Most of Europe's energy from renewables?

Amhran Nua

Interesting article here and a paper that supports the idea that Europe could affordably derive most of its electrical requirements from renewable resources.

Optimal Solution: 100% Renewable HVDC Supergrid to save our climate

2008 Conference Paper Synopsis: In view of the resource and climate problems, it seems obvious that we must transform our energy system into one using only renewable energies. But questions arise how such a system should be structured, which techniques should be used and, of course, how costly it might be. These questions were the focus of a study which investigated the cost optimum of a future renewable electricity supply for Europe and its closer Asian and African neighbourhood. The resulting scenarios are based on a broad data basis of the electricity consumption and for renewable energies. An optimization determined the best system configuration and temporal dispatch of all components. The outcome of the scenarios can be considered as being a scientific breakthrough since it proves that a totally renewable electricity supply is possible even with current technology and at the same time is affordable for our national economies.

In the conservative base case scenario, wind power would dominate the production spread over the better wind areas within the whole supply area, connected with the demand centres via HVDC transmission. The transmission system, furthermore, powerfully integrates the existing storage hydropower to provide for backup coequally assisted by biomass power and supported by solar thermal electricity.

The main results of the different scenarios can be summarized as follows:

* A totally renewable electricity supply for Europe and its neighbourhood is possible and affordable.
* Electricity transmission between many different countries will be a very valuable and substantial component of a future supply.
* Smoothing effects by the use of sources at locations in different climate zones improve the security of the supply and reduce the costs.
* A spacious co-operation of many different countries opens up for the possibility to combine the goals of development policy and climate politics in a multilateral win-win strategy.

It can be expected that the results are adaptable to other world regions than Europe and its neighbourhood. Also in other regions there exist for example huge hydro-power potentials, very interesting wind energy potentials and deserts, which could be used to produce solar thermal power. So there is a huge variety of options in some regions which might even provide better conditions for a totally renewable electricity supply than can be found in and around Europe.

Electricity production is most problematic subsector for the climate since it is responsible for the by far biggest share of the total carbon emissions and is growing relatively fast. Worldwide about 10.5 GtCO2 or almost 45% of the total CO2 emissions from fossil fuels stem from big power plants with an annual exhausts of more than 0.1 Mt CO2. Therefore the scenarios show a viable path for a substantial mitigation of the climate change by economically replacing the current fossil based electricity system by one using renewable energies only.

Good news for Ireland with the interconnector being in place, and our beneficial wind profile, if we have the leadership to seize the opportunity.

And another article about HVDC lines that make it possible.

Thomas Edison might have relished the irony. Just as his most famous legacy, the incandescent light bulb, heads for extinction, his other great passion, direct current, is set to boom. The bulb that dominated lighting for over a century is now a pariah of climate change and banned in many countries. Meanwhile direct current, which was defeated by alternating current in the race to establish the industry standard during the 1890s, is now emerging as crucial weapon in the fight against global warming, in the form of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines.

Although the world’s electricity transmission grids are almost wholly AC, it is now becoming clear that HVDC will be crucial to meeting soaring electricity demand and cutting carbon emissions – by transmitting large amounts of power efficiently over long distances and connecting remote offshore wind farms. HVDC even promises to solve the vexed problem of the intermittency of wind turbines and solar panels by allowing the creation of continent-wide ‘Supergrids’, which smooth out the variable generation from many far-flung sources to create a dependable supply. Supporters claim this will make it possible to ditch coal, gas and nuclear altogether and replace them entirely with renewables within a couple of decades.

Elements of a European Supergrid are already beginning to emerge, with plans for offshore HVDC grids being developed in both the Baltic and the North Sea. And political momentum behind the idea is growing: in January the European Commission proposed €300 million to subsidize the development of HVDC links between Ireland, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, as part of a wider €1.2 billion package supporting links to offshore wind farms and cross-border interconnectors throughout Europe. Meanwhile the recently founded Union of the Mediterranean has embraced a Mediterranean Solar Plan to import large amounts of concentrating solar power into Europe from North Africa and the Middle East.

In the US, President Obama’s $150 billion energy plan includes a target of 25 per cent renewable electricity by 2025, implying massive investment in high voltage lines. A recent report from the US Department of Energy found that achieving 20 per cent wind penetration would require new ‘transmission superhighways’ stretching more than 12,000 miles. America’s existing 200,000 mile high voltage transmission network is almost entirely AC, but many of the new lines are likely to be HVDC. According to Dr Graeme Bathurst, technical director of the British grid consultancy TNEI, “Whichever way you look at it, there is absolutely no doubt that HVDC’s time has come”.

It is ironic that Edison lost his ‘battle of the currents’ with Tesla and Westinghouse because in one sense direct current is far superior; it suffers much lower transmission losses than alternating current. That’s because in a DC line the voltage is constant, whereas in an AC line it reverses direction 100 times per second, meaning more energy is lost as waste heat. Because of this, HVDC has long enjoyed a niche role transporting large amounts of power efficiently over long distances. One of the earliest big projects was a 600MW link in New Zealand connecting the north and south islands, built in 1965, and later upgraded to 1200MW.

One disadvantage of HVDC lines is the need for converter stations where they connect to an AC grid. These are big and expensive: for a 3000MW line the converter stations at either end would cover 9 football pitches and cost around $200 million each. But once the link is longer than about 600km, the extra cost is increasingly outweighed by the energy savings, making it economic to transport power over vast distances that with AC would be expensive and technically difficult

The length and capacity of new HVDC projects is rising fast, particularly in China, where lines are being built to transmit hydro power from deep in the country’s interior to consumers on the coast. The Swiss engineering firm ABB has recently been commissioned to build a link from the Xianjiaba dam to industrial Shanghai, which is the world’s longest, at 2000km, and most powerful, at 6.4GW – equivalent to the output of three large power stations. The line’s converter stations will cover 20 football pitches each, but when the project opens in 2011, the company says it will deliver major environmental benefits.

Dr Gunnar Asplund, ABB’s research and development manager for HVDC, explains that enormous amounts of power will be transmitted along a single line of pylons, whereas a traditional AC link would need three abreast. And because the alternative to transporting hydro electricity long distance would have been to build more coal fired power stations near Shanghai, Dr Asplund reckons the carbon dioxide savings could amount to 40 million tonnes per year.

Another major advantage of HVDC is that it can operate over much greater distances underground and under water than AC. That’s because AC produces powerful alternating electric fields that cause large additional energy losses if the line is buried or submerged, whereas for DC this ‘capacitance’ effect is practically negligible. That makes HVDC essential for sub-sea ‘interconnectors’, like the 600km NorNed cable between Norway and the Netherlands that opened last year.

Macha

Yes, the supergrid idea has been pushed by the Desertec group for a long while and Claverton Group have been very positive towards it.

Eddie O'Connor of Mainstream Renewable Power is a big advocate as well. I definitely think it could go some way towards allowing a greater % of renewables in electricity production in Europe.

SLUSK

Only renewables? I guess that excludes nuclear power?
Yay I look forward to 50 cents/kwh electricity bills, the last of Europe's manufacturing shipping out to Asia and high unemployment. You just gotta love our green future which means living in poverty.

robtri

am i right in thinking Dersetec and claverton ... who published this report ... are in the buiness of making this super grids....
not a very fair or impartial report then and wont trust it as far as i could throw it

Amhran Nua

SLUSK wrote: »

Only renewables? I guess that excludes nuclear power?
Yay I look forward to 50 cents/kwh electricity bills, the last of Europe's manufacturing shipping out to Asia and high unemployment.

It is a lamentable side effect of the ultra green "left's" pogrom against anything and everything they deem polluting that it has made perfectly viable and reliable eco friendly technology abhorrent to a large section of the population.

The manufacturing could be done here, as it is in Denmark with 30,000 employed in wind turbine manufacturing, and four billion in exports last year, and they can't keep up with demand. The Chinese are weighing in on the industrial manufacture ring, but since they aren't in the EU we have a natural advantage over them for internal exports at the very least, and given the quality of work which has drawn and kept enormous FDI here, albeit along with our tax rates, we can compete on more than price.

As for the cost of renewably sourced power, its a question of scale - the reality is very far from the simple case that wind for example costs more than coal. Coal, oil, gas and similar fossil fuels are massively subsidised, far more than renewable energy within the EU and certainly as far as imports go - the same goes for nuclear.

Or did you think that shipping hazardous materials thousands of miles was somehow cheaper than just plucking energy out of thin air?

robtri wrote: »

am i right in thinking Dersetec and claverton ... who published this report ... are in the buiness of making this super grids....
not a very fair or impartial report then and wont trust it as far as i could throw it

Can you support this statement of bias?

robtri

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Can you support this statement of bias?

it was a question not a atatement... i was asking where they involved in this sort of energy grids ????

SLUSK

I live in Sweden they experiment with windpower here too. Lets look at the statistics. On this site almost all wind power generators report their output.

http://www.vindstat.nu

Here is an overview of the installed effect the power generators can produce and there is also an overview of the actual effect it produces.
http://www.vindstat.nu/driftsamfalla.htm

This stuff is in Swedish I know, but take a look at the numbers for
"Installerad effekt", and "Aktuell effekt". As you can see current output at this moment in time is 25% (215MW/850MW). During this winter many days we have had an output of less than 10% of installed capacity.

So based on what I'm seeing here wind power is a very expensive form of energy.

Amhran Nua

robtri wrote: »

it was a question not a atatement... i was asking where they involved in this sort of energy grids ????

Its right on their website, linked in the OP.

The Claverton Energy Group is a loose collection of individuals from various organisations with expertise in various areas related to energy, government policy, technology, engineering, finance, management, environment, climate change, transportation, agriculture, water, waste disposal and more.

The question I was asking was have you read the paper, and can you therefore pick any holes in it?

Amhran Nua

SLUSK wrote: »

As you can see current output at this moment in time is 25% (215MW/850MW). During this winter many days we have had an output of less than 10% of installed capacity.

So based on what I'm seeing here wind power is a very expensive form of energy.

The entire idea of the supergrid is that power from one area gets channelled to other areas to supplement low energy production as it shifts, producing a steady base supply via the interconnectors (even if you ignore hydrostorage technologies), this is explained in the paper, which I assume you have read?

Your first statement does not support or lead on to your second statement.

SLUSK

Amhran Nua wrote: »

The entire idea of the supergrid is that power from one area gets channelled to other areas to supplement low energy production as it shifts, producing a steady base supply via the interconnectors (even if you ignore hydrostorage technologies), this is explained in the paper, which I assume you have read?

Your first statement does not support or lead on to your second statement.

Well Swedish energy giant Vattenfall knows a thing or two about producing electricity and they are slashing their investments in renewables and increase their investments in non renewables such as coal and gas.
http://www.rechargenews.com/business_area/finance/article206115.ece?WT.mc_id=rechargenews_rss

I guess they came to the same conclusions as me.

Amhran Nua

SLUSK wrote: »

Well Swedish energy giant Vattenfall knows a thing or two about producing electricity and they are slashing their investments in renewables and increase their investments in non renewables such as coal and gas.
http://www.rechargenews.com/business_area/finance/article206115.ece?WT.mc_id=rechargenews_rss

I guess they came to the same conclusions as me.

Oh you mean the heavily subsidised coal and natural gas industries in Germany and the Netherlands? In any case, with a statement like that I find this article rather curious:

The Swedish Energy System

Electricity production in Sweden is basically fossil-free. Approximately half of the electricity production comes from hydropower and the remainder is provided by nuclear power.

Despite rising industrial output, the use of oil has fallen from more than 70 % of the total energy supply in 1970 to around 30 % today. This is mainly due to diversification of fuels and more efficient use of energy.

The share of renewable energy sources in the Swedish energy system has increased rapidly during the past decade, from 22 % of the total energy supply in 1994 to 28 % today. Biomass accounts for the greater part of the increase. Wind energy has increased from negligible in 1994 to almost 1 TWh today.

Sweden has an extensive district heating sector. District heating accounts for about 40 % of the heating market in Sweden. The change in the fuel mix has been dramatic. Compared to 1970, when oil was the main fuel, oil accounts for only a few percent today. More than 62 % of district heating fuel today is biomass.

A dramatic drop in emissions of sulphur and a steady decrease of emissions of nitrogen oxides have occurred. Swedish scientists were among the first to discover the effects of acid rain; this was a focal point in the first UN Environmental Conference in Stockholm in 1972, twenty years before the following conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Swedish industry was also among early world pioneers in demonstrating the first technological solutions for flue gas desulphurization.

Sweden and the other Nordic countries liberalized their electricity sectors relatively early. To further integrate the Nordic energy market, a great deal of effort is now going into improving the transmission system and using modern technology to increase the international interconnections.
Green Certificates for Promoting Renewable Electricity

On May 1, 2003, a new support system for renewable electricity production, based on trading in electricity certificates for renewable electricity, was introduced to bring a greater proportion of electricity from renewable sources into the country's energy system. All electricity users, with the exception of manufacturing processes in energy-intensive industries, are required to buy certificates corresponding to a certain percentage of their electricity use.

Bio Energy and Wind for a Sustainable Future

The proportion of bio energy used in the Swedish energy system has steadily increased from a little over 10 % of the total energy supply in the 1980's to about 16 % or 100 TWh in 2004. Most of the increase has been attributable to industry and district heating plants. The bio fuels used in the Swedish energy system consist mainly of wood fuels, black liquors and tall oil pitches, and ethanol.

To a large extent, the expansion of bio fuels has come about through an ambitious policy on renewable energy, and the Swedish Government is determined to continue pursuing this policy. Investment in bio energy will contribute to a secure and sustainable energy supply as well as growth and job creation.

Wind energy today accounts for less than one percent of the electricity production. The potential for wind energy is substantially larger. The expansion rate for wind energy has increased rapidly during the past few years. A national target has been set for creating the conditions for annual wind power production of 10 TWh by 2015.

SLUSK

Electricity in Sweden is getting really expensive.
http://www.thelocal.se/24824/20100206/

Imagine what electricity will cost in Sweden when we have shut down all nuclear plants.

This winter the variable rates for electricity spiked at around 30 cents/kwh. Yes that is correct 30 cents/kwh. This because of maintance work at some nuclear reactors which means all plants were not running at full capacity. At the same time wind power produced very low output meaning a spike in electricity prices.

If the current trend continues with nuclear plants being shut down and more money being invested in renewables I am sure that blackouts will be a common occurance in Sweden and the price of electricity will be 2-3 times higher than today.

Amhran Nua

SLUSK wrote: »

If the current trend continues with nuclear plants being shut down and more money being invested in renewables I am sure that blackouts will be a common occurance in Sweden and the price of electricity will be 2-3 times higher than today.

In fairness, you've just shown that you haven't read either the article or even the OP. When you've done that, and hopefully laid aside your (imho) justifiable considerations about green hysteria, you might find a different story waiting.

robtri

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Its right on their website, linked in the OP.


The question I was asking was have you read the paper, and can you therefore pick any holes in it?

I am sure there article looks good and reads good.. they have a lot of electic engineers to make it sound right... and probably is right...
but it is too easy for companies like this to make it all sound grand when ther is trillions of euro potentially at stake...
like mcdonalds saying ther food is not unhealthy...

Amhran Nua

robtri wrote: »

I am sure there article looks good and reads good.. they have a lot of electic engineers to make it sound right... and probably is right...
but it is too easy for companies like this to make it all sound grand when ther is trillions of euro potentially at stake...
like mcdonalds saying ther food is not unhealthy...

Look, I get it, I do. When you have likes of the malthusian burblings of the guy in the "too many babies" thread below, the whole green thing can feel like a bit of religion. But, when something viable and potentially extremely useful to the country shows up, we need to be able to take advantage of it, setting aside prejuidice. Domestic export based industries are something we badly need and something offered by this technology, and if we can export energy on top of that, we should be doing so.

Macha

robtri wrote: »

but it is too easy for companies like this to make it all sound grand when ther is trillions of euro potentially at stake...
like mcdonalds saying ther food is not unhealthy...

And it is far too easy to dismiss an idea just because there are large companies involved. Judge the idea on its merits.

Sometimes I feel like the environmental movement just can't win. If a proposal won't make money it's dismissed for being unrealistic. And when it will make money, it's treated with suspicion. It's ridiculous.

gullon

Optimal Solution: 100% Renewable HVDC Supergrid to save our climate.

This caught my eye. I accept that the paper was written in 2008, but views have change since then!

MASSIVE European Union support of up to €20bn to fund the development of wind energy will be aimed at improving security of supply rather than combating climate change, a conference heard yesterday.

http://www.independent.ie/business/european/eus-836420bn-wind-power-support-to-focus-on-security-of-supply-1911447.html

As for the cost of renewably sourced power, its a question of scale - the reality is very far from the simple case that wind for example costs more than coal. Coal, oil, gas and similar fossil fuels are massively subsidised, far more than renewable energy within the EU and certainly as far as imports go - the same goes for nuclear.

The post has prompted me to ask the following questions:

How much is a scheme like the one described going to cost, design, build and implement?

How much is the coal, gas and similar fossil fuels being subsidised and who is subsidising them?!

How much more money is being given to coal, gas and other fossil fuels than to renewable energy within the EU?

Amhran Nua

gullon wrote: »

This caught my eye. I accept that the paper was written in 2008, but views have change since then!

Not too sure how that is a changed view? In fact thats exactly what we're talking about here?

gullon wrote: »

How much is a scheme like the one described going to cost, design, build and implement?

Read the paper.

gullon wrote: »

How much is the coal, gas and similar fossil fuels being subsidised and who is subsidising them?!

How much more money is being given to coal, gas and other fossil fuels than to renewable energy within the EU?

Here:

Consider Europe, with the strongest public commitment to reduce carbon emissions that are causing climate change.

In the past five years, 8 billion U.S. dollars of public money went to Europe's fossil fuel companies mainly to the natural gas sector. And in May the European Parliament approved an additional 3.35 billion dollars in subsides as part of Europe's 225 billion dollars economic recovery plan, according to a new research report by Friends of the Earth (FOE) Europe.

"We Europeans are supposedly leading the world on the path to a new green economy but we're putting billions of euros into fossil fuel sector that's taking us in the opposite direction," Darek Urbaniak of FOE Europe.

"Its complete hypocrisy," Urbaniak told IPS from Brussels.

Perhaps recognising this fact, global business leaders at the World Business Summit on Climate Change that concluded May 26 called on governments to "strive to end the current perverse subsidies that favour high-emissions transport and energy".

Speaking at the opening of the summit, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "Continuing to pour trillions of dollars into fossil-fuel subsidies is like investing in sub-prime real estate." And he concluded: "We must direct investment away from dirty energy industries."

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has recommended that one third of the around 2.5 trillion dollars worth of planned economic stimulus packages worldwide should be used to 'green' the world economy, as this would help "power the global economy out of recession".

Instead the European parliament decided the 5.36 billion dollars dedicated to new energy projects be split so that the source of the climate problem, the fossil fuel industry got 3.35 billion dollars while green solutions like wind, solar, biomass energy sources receive just 2 billion dollars in new funding, the FOE Europe analysis ‘Public money for fossil fuels in the EU’ reported.

"Wind only received a half billion euros (670 million dollars) while 1.25 billion (1.67 billion dollars) is being used to subsidise research into carbon capture and storage," Urbaniak says.

gullon

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Not too sure how that is a changed view? In fact thats exactly what we're talking about here?


Read the paper.

It is quite a shift from saying we need to implement wind energy to reduce our carbon emissions under the Kyoto protocol to saying its no longer a climate change issue but a security of supply issue. The EU even had directives about it!

I have read the paper and unfortunately I don't know know to calculate the cost of such a program of work in the EU. Do you.

The link refers to subsidies "mainly to the natural gas sector". Isn't natural gas critical to the wind power generation?

Amhran Nua

gullon wrote: »

It is quite a shift from saying we need to implement wind energy to reduce our carbon emissions under the Kyoto protocol to saying its no longer a climate change issue but a security of supply issue. The EU even had directives about it!

Ah but I didn't say we needed to look at this to further Kyoto goals. The supergrid concept is all about security of supply, since it becomes trivial to move energy from say a windfarm off the coast of Mayo to a factory in Germany as and when its needed.

gullon wrote: »

The link refers to subsidies "mainly to the natural gas sector". Isn't natural gas critical to the wind power generation?

Germany alone provides €2.5 billion in coal subsidies annually. Also what you're saying here is that natural gas is heavily subsidised, so we are in agreement.

probe

SLUSK wrote: »

Here is an overview of the installed effect the power generators can produce and there is also an overview of the actual effect it produces.
http://www.vindstat.nu/driftsamfalla.htm

This stuff is in Swedish I know, but take a look at the numbers for
"Installerad effekt", and "Aktuell effekt". As you can see current output at this moment in time is 25% (215MW/850MW). During this winter many days we have had an output of less than 10% of installed capacity.

So based on what I'm seeing here wind power is a very expensive form of energy.

Swedish wind is showing 39% capacity now (version: 2010-02-20 15:04). Sweden (“SE”) is not a windy country. It has a land area of 449,964 km2 - over six times the size of Ireland. SE's installed wind > electricity capacity is only 850 MW - compared with IRL's 1.3 GW.

Renewable energy has to be a "natural" solution for a country. Solar is a natural for North Africa and the Med - even with the 20% efficiency of current technology.

The bottom line for "renewableization" of the European and global energy supply is diversity of supply sources and locations, which implies mega grid inter-connectivity across continents. When Ireland builds up its renewable production capacity (wind, wave, tidal, solar, whatever) to say 10 GW, the problem will be a surplus of energy at peak times and exporting it.

Electricity is a very spiky product in terms of demand and supply. Giving consumers in SE the option of fixed or variable pricing is good. The average fixed price quoted in the anglo-tabloid website you linked to is just under 11c per kWh – which is only a cent or two above French prices. The average variable rate is 13,4c per kWh – which is still far cheaper than ESB’s 18c odd per kWh.

The big capital cost of electricity generation is tied up in capacity to handle a few hours of peak demand every workday. A country needs prices to go up to something like 30c per kWh and down to perhaps 5c per kWh depending on time of day and weather conditions (in terms of renewables).

This is where smart metering comes in, and FIT (feed in tariffs to promote solar etc). Consumers then have the option to modify their energy consumption behaviour accordingly, if they wish. And producers (who will increasingly be householders as PV solar technology improves in efficiency) will be given the incentive to invest in additional capacity.

Cunsiderthis

gullon wrote: »

I have read the paper and unfortunately I don't know know to calculate the cost of such a program of work in the EU. Do you.

That will always be the issue with studies such as this which are big on theory and aspirations but with no costing or cost benefit analysis which is where such schemes will rise of fall.

RIODEJ

Ireland seems very slow with progress at times

The windest country in europe i believe. this country could get all its electricity from wind turbine. denmark is big into wind power, also parts of holland and germany. hence siemens turbines are german and the danes own vestas, the biggest global distributor of large turbines. some of their ones make enough electricity to power a typical irish home for a full year when the turbine spins for only 2.5 hours so the results are amazing.

also wind power can create enough electricity to make hydrogen and oxygen from water which could power cars, carbon neutrally.
also wave power on the west coast could have massive power output.

what i cant understand is how the west coast is not covered with turbines and then export excess to uk and europe?

im told the esb lines arent able for all this new interconnectivity, another example of how EU money was badly spent within this country. sweden and brazil are impressive examples of hydroelecric power

SLUSK

This morning in Sweden variable electricity price spiked at around SEK 13.80(roughly €1.4/kwh at current exhange rate)

Hydro has serious problems in very cold conditions. Wind power is not working at all in these cold conditions. The greens want to shut down more nuclear reactors and use more renewables. The future is bright indead. At least if you are a speculator who bets that electricity prices will go up.

Heroditas

RIODEJ wrote: »

The windest country in europe i believe. this country could get all its electricity from wind turbine.

Implementing this will be horrendously expensive and will see the cost of electricity jump massively.

RIODEJ wrote: »

denmark is big into wind power, also parts of holland and germany.

They're not 100% powered by wind though and the subsidies for wind power are massive

RIODEJ wrote: »

some of their ones make enough electricity to power a typical irish home for a full year when the turbine spins for only 2.5 hours so the results are amazing.

Unfortunately, storing that power is the issue

RIODEJ wrote: »

what i cant understand is how the west coast is not covered with turbines and then export excess to uk and europe?

Because wind capacity factors are in the region of 20-40%. We can take a figure of 30% as a good indicator. This means the trubines can only generate power 30% of the time.
Ireland's maximum demand can be anywhere in the region of 4GW. That means you'd need about 12GW of wind turbines to ensure you have adequate coverage - that's 6000 standard wind turbines.
They cost anywhere from €1.5m to €2m to assemble and commission - i.e. it'll cost anywhere from €9bn to €12bn to build that many.
Even then, you're going to get lulls in the wind which means you need conventional methods of generating electricity, i.e. gas powered peaking plants.
There may be wind offshore but the installation costs are much higher and maintenance is an issue.

Also, to export the power, we need interconnectors.
We can only export what the interconnector can handle.

RIODEJ wrote: »

im told the esb lines arent able for all this new interconnectivity, another example of how EU money was badly spent within this country.

The reason "EU money" wasn't spent for many years was because the ESB/government were keeping prices as low as possible to attract foreign investment in industry here.
They finally had to start investing at the turn of the century because the grid was not in a healthy state.
However, it's not as bad as people like to make out.

RIODEJ wrote: »

sweden and brazil are impressive examples of hydroelecric power

They are. However, they have the rivers at their disposal.
We're pretty much at our limit in terms of large scale hydro power.
Wave power will probably be one for the future but we won't get any more meaningful power from our rivers.

RIODEJ

The large vestas/siemens turbines i refered to actually pay for themselves in approx 5 years so after that is more or less free electricity so i reckon its very feasible

Also large modern battery packs have the potentisal to store most of this power if required, although i think most of this power would be used as its produced with little left over i think. Even if it supplemednted 30-50% of the nations power, that'd be great. Wave power along with wind and some hydro would power the whole country no problem. Thats a fact, look at our exposure to the atlantic, its waves and its wind. besides we're an island, no shortage of waves

Trouble is so many people complain to the look of these, the ecological impacts etc etc. making the whole process alot more complex and expensive than it needs to be. typical red tape and irish bureaucracy and incompent politicans doesnt help either

Cunsiderthis

RIODEJ wrote: »

The windest country in europe i believe. this country could get all its electricity from wind turbine.

Thats quite a claim. Suppose we did scrap all our ESB stations and covered the land ni wind turbines. What would we do if the wind didn't blow?

Cunsiderthis

RIODEJ wrote: »

T
Also large modern battery packs have the potentisal to store most of this power if required

Really? How big would the batteries have to be to supply the electricity required for Ireland? How long would they last and how would we get them into the little boxes in Tesco's designed for old batteries when they come to the end of their life?

(The last point isn't serious but is designed to raise a smile and draw attention that the fact that the cost of disposal, (forgetting the actual cost of purchase) would be in the zillions, even if such batteries are available (which they are not)).

Heroditas

RIODEJ wrote: »

The large vestas/siemens turbines i refered to actually pay for themselves in approx 5 years so after that is more or less free electricity so i reckon its very feasible

2MW turbines with payback periods of approx 5 years?
You gotta be kidding me. Payback periods are much greater than that.

SpringerF

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As an individual who worked in the energy sector for more years that I care to remember this Heroditas is on the ball with what he is saying.
His figures may be a little outdated, same as mine,but still valid.

His points 1-4 are correct, however he does not mention the fact that the Regulator has imposed a levy on the Aghada(ESB) and Whitegate(Bord Gais) plants. This levy is imposed as an extra for transmission costs. Both companies say this will impact greatly on their running regime.

Remember ESB is not allowed to compete on price with any of the IPP's.

Endesa the Spanish company, now owned by an Italian company, paid €455 million for 2 oil fired plants AND 3 brown field sites.

Endesa are currently in the process of demanning both of these plants.

ESB has closed or is in the process of closing more of its plants. Its coal fired plant in Clare has not run in several months as the IPP's are higher up the list and the terms of their(IPP) license state they get preferential running irrespective of efficiency, they must make money.

The two peat plants in the midlands have serious technical flaws.

Aghada and Whitegate will run only on a frequency based running regime,
when the wind doesn't blow the frequency drops therefore fossil fuel must make up the shorfall.

Pump storage is horrendously expensive to operate, I dont know the figures but the accountants always got very very nervous when it was mentioned.

De-regulation of the energy market has cost the average Irish home owner millions, if not billions, in higher electricity charges, with more charges in the pipeline to pay for the wind. If de-regulation had gone as planned it would have cost far less but those with green fingers got involved half way through and made a right mess of it.

There is no such thing as free energy.

ESB produces about 20% of Irelands electricy requirements, the rest comes from foreign companies generating electricty here.

These companies must make a profit.

ESB never made a profit as such until the Government raised the price of electricity to facillitate the entry of new comers into the market, the profit the ESB then made was promptly taken by the Government as its dividend.
In essence we have a banana republic as the Government is producing electricity and selling it to the people for a profit or its another stealth tax which ever way you look at it.

I dont know whether the interconnector up and running yet, and somewhere I read a paper which said something about this interconnector being connected to a nuclear power plant in the UK, how does the green party sit with this or is it a case of "not in my backyard" as is the recycling plant at ringsend. I do wonder at times.

I also know that the ESB are activley seeking to and applying what ever pressure is required to reduce its work force dramatically.Without making this public.