland.. makes you wonder why we think our distance is a big issue.

Heroditas

zod wrote: »

Hopefully SOIs numbers will prove correct and we can leverage a few glacial valleys, there is a huge amount of investigation into this at the moment. Whether it will provide enough for baseload or even export is another matter.

Their research has been discounted as being unfeasible and has been rubbished by those within the energy industry. This is not due to vested interests either - the idea is just a non-runner.

The ideal model is wind power backed up by small local peaking plants powered by bio-fuels or natural gas.
A vaguely similar system is used in Northern Ireland where if the load on the grid is too large, factories with genset equipment can power up and feed into the grid very quickly, thus bolstering the supply. These geneartors are mainly diesel-pwoered but it's the theory that's the important bit.

You can't really use the "traditional" power stations for such a system because they have to be kept "ticking over", i.e. they still consume relatively large amounts of gas, coal, oil in a standby mode so they can be ramped up to full generation capacity at a moment's notice.

Small localized peaking plants feeding into a wind-powered grid.
There's a system that can work.

SeanW

taconnol wrote: »

That is the whole reason we have gas turbines - can you back up your guess that almost none were turned off?

Err ... no. That's why I called it a guess.

zod wrote: »

Wind power could easily power this small Island, it already provides 39% at times. source . We have the best wind resources in europe, at least twice as good as Germany who make 4 times more power from Wind then we need source. Germany employs 90,000 people in the wind energy sector.

...

We spend billions every year on fossil fuel, making our own energy is a no brainer, at least the Germans seem to think so.

Cliste wrote: »

I was reading talk of the Germans maybe trying to push for Solar power in Africa to supply electricity up to them! (New Scientist)

Funny you both should mention Germany ...

Germany Plans Boom in Coal-Fired Power Plants -- Despite High Emissions
(Der Spiegel article)

Oh dear :eek: guess those windmills and 50c per kw/h solar panels aren't working as well as our eco-concious neighbors had hoped, seems you still have to have plenty of non-weather dependent baseline providers after all. Makes you wonder ...

limklad

zod wrote: »

A similar plan for wind energy in the states is called the "pickens plan" where the hope is to deliver electricity from a wind corridor that goes down the middle of the states and deliver it to the cities on the coast.

That distance is many times the length of Ireland.. makes you wonder why we think our distance is a big issue.

In the US doing big projects when money is involved is as easy as walking, They are well use to it.

Here in Ireland for Individuals to make small changes requires climbing Everest amounts of bureaucracy on every level of government and banks.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Their research has been discounted as being unfeasible and has been rubbished by those within the energy industry. This is not due to vested interests either - the idea is just a non-runner.

O rly? Does one have a link?

SeanW wrote: »

Funny you both should mention Germany ...

Oh dear :eek: guess those windmills and 50c per kw/h solar panels aren't working as well as our eco-concious neighbors had hoped, seems you still have to have plenty of non-weather dependent baseline providers after all. Makes you wonder ...

A 2007 article? nothing more recent? It's probably somewhere between what we all make out...

:eek: :P

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

O rly? Does one have a link?

Nope but from talking to the policy makers in the major utilities they say it's a non-runner. Oh and before you accuse them of being tied to fossil-fuels, these guys are committed to harnessing as much green energy as possible and expanding Ireland's renewable portfolio.
They just don't think this option is a feasible one

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Nope but from talking to the policy makers in the major utilities they say it's a non-runner. Oh and before you accuse them of being tied to fossil-fuels, these guys are committed to harnessing as much green energy as possible and expanding Ireland's renewable portfolio.
They just don't think this option is a feasible one

Eh....

To be honest I'm more likely to accuse you of talking through your arse.

Which to be fair is exactly what it looks like. Now I can imagine problems with any energy production plan, so surely you can come up with better than that?

Heroditas

Why would I lie? I have nothing to gain by doing so.

Even if you carry out back-of-the-envelope calculations for the SoI scheme, the numbers don't add up.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Why would I lie? I have nothing to gain by doing so.

You're anonymous on-line, to be honest you could be the CEO of Shell, and for all I care you could even be a politician.

I try and deal with facts...

Heroditas wrote: »

Even if you carry out back-of-the-envelope calculations for the SoI scheme, the numbers don't add up.

I try to learn about stuff - educate myself if you will.

On this thread I am talking to a wall - so far. I'll approach anything that is put in front of me with an open mind, heck I doubt the SOI proposal is the whole answer to the problem, but it seems like a damn good proposal. And in their forum they seem to be answering the questions that are put up against the project...

Heroditas

SOI made a huge issue out of the lower price of the electricity they would produce and the possibility for export.

The proposal mentions generating revenue of 2.6billion per annum based on a 2 GW output. Based on a 24/7 output that equates to 17,520 GW Hours or 17,520,000MW hours generating 2.6 billion in revenue over a year.

or €148 per MW hour which is very expensive. This is over three times the current UK wholesale price of electricity.

That's for starters anyway!
I'll post some more tomorrow with a bit more of my opinion on it.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

SOI made a huge issue out of the lower price of the electricity they would produce and the possibility for export.

The proposal mentions generating revenue of 2.6billion per annum based on a 2 GW output. Based on a 24/7 output that equates to 17,520 GW Hours or 17,520,000MW hours generating 2.6 billion in revenue over a year.

or €148 per MW hour which is very expensive. This is over three times the current UK wholesale price of electricity.

The figures that they are working off to quote 2.6b (or 5bn in one of their reports) elude me. We are limited by the inter connector at the moment isn't that the case?

Heroditas wrote: »

That's for starters anyway!
I'll post some more tomorrow with a bit more of my opinion on it.

I look forward to it (hope I have time to check boards tomorrow now!)

SeanW

Cliste wrote: »

A 2007 article? nothing more recent? It's probably somewhere between what we all make out...

:eek: :P

Right so, lets see ... little change in the nuclear power phase out, the new load of coal-fired power plants still have the green light, a few more in the endless line of tweaks to a renewables policy that will, in due course, amount to sweet F.A. Hence all the new coal-fired power plants.

No real changes since 2007. My article thusly remains substantively relevant.

Shiny

We need (LOADS) more storage, whether that be from the Spirit of Ireland proposal or from someone other initiative.

This will negate the need for peaking plants/conventional plants to cover
the ass of wind generation.

I used to be a big fan of the flow battery but these things are nowhere near
the scale that is needed to supply the country.

Grudaire

SeanW wrote: »

Right so, lets see ... little change in the nuclear power phase out, the new load of coal-fired power plants still have the green light, a few more in the endless line of tweaks to a renewables policy that will, in due course, amount to sweet F.A. Hence all the new coal-fired power plants.

No real changes since 2007. My article thusly remains substantively relevant.

No, I think you're looking at it as if renewables are not going to be used, I get the opinion that they're building coal for a guaranteed base load, to replace the even dirtier old coal powered plants. (From your article). Problems regarding reliability of supply in relation to renewable energy is common.

It does make you wonder. But Renewable energy is still being developed fully.

Wikipedia wrote:

Since 1997, Germany and the other states of the European Union have been working towards a target of 12% renewable energy electricity by 2010. This target was surpassed already in 2007 when the renewable energy share in electricity consumption in Germany reached 14%.

Germany to aim for 45% renewable by 2030

carveone

Cliste wrote: »

It does make you wonder. But Renewable energy is still being developed fully.

It's a hell of a good way of creating (certain types of) jobs, that's for sure.

Still, I was chatting to an Engineer who worked in Poolbeg. He said the combined cycle gas plant there is very efficient at 54%. Compare to a gas turbine at 36%.

You can't back up a quickly varying system like wind power with a plant like Poolbeg. You need to use gas turbines and to use a lot of them given the aggressive spool up-spool down cycling taking some of them out of commission for maintenance. You're probably hammering the crap out of the natural gas network as well. Plus all this gas comes from Russia. I don't really see that as a good thing.

Take the differences in efficiencies and calculate whether wind is making up the difference. I don't think so. On the other hand take the difference between my brother's insulated 2000 era house and my parent's barely insulated 1960s era house and you see major differences in energy usage.

Oh well... Whenever governments get involved with subsidies, Bad Things happen. For two reasons: Governments are dumb and Corporates see the huge feeding trough and can't help putting their snout in. Still. Wind is better than Biofuels which were an appalling nightmare.

probe

1. Most of the existing installed base of gas, coal, hydro and other “traditional” electricity generation plant in Ireland will remain operational into the future. Many of the anti-renewable postings in this forum appear to have an underlying assumption that someone waves a magic want, and all the legacy kit is no more, leaving the country at the mercy of wind variability etc.

Much of the legacy kit is fully or largely depreciated in accounting terms – its main operating cost is fuel and labour so the real cost per kWh generated is relatively low in terms of its ability to compete in a market where prices vary by large factors.

2. Avoiding blackouts in a new renewable environment - anyone in the industry installing new carbon based generation kit (eg natural gas based) should be thinking about peaking plant. This is generating plant that can start generating within 5 or 10 minutes of pressing the button. Nuclear takes days to get going by way of contrast, and is therefore useless in the context of matching the spikes of wind, solar and other natural energy sources. The fastest responding plant to provide electricity “on the button” is probably pumped storage (perhaps 1 minute delay). Capacitor based storage could respond in milliseconds, assuming it was under automated command. Where capacitors are dispersed (eg in people’s cars or homes) the response time would probably be longer. A geographically dispersed wind plant system is not subject to sudden, dramatic falls or increases in generated output. Ireland’s current wind generation plant is concentrated in a few locations – which is unhelpful in the scheme of things.

3. A country needs enough interconnector capacity + storage + on demand capacity to meet all electricity demand needs. On-demand capacity can include legacy plant, peaking plant, and bio fuelled plant (wood, algae, etc). It is conceivable that existing oil powered generation plant could be modified to run on algae or other bio fuels. [Incinerators can also be used to generate electricity, but they are more efficient if used as part of district heating systems located close to where people live and work (and generate the material to feed them)].

Large bursts of surplus energy can also be stored using sea-water pumped storage systems. (See http://www.greenpowerisland.dk/greenpowerisland.pdf for a Danish example, which can store up to 35,000 MWh each). I see these as a solution to storing surplus energy, rather than being something one can rely on to keep away from blackouts in extremely calm weather which might last for several weeks. Long periods of calm weather require a combination of interconnectors, legacy plant, peaking plant, and bio fuelled plant (as well as getting some respite from storage. (If you had an extreme case of two weeks of zero wind blowing (virtually impossible in reality), and total reliance of wind energy, no interconnectors, in the peak period of demand just coming up to Christmas, you would need about 35 storage units of 35,000 MWh each).

4. There needs to be end to end market pricing transparency and flexibility for the full range of renewable technologies to develop their maximum potential – this includes smart metering, and a flexible supply market where the cheapest producer can “dump” output – forcing the more expensive producer to go offline or reduce its price.

An example might make this clearer.

In 201Y, Mr X takes delivery of an electric car and lives in a country that has smart metering and transparent variable pricing down to consumer level. On windy nights, Mr X can buy electricity for 4c per kWh, because the wind industry is producing far more electricity than the country requires or can otherwise use. He needs 50km of stored electricity range in the car for tomorrow to cover his 10 km drive to/from work, and to allow for unforeseen delays and diversions. He can store 400 km of electricity in the car – so when the price falls to 4c per kWh, his smart charger is programmed to “tank up”. It stops charging when the battery is full or the price exceeds 7c – (if it has past the required minimum of 50 km of power).

Mr X can decide to keep this electricity for driving, or if he doesn’t need it, he can sell the stored power back into the grid if the market price exceeds a given level which he decides on. A country with a national grid made up of thousands of Mr Xs has a vast storage resource, dispersed all over making maximum use of the existing network in both directions, reducing the risk of any single point of failure in the system.

During the conference call with Zenn investors in June 2009, CEO of EEstor Dick Weir said that he was able to produce storage capacitors for about $100 per kWh of storage*. Car based storage has the benefit of wide dispersion, an incentive to people to upgrade to electric personal transport, and offers the option of meeting a large proportion of their domestic electricity needs from cheap surplus electricity. A spare €3,000 ultra capacitor in the garage would allow the householder to store 30 kW of electricity – which is enough for a day or two in an average household – and provide backup “fuel” for long journeys in the e-car. (Not that it would be necessary thanks to the quick charging ability of capacitors – but the fuel would be cheaper compared with a motorway filling station).

Green Power Island storage: www.greenpowerisland.dk

*EEstor investor interview: http://www.4all.com/uploads/DW_Confcall_jun2009.mp3

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

I look forward to it (hope I have time to check boards tomorrow now!)

Sorry for the lateness is replying.
Here's a post by someone elsewhere that explains some of the maths behind this:

You have a 10 MW average demand with a peak demand of 15MW. It decides that it will provide this 10MW demand using a combination of wind and pumped hydro.

So it builds reservoirs to provide 48 hours of backup and 10MW of wind capacity using 100 wind turbines

All goes to plan the reservoir is full and everything is in place. The wind turbines are generating 10MW quite happily until the wind fails in an area for say 6 hours and 3 turbines or 3MW is lost. Start up the pumped Hydro plant to meet the demand and then the wind pick up again.
Now 3MW for 6 hours means 18MW hours of capacity have been removed from the "battery".

To refill this will require require 18 wind turbines running for 6 hours. Except there are losses of say 50%. So now it will take 18 turbines 12 hours or 36 6 hours to replace the lost capacity. But that's OK because by night the demand drops by 40% to 6 MW for 8 hours. So that night the extra 4 MW can be used for 8 hours to refill the "battery".

But hang on 4 MW X 8 hours is 32MW hours or a shortage of 4 MW.

Now that's assuming that for 18 hours out of 24 the turbines were running at 100% capacity and 100% efficency which will never happen. You need to build in extra generation capacity to allow for the fact that at no time will you have 100% capacity from your wind turbines. Then you have to build in extra capacity to refill the battery when needed. The lower your efficiency the more extra capacity is required.

With 50% efficiency if you plan on replenishing the battery at the same speed at which you drained it then you need to have extra wind power capacity of twice the generation capacity of that particular pumped hydro plant.

Its unlikely you will be using all your hydro plants at the same time but lets say 30% of your daily power comes from pumped Hydro then you would need to build wind generation capacity to meet your proposed supply level. Plus an allowance for certain levels if wind fluctuation plus and additional 60% to cover the requirement to re fill your battery.

So that would be 10MW plus which at 20% efficency woudl require 50MW generation capacity to allow for fluctuations in wind and 30MW to refill the battery.

So for a 10MW supply you would need to build 80MW of wind generation capacity. Drop your efficiency and that figure gets worse.

You can also decrease that figure by taking longer to refill the battery (say for each 4 hours drawn out take 8 to put it back) but that would require you to build even more storage capacity.

They have stated that they will make 2.6bn per annum from two reservoirs. Those numbers don't stack up.

I can't believe that you can "dam" a costal valley, seal it fully and install turbines that will displace enough water to provide an adequate storage capacity. We're talking millions of tons of water. I wonder at how efficient a pump can possibly be as the reservoir starts to fill up.
We would also have to seal the walls of the artificial reservoir to ensure salt water doesn't work its way into the water table. Imagine doing this for a whole valley? Imagine a whole valley full of stagnant sea-water waiting to be released? How will this be overcome?

I like the idea. I'm an engineer and it shows great initiative. Unfortunately I don't think it's a runner and the SoI guys aren't exactly helping their cause by releasing statements before then rowing back and saying "actually, what we meant to say is...."
That may work in academic circles but not in industry.

I'm strongly in agreement with what Probe advocates - peaking plants that can be started up at a moment's notice. The system is already used in Northern Ireland to make up any deficit by getting industry to fire up their generators to support the grid. They may be dirty diesel gennies but the core idea is the same.
Imagine a smart grid consisiting of local community CHP plants, wind farms off the west coast and then bio-fuel/biomass/incinerator style peaking plants. I think that could work.
If we could also improve the efficiency of the peat burning plants we could get further down the road towards energy independence. (Peat ain't good for the old CO2 emmissions though!)

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Sorry for the lateness is replying.
Here's a post by someone elsewhere that explains some of the maths behind this:

That is a terribly confusing Mathematical argument. If I could see the whole argument (I assume this is from a forum [p.ie or SOI's forum?]) I might be able to make better sense of it?

But the figures are a bit haphazard, and in many ways simplistic (Yes I know, simplistic is an odd word to use looking at that jumble). To be honest whoever is looking at this should probably be using differential equations, and I'll explain why:

If we use 30% hydro in a day, we need 60% extra power production, but if we add 60% to power production, working at 70% (as per example), then we won't need 30% hydro in the day... right?

I'm also a bit confused about the 20% efficiency coming out of nowhere..

Not to mention that it doesn't factor in other potential sources of power (See probe, or think of the interconnector)

Heroditas wrote: »

They have stated that they will make 2.6bn per annum from two reservoirs. Those numbers don't stack up.

I can't believe that you can "dam" a costal valley, seal it fully and install turbines that will displace enough water to provide an adequate storage capacity. We're talking millions of tons of water. I wonder at how efficient a pump can possibly be as the reservoir starts to fill up.
We would also have to seal the walls of the artificial reservoir to ensure salt water doesn't work its way into the water table. Imagine doing this for a whole valley? Imagine a whole valley full of stagnant sea-water waiting to be released? How will this be overcome?

I like the idea. I'm an engineer and it shows great initiative. Unfortunately I don't think it's a runner and the SoI guys aren't exactly helping their cause by releasing statements before then rowing back and saying "actually, what we meant to say is...."
That may work in academic circles but not in industry.

I'm strongly in agreement with what Probe advocates - peaking plants that can be started up at a moment's notice. The system is already used in Northern Ireland to make up any deficit by getting industry to fire up their generators to support the grid. They may be dirty diesel gennies but the core idea is the same.
Imagine a smart grid consisiting of local community CHP plants, wind farms off the west coast and then bio-fuel/biomass/incinerator style peaking plants. I think that could work.
If we could also improve the efficiency of the peat burning plants we could get further down the road towards energy independence. (Peat ain't good for the old CO2 emmissions though!)

I'm a bit confused about the 2.6bn, but I think there's lots questionable about that - starting with an interconnector that can't deal with that much load.

I can only deal with the numbers, I can't venture a guess on the engineering problems. I have a bit of faith that you and your kind can answer the questions you are posing at the end there!

Heroditas

The argument is a bit confusing alright.
I see your point aboutdifferential equations being needed.
The point about pumped hydro storage is that you put an awful lot more energy in than you wil get out and because of pump efficiencies, this increases the amount of energy you put in.
If you are using the hydro power one day, you still need to refill the reservior but at the same time you also need to be supplying the country with power. Therefore you need more wind turbines. Also, if the wind doesn't blow for a period of a few days, you could be left with an empty reservior!

The interconnector between Ireland and Wales will be 400MW - i.e. roughly equivalent in size to one of the power stations in Huntstown.
Yes it does limit what can be exported but they do not appear to have taken that into account in their maths where they state they can export billions of € in electricity every year.
They've come up with a simplisitc figure of an excess of power and stated that it can be sold (at a massive premium) but they have not shown how it can actually be exported.

The argument does indeed come from p.ie's environmental section.
Beware though, the thread is over 100 pages long! :eek:

Grudaire

Is hydro not one of the most efficient forms of energy storage?

He's throwing around numbers, but it's basically wrong. I hope this is what convinced you that SOI isn't worthwhile! Like the 20% argument is all over the place as well. Assumedly we will get ~ 1MW from a 1MW generator a good chunk of the time, so why are we dealing with 20% efficiency as a standard (If you're catering for filling up the resevoirs at 20% efficiency I'd just change the alleged capacity of the windmills) surely we can allow for the resevoirs to go down a bit when there's no wind!


I assume that there would be more wind production than is used - but is this not factored in by SOI?

Heroditas

The numbers that I quoted are quite simplistic but they make more sense than the very basic numbers that SoI quote.

Here's my own basic maths.
To be "guaranteed" 1MW of power, you ideally need 3MW of wind turbines. That is the accepted figure.
Now, you have 1MW of power and you then need to fill a reservoir using pumps. You have to take transmission losses into account for the power as it travels to the pump and then you have the pump's efficiency of, say, 85% - this leaves us with about 0.8MW of power that has been transferred to the reservoir.
So we have 3MW of wind and this gives us 0.8MW of hydro.
Remember, if you're filling the reservoir, you need more wind turbines to fuel the grid for the users!
Also, it can be quite common for the wind to drop for sustained periods of time. What happens then if the reservoir is empty? It's almost a double jeopardy.

Transform these figures into figures that we need for Ireland to be energy independent - we need about 6GW of hydro power. That would result in us needing 22.5GW of wind just to ensure you have enough constant coverage of wind to simply fill the reservoir as quickly as possible.
Then you need more wind turbines to supply electricity to the country while the reservoir is being filled! I've taken peak demand here and increased it a bit to take into account further growth in the electricity market.

Of course, you can use alternative sources such as the interconnector to import power to fill the reservoir but that defeats the whole concept of "energy independence".

SoI is a classic example of the law of diminishing returns. However, this time it's on a vast scale.
Some small ones like Turlough Hill may be viable but doing it on a national scale using existing technology? I don't think so.

zod

Heroditas wrote: »

I can't believe that you can "dam" a costal valley, seal it fully and install turbines that will displace enough water to provide an adequate storage capacity. We're talking millions of tons of water. I wonder at how efficient a pump can possibly be as the reservoir starts to fill up.

approximately 70% to 85% of the electrical energy used to pump the water into the elevated reservoir can be regained. source

Heroditas wrote: »

We would also have to seal the walls of the artificial reservoir to ensure salt water doesn't work its way into the water table. Imagine doing this for a whole valley? Imagine a whole valley full of stagnant sea-water waiting to be released? How will this be overcome?

They seemed to have worked through any issues in Japan :

Heroditas

zod wrote: »

approximately 70% to 85% of the electrical energy used to pump the water into the elevated reservoir can be regained. source

I was working with a figure of 85% in my last post so that's a best-case figure. OK cool.

zod wrote: »

They seemed to have worked through any issues in Japan :

That's a very small scale model compared to what SoI are suggesting and is more comparable in scale to Turlough Hill

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

The numbers that I quoted are quite simplistic but they make more sense than the very basic numbers that SoI quote.

Here's my own basic maths.
To be "guaranteed" 1MW of power, you ideally need 3MW of wind turbines. That is the accepted figure.
Now, you have 1MW of power and you then need to fill a reservoir using pumps. You have to take transmission losses into account for the power as it travels to the pump and then you have the pump's efficiency of, say, 85% - this leaves us with about 0.8MW of power that has been transferred to the reservoir.
So we have 3MW of wind and this gives us 0.8MW of hydro.
Remember, if you're filling the reservoir, you need more wind turbines to fuel the grid for the users!
Also, it can be quite common for the wind to drop for sustained periods of time. What happens then if the reservoir is empty? It's almost a double jeopardy.

• Accepted by who? (Surely at peak a 1MW would generate 1MW?)
• Is that 1MW on average?
• If the wind drops we're relying on the resevoirs? (Which is an argument more to do with the capacity of the resvoirs..)

Mainly I want to deal with figures that I know what they mean. Lies damn lies and statistics is very very true:D

Heroditas wrote: »

Transform these figures into figures that we need for Ireland to be energy independent - we need about 6GW of hydro power. That would result in us needing 22.5GW of wind just to ensure you have enough constant coverage of wind to simply fill the reservoir as quickly as possible.
Then you need more wind turbines to supply electricity to the country while the reservoir is being filled! I've taken peak demand here and increased it a bit to take into account further growth in the electricity market.

Of course, you can use alternative sources such as the interconnector to import power to fill the reservoir but that defeats the whole concept of "energy independence".

SoI is a classic example of the law of diminishing returns. However, this time it's on a vast scale.
Some small ones like Turlough Hill may be viable but doing it on a national scale using existing technology? I don't think so.

I still think you'll need differential equations to explain this in any fair way - If you have a sh*tload of extra capacity working at even 10% potential it'll reduce the drain on the resevoirs.

Well if we're selling the stuff to the UK, surely we're allowed buy some back!

How is the law of diminishing returns relevent?

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

• Accepted by who? (Surely at peak a 1MW would generate 1MW?)
• Is that 1MW on average?
• If the wind drops we're relying on the resevoirs? (Which is an argument more to do with the capacity of the resvoirs..)

Mainly I want to deal with figures that I know what they mean. Lies damn lies and statistics is very very true:D

Wind generators across the whole country. 30% coverage is the accepted figure.
You're more than welcome to drop into my offices and talk to the wind power people here to discuss those figures.
Yes if you have a 1MW turbine, you'll generate 1MW but the wind does not blow all the time so the accepted industrial standard figure is 30%.
As a result, to guarantee 1MW of power, you need to have 3MW of wind generation. Sometimes you will get your full 3MW output, a lot of the time you will get 0MW. The average is 1MW.
You can't work off peak figures because the wind coverage will not always at "peak" generating capabilities.

Cliste wrote: »

I still think you'll need differential equations to explain this in any fair way - If you have a sh*tload of extra capacity working at even 10% potential it'll reduce the drain on the resevoirs.

Well if we're selling the stuff to the UK, surely we're allowed buy some back!

How is the law of diminishing returns relevent?

If we're buying electricity back, it defeats the whole claim of being "energy independent" doesn't it? The whole point of SoI is supposed to make us completely unreliant on importing power and fuel isn't it?

The reason I quote the law of diminishing returns is because by filling massive reservoirs you are wasting power that could be used to actually power things. You get 1MW of wind power and that is reduced to 0.8MW of stored power. It's diminished. ASSUMING there is enough wind to refill the empty reservoir.
Again, what happens when there is insufficient wind coverage to power the wind turbines and the reservoir is empty? What happens then?

maniac101

Heroditas wrote: »

Transform these figures into figures that we need for Ireland to be energy independent - we need about 6GW of hydro power.

"Energy Independence" would need an awful lot more installed capacity than that. Our total energy requirement is three times our current electricity demand. Energy independence would require satisfying the transport and heat energy demand as well. It's unfortunate that SoI didn't grasp that at the outset, as it's caused them a lot of reputational damage. The claim that Ireland could be "energy independent in five years" betrays an immaturity and lack of experience in the sector - it prompted one leading economist to dismiss the SoI team as "bunch of crackpots supported by a loony moneybag".

It's the economics that'll make or break the SoI project. So far they haven't provided convincing figures. Their project costs are dubious and their revenues assume that there'll be a ready market in the UK for excess electricity produced here and that we be able to sell it at an attractive price. They haven't properly addressed the issue of capital invested in existing plants. Their September deadline to provide more robust figures has passed without anything new posted to their website.

All that said, I still hope that they can produce something credible and that the project could be viable, albeit on a much, much smaller scale than the one first suggested.

Heroditas

maniac101 wrote: »

"Energy Independence" would need an awful lot more installed capacity than that. Our total energy requirement is three times our current electricity demand. Energy independence would require satisfying the transport and heat energy demand as well. It's unfortunate that SoI didn't grasp that at the outset, as it's caused them a lot of reputational damage.

Very true. I should have stated I was talking about electrical energy.

maniac101 wrote: »

All that said, I still hope that they can produce something credible and that the project could be viable, albeit on a much, much smaller scale than the one first suggested.

Exactly. At least it's getting people talking about alternative ways of energy storage. That in itself can be deemed a success.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Wind generators across the whole country. 30% coverage is the accepted figure.
You're more than welcome to drop into my offices and talk to the wind power people here to discuss those figures.
Yes if you have a 1MW turbine, you'll generate 1MW but the wind does not blow all the time so the accepted industrial standard figure is 30%.
As a result, to guarantee 1MW of power, you need to have 3MW of wind generation. Sometimes you will get your full 3MW output, a lot of the time you will get 0MW. The average is 1MW.
You can't work off peak figures because the wind coverage will not always at "peak" generating capabilities.

If you're averaging 1MW over the entire period, and you need to get 1MW always from it, well then the 3MW will hypothetically cover the 1 MW over the period, and so you build an extra one to cover the wastage from filling up the resevoir. So for 4MW you should cover the total, as when you're generating the full 4MW it'll build up reserves, and when you're generating 0MW you use up the reserve.

I wouldn't separate the generation for reserves from generation for consumption the way you are...

Heroditas wrote: »

If we're buying electricity back, it defeats the whole claim of being "energy independent" doesn't it? The whole point of SoI is supposed to make us completely unreliant on importing power and fuel isn't it?

The reason I quote the law of diminishing returns is because by filling massive reservoirs you are wasting power that could be used to actually power things. You get 1MW of wind power and that is reduced to 0.8MW of stored power. It's diminished. ASSUMING there is enough wind to refill the empty reservoir.
Again, what happens when there is insufficient wind coverage to power the wind turbines and the reservoir is empty? What happens then?

Ok, so we've established the 2.6bn profit and the 'energy independence' to be flimsy at best. Are they show stoppers though?

the insufficient wind, and nothing in the reservoir is the show stopper in my opinion. The figures they use will have to be right for SOI to have a chance. Lets say that they have made enough reserves to last for 14 days with no wind - would that be enough?

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

If you're averaging 1MW over the entire period, and you need to get 1MW always from it, well then the 3MW will hypothetically cover the 1 MW over the period, and so you build an extra one to cover the wastage from filling up the resevoir. So for 4MW you should cover the total, as when you're generating the full 4MW it'll build up reserves, and when you're generating 0MW you use up the reserve.

I wouldn't separate the generation for reserves from generation for consumption the way you are...

In my opinion it needs to be separated. Take your 4MW - on avergae you're getting 1.3MW of wind power generated. So you use 1MW to supply the grid and the other 0.3MW to fill the reservoir.
Assume the reservoir holds enough power for 5 days - that's 1MW x 140hrs = 140MWh (I'm ignoring pump efficiencies here)
If the reservoir is empty and the wind is blowing, you need to replace the 140MWh in the reservoir but you still need to supply 1MW to the grid.
You have to work with average wind coverage because it is your "standard".
As a result, you have 0.3MW excess so at that rate, it'll take 466 hours to refill the reservoir.
Of course you can say that you might get 4MW of wind power but you can just as easily get 0MW - that's the whole reasoning behind building the reservoir in the first place.

Cliste wrote: »

Ok, so we've established the 2.6bn profit and the 'energy independence' to be flimsy at best. Are they show stoppers though?

I'd be highly skeptical of any organization that makes it one of the cornerstones and it didn't add up!

Cliste wrote: »

Lets say that they have made enough reserves to last for 14 days with no wind - would that be enough?

It possibly might but can you not see how much of an excess wind capacity you would need to build up enough excess energy to fill the reservoirs with enough stored water to power the country for two weks while at the same time still power the country with the electricity it needs?
Two weeks might just be enough but there have been lulls where the wind can die for three weeks or more.

That's the problem - it's wind! It's unpredictable. You could have howling gales for 4 months and then nothing for the rest of the year.

cleveroli

:mad:Do any of you 'hurrah for wind power' maniacs actually live beside these monstrosities???? My sister had the most beautiful views of the hills beside her house until the landowner - who lives half a mile away ! decided hed get himself some of these 'moneymakers' There is now 3 wind pylons whirring around - when their movin- the scenery is destroyed - the local quarry dug up half a mountain to shore up these eyesores and these are being promoted by the Green Party???? Dont make me laugh:mad: When interviewed on the local rag the landowner said they were a statement that the area was an eco area and wud be good for the local school children to take a school tour to?????!!!! So thanks but no thanks - keep all your tonnes of steel - mountains of filling - concrete and gravel and let me have the green green grass of home. These windmills are the equivilent of the Ballymun towers in the 60's new and shiny when built but my God doesnt everyone regret they were ever put up.

zod

Myth #4: Wind turbines are unattractive

In North Carolina, a study to determine public attitudes towards wind energy was recently conducted. The study found that 77.1% of participants who had seen first hand a utility scale turbine said that they liked its appearance. Studies from numerous US states and other countries report that a majority of people think wind turbines are graceful, elegant structures. Many people find turbines to be interesting features in the landscape, enhancing the vista overall. In the UK, the British Wind Energy Association notes that wind farms are popular tourist attractions, with thousands of people each year flocking to visit attractions.

Heroditas

I wonder what people will think of a field of these ones:

http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html

cleveroli

zod wrote: »

Myth #4: Wind turbines are unattractive

In North Carolina, a study to determine public attitudes towards wind energy was recently conducted. The study found that 77.1% of participants who had seen first hand a utility scale turbine said that they liked its appearance. Studies from numerous US states and other countries report that a majority of people think wind turbines are graceful, elegant structures. Many people find turbines to be interesting features in the landscape, enhancing the vista overall. In the UK, the British Wind Energy Association notes that wind farms are popular tourist attractions, with thousands of people each year flocking to visit attractions.

I dont know what they look like in North Carolina,but in Ireland they are sh**e! I know cos I see them every time I look out my sisters window.
You sound like you are in the business of selling them hope they come with a money back guarentee!! As for the eejits flocking to see a wind farm, god love them, they must be living in an area with feck all else to see!!! I REPEAT - BAN THE WINDMILLS- and if they are so beautiful elegant and graceful and such a tourist attraction, will they be built in Killarney National Park??? or beside John the Bull's House or Dick (my house is a protected structure) Roche??? I think youll find the answer is no!! In Fact id be very interested to hear if in fact there is one politician who has windmills beside his or her house...pls:mad:

cleveroli

Heroditas wrote: »

I wonder what people will think of a field of these ones:

http://www.metaefficient.com/news/new-record-worlds-largest-wind-turbine-7-megawatts.html

I rest my case!! Tourist attraction my ar*e -

Grudaire

cleveroli wrote: »

I rest my case!! Tourist attraction my ar*e -

:rolleyes:

Listen I've had an argument with someone who claimed that the random one-off housing was good looking, but turbines weren't - Can you split this into a seperate thread, because I think we're dealing with some good points here, without nonsense like that.

Heroditas wrote: »

In my opinion it needs to be separated. Take your 4MW - on avergae you're getting 1.3MW of wind power generated. So you use 1MW to supply the grid and the other 0.3MW to fill the reservoir.
Assume the reservoir holds enough power for 5 days - that's 1MW x 140hrs = 140MWh (I'm ignoring pump efficiencies here)
If the reservoir is empty and the wind is blowing, you need to replace the 140MWh in the reservoir but you still need to supply 1MW to the grid.
You have to work with average wind coverage because it is your "standard".
As a result, you have 0.3MW excess so at that rate, it'll take 466 hours to refill the reservoir.
Of course you can say that you might get 4MW of wind power but you can just as easily get 0MW - that's the whole reasoning behind building the reservoir in the first place.

But the whole thing is the nature of being the Average. If on Average you get 1MW, and you need 1MW, then you should be happy if you can keep the energy (The crux of the SOI idea)

Your reasoning is getting muddled I think. I'm going to give you an off the top of my head example (assuming no loss even at the resevoir)

Lets say you have the following wind generation pattern over a few hours (Which averages out at 1):
1, 1, 0, 0, 2, 3, 1, 0, 3, 0, 0, 1, 2, 0

... And you have 14MW stored in a resevoir at the start

Then the windmills cover production over the first two hours, so the resevoir potential will go (Assuming unlimited space etc):
14MW, 14MW, 13MW, 12MW, 13MW, 15MW, 15MW, 14MW, 16MW, 15MW, 14MW, 14MW, 15MW, 14MW

Obviously not a very complex model, but I think we're looking at what the Average word means differently...

Heroditas wrote: »

I'd be highly skeptical of any organization that makes it one of the cornerstones and it didn't add up!

I've noticed!

Heroditas wrote: »

It possibly might but can you not see how much of an excess wind capacity you would need to build up enough excess energy to fill the reservoirs with enough stored water to power the country for two weks while at the same time still power the country with the electricity it needs?
Two weeks might just be enough but there have been lulls where the wind can die for three weeks or more.

That's the problem - it's wind! It's unpredictable. You could have howling gales for 4 months and then nothing for the rest of the year.

Again I'll try and prod some sources out of you for that!:)

What would you say to:

“Although a single wind turbine is indeed intermittent, this is not generally true of a system of several wind farms, separated by several hundred kilometres and experiencing different wind regimes. The total output of such a system generally varies smoothly and only rarely experiences a situation where there is no wind at any site. As a result, this system can be made as reliable as a conventional base-load power station by adding a small amount of peak-load plant (say, gas turbines) that is only operated when required.”

Heroditas

Cliste wrote: »

Again I'll try and prod some sources out of you for that!

What would you say to

“Although a single wind turbine is indeed intermittent, this is not generally true of a system of several wind farms, separated by several hundred kilometres and experiencing different wind regimes. The total output of such a system generally varies smoothly and only rarely experiences a situation where there is no wind at any site. As a result, this system can be made as reliable as a conventional base-load power station by adding a small amount of peak-load plant (say, gas turbines) that is only operated when required.”

Re. the sources, I'm more than happy to give you my email address and I can discuss official industry figures regarding output for several hundred MW of wind farms for 2008.

Regarding the quote you posted, that's my point regarding needing 3MW of wind generators to guarantee 1MW. That's what my point has been all along. That's my 30% - that quote says pretty much the same thing. They need to be spread over the whole country.
Even then, you're still not guaranteed wind the whole time and there can be substantial lulls. Also, it is very hard to find the ideal sites for these wind farms and build turbines on them, along with connecting them to the grid. All this adds to the costs and makes it uneconomical.
Ireland is a small country so it is very possible to get lulls over the majority of the island at any one time.

Here's an interesting link where you can check out the wind generation at any one time:

http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/

Heroditas

And here's a link showing the total wind capacity in Ireland:

http://www.eirgrid.com/media/Connected%20Wind%20Report%2013Oct09%20V1.pdf

You can thus compare the amount of turbines for a particular month and drill into the previous link to see what wind generation was like for the month in question.

Grudaire

Heroditas wrote: »

Re. the sources, I'm more than happy to give you my email address and I can discuss official industry figures regarding output for several hundred MW of wind farms for 2008.

Regarding the quote you posted, that's my point regarding needing 3MW of wind generators to guarantee 1MW. That's what my point has been all along. That's my 30% - that quote says pretty much the same thing. They need to be spread over the whole country.
Even then, you're still not guaranteed wind the whole time and there can be substantial lulls. Also, it is very hard to find the ideal sites for these wind farms and build turbines on them, along with connecting them to the grid. All this adds to the costs and makes it uneconomical.
Ireland is a small country so it is very possible to get lulls over the majority of the island at any one time.

I can handle the ~30% average, I just am a bit iffy about how you use this in your maths.

As for the good sites, is there not plenty of sites with clean wind throughout Ireland (we're a windy place, and we've lots of gentle country site with very few mountains.

to be honest I can't actually find figures from SOI - is there any specific ones?

Heroditas wrote: »

Here's an interesting link where you can check out the wind generation at any one time:

http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/

Very interesting... very very interesting.

Wind is the only renewable source which seems to be growing by their stats.

SeanW

Again I'll try and prod some sources out of you for that!

What would you say to:

I'm not sure if you follow Eirgrid's statistics for wind generation but if you follow them for some time you would indeed see an intermittent/random pattern of feasts and famines that can run for hours, days, and even weeks. Gonna need lots of storage to smooth all that out!

johnathan woss

“Although a single wind turbine is indeed intermittent, this is not generally true of a system of several wind farms, separated by several hundred kilometres and experiencing different wind regimes. The total output of such a system generally varies smoothly and only rarely experiences a situation where there is no wind at any site. As a result, this system can be made as reliable as a conventional base-load power station by adding a small amount of peak-load plant (say, gas turbines) that is only operated when required.”

Where did this quote come from ? (apologies if the source is given somewhere in the thread).

It caught my eye because it's quite disingenuous as far as I know. Wind generation has a fast-diminishing "capacity credit factor". I.e. the more wind turbines we add to the grid the less each new one aids security of supply. We could add tens of thousands of MW of wind capacity and still need conventional baseload generation (if our aim is to provide 24/7 electricity through the grid).

luohaoran

Heroditas wrote: »

In my opinion it needs to be separated. Take your 4MW - on avergae you're getting 1.3MW of wind power generated. So you use 1MW to supply the grid and the other 0.3MW to fill the reservoir.
Assume the reservoir holds enough power for 5 days - that's 1MW x 140hrs = 140MWh (I'm ignoring pump efficiencies here)
If the reservoir is empty and the wind is blowing, you need to replace the 140MWh in the reservoir but you still need to supply 1MW to the grid.
You have to work with average wind coverage because it is your "standard".
As a result, you have 0.3MW excess so at that rate, it'll take 466 hours to refill the reservoir.
Of course you can say that you might get 4MW of wind power but you can just as easily get 0MW - that's the whole reasoning behind building the reservoir in the first place.

If you assume that you are trying to fill a depleted reservoir, then you have to take into account the below average wind that led to that and factor in the above average wind condition that must follow. If you accept that the average figure is statistically accurate of course.

If you then say, yes but what if the wind stays "off" for longer, then the response is, build more storage, and factor in the cost. Note that this cost should be offset by your increased capacity to export, assuming you build in a buffer amount of generation with the storage.

If you want energy independence then you just need to scale up, so that for really extreme prolonged windless conditions , you only run the risk of shutting down export of energy.

Personally , I'd prefer a definition of Energy Independence as being at the point where we cease to be net importers of energy.

Heroditas

luohaoran wrote: »

Note that this cost should be offset by your increased capacity to export, assuming you build in a buffer amount of generation with the storage.

Your capacity to export is limited by the capacity of the interconnectors and also the external markets you intend to sell to.
There's no guarantee the external markets will even buy the energy if it is available.

luohaoran wrote: »

then the response is, build more storage, and factor in the cost.

That's a tad simplistic when we're talking about enough capacity to supply the whole country though. You're adding an awful lot onto initial costs and extending payback times.

luohaoran wrote: »

Personally , I'd prefer a definition of Energy Independence as being at the point where we cease to be net importers of energy.

Sounds good to me!


P.S. welcome aboard!

luohaoran

@Heroditas

Yes, my latter points were simply put.

But I guess my overriding point is that none of these are reasons not to fully support what SOI are trying to achieve.

I don't have any big problem with their numbers. They seem to align closely with your own. I don't think the significance you put on the 2.6 billion from exports is fair. As I recall, their point was that you could upscale substantially to turn a profit from exporting excess power, I think they pulled the figure out of the air as an example. In the same way they said it could be two or three lakes. An arbitrary choice. A bit careless, perhaps, but I imagine they did not expect the doubters to be so pedantic. I would speculate they were trying to focus on the potential at that stage, rather than the exact numbers. I don't think it was meant as a cornerstone of there policy.

Sorry to use the word pedantic, but I think it is appropriate since as you point out export potential depends on a number of interconnectors yet to be built and external markets. All that really matters is when you add it all up , can you produce the electricity at a price per unit that is competitive.
Ultimately that is what will decide if the SOI project happens or not. Not to diminish all the other benefits we, as a nation, stand to gain from an SOI type solution.

I've read a lot of forums around the viability of SOI. It seems the nay sayers are either more plentiful or more willing to offer their point of view. There certainly seems to be a great reluctance in people "to believe" that SOI could work. Perhaps I'm just an optimist, but as an electronic engineer, I don't see any technical reason why the SOI project would not work. All the arguments I've seen from the no camp have fairly obvious flaws in my opinion. And if correct at all, are generally missing the context of the bigger picture.